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Just finished helping create the sign for the Black Student Union’s section of Relay for Life! Please come out and show your support in the fight against cancer.

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Mayor of Mount Union

The more people I meet at Mount, the more I realize what a tech-savvy group of students we are. I would bet almost every single student uses some form of social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and many of us are walking around with smartphones.

However, aside from the typical Facebook and Twitter interactions, I’ve noticed another trend starting – geolocation check-ins. If you’re not sure what this means, maybe you’ll recognize the name of the service: Foursquare.

Foursquare is a service you can use by text message, or their official iPhone / Droid / Blackberry apps. The idea behind Foursquare is simple – whenever you go to a building, store, or other venue, you can “check in” to that spot and get points for doing so. The person with the most points over a period of the last 30 days is deemed the “mayor” of that venue.

There may not be anything too cool about just having the title “mayor” and your picture next to the venue listing on Foursquare, however what IS cool are the deals that stores are starting to give people who either check in, or are the current mayor. I recently got a free order of breadsticks with a pizza from the local Pizza Hut just for being the mayor there.

Foursquare is essentially a way to let venues reward their loyal visitors, however it seems to have extended beyond the stores and into the campuses. This past week, I’ve seen check-ins at all the residence halls, HPCC and KHIC. While I doubt there will be any real “discounts” for being the mayor of any of the buildings on campus, I do think that Foursquare is only going to become more popular among the students here. It’s fun, addictive and trying to achieve mayor status at your favorite buildings against your friends add that layer of competition.

If you haven’t heard of Foursquare before, I encourage you to check it out at foursquare.com and from there you can download its apps and set up your account.

Oh, and if you do end up signing up, feel free to add me as a friend. Although I should warn you … I’m the current mayor of the University of Mount Union. Game on.

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Last week was super busy for the new sisters of Alpha Chi Omega who received open bids from the chapter this semester. Last week was “Initiation Week,” which consists of a number of different ceremonies, ending with the initiation of the new members. While last week was chaotic and very busy, it was also really fun. The new girls finally got their bigs, which is one of the most exciting things about being in a sorority! A big is a kind of like your “mom” in the sorority. The new girls get to preference girls who they might want to have as their bigs. And, the older girls who want to be a big, preference girls they might want as their littles. Once they are matched up, there is a reveal night for the bigs and littles. This was an awesome thing for me last semester when I received my big.

The week before you find out who your big is, she will send you clues and leave fun stuff in your mailbox to try and give you a hint on who your big might be. But, in most cases, they just trick you more than actually helping you figure out who it is. That is exactly what my big did. She had me thinking she got another girl for her little, and was giving me all of this false information that really led me to believe it wasn’t her. So, on my big/little reveal night, when I found out it was her, I was really shocked and it was awesome! Big/ little reveal is a great night! It’s really something special for the new girls, because they are finally a part of the “family,” and it’s the start of great friendships!

Congratulations to Jenna Balasz, Casey Bauman, Ashlee Brim, Gina Bonnett, Megan Saunders and Lauren Zimmerman, who finally received their bigs this week and are officially members of Alpha Chi Omega!

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Nature gave us our April fools joke a day late, as Mother Nature attacked Mount Union’s track team this past Saturday. The night before our track meet, it snowed while we were sleeping. Then, it warmed up and turned the thin layer of powder into water, which then froze as it cooled down, putting a nice icy crust on Alliance. It proceeded to warm up and reached the mid 40’s around 11 a.m. Then, out of nowhere, it began to snow heavily. I’m talking about large flakes the size of ping-pong balls falling from the cloudy skies, and then quicker than you could blink, it was pouring down rain. Not five minutes later was it sunny again, until the wind picked up again and it started snowing. This all took place in a 15-minute time frame and was absolutely ridiculous.

Hopefully at next week’s home meet the weather will be a little more consistent!

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What was even better about initiation week was what happened at the very end of the week. Last night, Alpha Chi Omega hosted their formal at the Quarry, a golf course in Canton, Ohio. Since my big is the social chair and was in charge of planning this event, I got to see exactly what all goes into planning an event like this. A formal event for a sorority is similar to a prom in high school. Preparation for something like this happens months before the event. The social chair is in charge of finding and reserving the location to host the event, booking the DJ, figuring out the means of transportation, planning meals, decorations, etc. As you can imagine, there is a lot of hard work and time that is put into making something like this run smoothly. After last night, seeing how it all came together, I don’t think that it could have been any better than it was.  I would like to make a shout out to my big, miss Carolyn Bondra, for all of her hard work, time and dedication that she put into making formal for the sisters of Alpha Chi Omega amazing! This was the last formal for 19 of our sisters who will be graduating in almost one month, and I know they would all agree with me in saying that it was definitely a night to remember!

“It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right. I hope you had the time of your life.” ~Green Day

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As I’ve mentioned before, WRMU is one of my biggest priorities here on campus. When you first think of a campus radio station, you might just picture a DJ going on air and playing music. Sure, that is somewhat correct, but here at Mount, our radio station is so much more.

Freshman year I stared out volunteering as a part of the WRMU staff. I knew I wanted to get into public relations so I spent time helping the station’s public relations director. As soon as it was time to apply for a director position, I had my application filled out and turned in. Unfortunately, a qualified senior had already taken the public relations director spot, so I was placed as the sponsorship director for my sophomore year. My job was to work with community business and try to, well, get sponsors for our radio station.

Finally, this year, I was able to move up and serve as WRMU’s public relations director. I spend my time promoting the station through fliers, clothing, social media and more.

Above all that, one of my favorite things we do as a station –  and something that I help out with a lot – is our events. Last year, we held (what we hope to continue annually) a meet-n-greet for our late night radio shows, and we had one this year too! A lot goes into planning these events. We find sponsors, get prizes, have raffles, design t-shirts – and the list goes on and on. Each of our events have been a success in our eyes.

This semester, however, we are trying something new. We are holding the first ever “UMUPALOOZA!” It has been an idea we’ve been poking at since last spring and we finally took action and are going through with it. We’re having student musicians play all day in the quad (some bands and some solo acts). We’ll be having pizza from our usual (and favorite) sponsor, Gionino’s Pizzeria and we’ll have games, food and more.

(No, this is not a plug for the event — buuuuut, if you wanna come, it is Thursday, April 14 in the Quad from 4-9 ish. — see what I did there?)

I really admire how a small group of students can put together such a large and exciting event. We all dedicate so much time to planning and throwing these events for the campus community.

Not only is the whole process a great time, we learn so much about event planning in general. From promoting to setting up, finding talent and getting sponsors, everyone has to lend a helping hand.

All of the hard work we all put in to the station has led us all to grow extremely close. WRMU has weekly director meetings and staff meetings every other week. We volunteer in the community, have director dinners, attend other campus happenings, DJ other organization’s events and so, so much more.

I am or have been involved in many other organizations on campus, but the bond WRMU members have with one another is one of the best.

-samantha

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This a turbulent time in the semester for a lot of students at Mount Union. We have to register for our classes in the fall, we have to pick our roommates and where we want to live. We have to write a billion papers and take another billion tests.

You don’t have a lot of time for yourself, or for your friends, especially when you’re involved in a sport which becomes even more tumultuous when it is snowing in April. You get sick from the crazy weather in Ohio, you get sick from stress from all your classes and you get sick from being all cooped up for the past six months.You have to enjoy the little things, whether it’s the cafeteria serving your favorite food or a deadline extended on a paper.My high school football coach used to say this corny thing about free time. He’d tell us after our football games on Friday nights that we have the whole week off.”You have Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday morning and Monday afternoon, all off!”If you look at it like that then you have a lot more time than you thought before.

When it’s Tuesday morning and you get assigned to read 40 pages of a book and write a paper about it, remember that you have Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night and Tuesday morning to get things all wrapped up. That’s like four or five days, which doesn’t seem so bad after all.

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Hi everyone!

We have a radio show that is called “Late Night Jams with Shan and Sam.” We usually just shorten it and say “Late Night Jams” though. :]

It is on every Tuesday from 10 p.m. to midnight on WRMU 91.1. And, there are a few different ways to tune in.

• -Listen on the radio if you are in the area … the dial should be set at 91.1 FM.
• -You can listen online anywhere.
• -If you’re on campus, you can turn your TV to channel 2, and we will come through your TV set! :]

If you’d like to call in during our show to say hi or to make a request, the phone number is (330) 823-3777.

Our tagline is “Keep on Shammin’” because we combined Shan + Sam to get SHAM, get it ? :]

Feel free to ask us any questions you have, and be sure to tune in on Tuesdays!!

-Shannon and Samantha

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A great thing about Mount Union is that they provide education not only in the classroom, but also through real life experiences. Whether it’s in the exercise science department and you have to act as their personal trainers or if you’re in my American Family course and you have to volunteer for a certain amount of hours throughout the semester. Tomorrow, I’m working at the food pantry downtown to help some needy families gather the food they need.

There’s a lot of ways to get involved in the community. And, not just in the city, but in the entire Northeastern Ohio region, including Youngstown and Cleveland. The faculty members at Mount hook you up by sending out weekly emails – Ennouncements – with information about opportunities to volunteer, available scholarships, internships and even chances to study abroad.Being a little smaller (in student population) than other schools allows for a greater concentration on the individual, and it’s really special here how professors get to know you and will personally help you get involved in whatever it is you’re trying to get involved in!

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Well, what’s your answer?  Do you hear lecture and think boring, long, monotone? I’m not sure why, but these are usually the words that come to my mind when someone calls something a lecture. I don’t know why they have gained such a negative connotation but that definitely needs to change!

Anyway, the point of my rant is because this past Thursday was the annual Schooler Lecture at Mount Union.  Samantha touched a little bit on this in her blog as well but it was too great for me not to talk about it. Since I’m the news director at WRMU, it is my duty to cover this lecture each year.  It is usually around my birthday and this year it happened to fall directly on my 21st birthday.  It was OK though.  At first I was a little sad that I couldn’t go out to dinner to celebrate the day, but I realized that I could just celebrate another day, and the Schooler Lecture is not an event I’d want to miss.

Since I’ve been at Mount, the Schooler lecturers were Fareed Zakaria of CNN and last year was Greg Mortenson, a humanitarian and author.  He has built schools in third world countries where no schools previously existed.  These lecturers always share their vast knowledge with the people in attendance, and even if you’ve never heard of the person or you don’t really know too much on the topic they’re speaking about, these lectures are always so powerful.

So like I said, this year’s lecture was on Thursday and the man who presented this year was Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He is an astrophysicist and the host of NOVA ScienceNOW on PBS.  When I heard who the speaker was, I have to say I had no idea who he was!  I am not a science person and really do not know a whole lot about astrophysics.  One of my best friends was OBSESSED with the fact that he was coming here and that made me more excited that she had heard of him and really enjoyed hearing him speak. Turns out, a lot of people on campus really knew of him and were fans.

For the radio station, I asked some directors and staff to join me and help out.   What we do for WRMU is attend the press conference, fancy dinner and the lecture as well as write stories at the end of the night to put on-air.  Yes, it is an extreeeemely long night.  We arrived at 4 p.m. for the press conference and I didn’t leave the radio station until midnight.  I’m actually really happy though, despite the long hours, because the night went so well.

The press conference is really exciting.  We broadcast it live because only media people are invited.  This way, anyone who wants to hear the lecturer speak before the actual lecture can just tune into our radio station!  We had a bit of technical difficulties, but right as he began talking, we got it to go through and were on-air. PHEW!

It is a really intimate setting since there are so few people that attend the press conference and that is our chance to ask him our questions.  We even got a picture with him after the conference. 

After that, we headed over to the field house where a VERY fancy dinner was held.  Everything was delicious and this was our chance to relax a little bit during this busy evening.

The lecture followed, and that lasted about two hours.  Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a very smart man but he put all of these technical terms and concepts into very understandable concepts for the common person.  He took off his shoes during the speech and walked around in his socks which I found very cool.  To me that showed that he felt so comfortable speaking up on stage to this very large audience of people.  The audience gave a standing ovation when he was done speaking; I guess everyone had a good time!

After the lecture was over, students are allowed to go up to a microphone and ask the speaker a question.  I really like that Mount Union does that.  For students that are interested in the topic or the speaker, it really excites them to be able to speak with the esteemed person.

I, along with two of the other WRMU directors, went over the radio station after the lecture let out and began working on stories.  We had to think of which topic that he talked about that each of us wanted to write our story on and then we had to find the soundbites from the audio that we had collected.  The stories that we wrote were from the press conference as well as the actual lecture.  As I said, I finished up all the editing just before midnight and put the stories into the system to play the following day!

Listen to the podcasts we produced.

That’s all for now… back to a busy week again tomorrow!

-Shannon