There is something happening in the art department at Grove City College.
Five years ago, Grove City’s offering for graphic design courses was limited.
But, not so today! Thanks to Nate Mucha, the go-to professor for everything design these days, a whole handful of design classes are offered at Grove City College. You can take a look inside one of the design classes of Nate Mucha called “VCD II” (Visual Communication & Design II) in the video shown below.
VCD II is the highest level design class at Grove City, and Grace Leuenberger—one of the design students—lets us tag along as she crafts her first design project of the semester in the art studio and sheds some light on what the design classes mean at Grove City College. Watch the video below to hear from Grace.
Valerie Perry (‘07), a technical production specialist at National Geographic, knows that getting a job you love requires courage to pursue opportunities and willingness to learn from a variety of experiences.
As a Grove City College student, Valerie was a double major in Communication Studies and Christian Thought (now called Biblical & Religious Studies). Her four years at Grove City College were influential in Valerie’s faith and personal growth.
“I developed a strong work ethic during my time at Grove City,” Valerie explains, “There is still a lot that I don’t know (we’d need a longer article to list those), but I’ve found that I’m capable of learning anything if I’m willing to put in the work. Grove City also helped shape my identity. I left college knowing what I believed and why—knowledge that has been a great comfort and counsel to me throughout several seasons.”
Following graduation, Valerie worked for Silver Ring Thing, a program that hosts concert style events promoting sexual abstinence for teens. As a live event video director for the national tour, Valerie learned valuable skills that prepared her for her career in production.
Career paths can often take unexpected turns. After attending a career fair in Las Vegas, towards the end of the Silver Ring Thing tour, Valerie applied for a position at Royal Caribbean International. A few months later, Valerie transitioned from life on a tour bus to life on a cruise ship as a broadcast technician.
During her time at Royal Caribbean International, Valerie not only gained technical skills in video production, but also developed a stronger sense of her values and faith, which are central to her passion for video production and her positive attitude toward work.
Building upon her past experiences and willingness to learn, Valerie landed her current position with National Geographic. Through her career in production so far, Valerie has discovered that honing one’s skills, being humble, and welcoming a variety of experiences is invaluable.
Her advice for students pursuing creative careers is simple: pursue any opportunity that develops your creativity.
“Sadly you can’t teach creativity. I’d be the first to sign up for a class if it could be taught. It can’t. But, I do think it can be absorbed. Hang out with people and work that inspires you. Spend time in nature or in museums or at the movies—whatever works for you. Spend time with people more talent and creative than you. They’ll push you to be better. Creativity involves risk and often comes with a lot of failure and rejection, so learn how to be comfortable with those. If you choose a creative career, don’t forget to have creative pursuits in your non-work life as well. That creativity is just for you— you don’t have to worry about it being “wrong” or not meeting someone’s expectations. It’s just pure fun. The enjoyment you get from that creative process will help you get back up if you get knocked around from time to time. And recognize that even taking the risk is a victory. It’s easier to sit on the sidelines (or the couch) than audition for a play, paint a picture, or write a poem. Just by doing you’re winning,” Valerie explains.
Poster for Valerie Perry’s speaking engagement at GCC Design by Kara Mazey (’16)
Recently, Valerie returned to her alma mater as a guest speaker for a series hosted by the Grove City College chapter of Lambda Pi Eta. During her presentation, she shared honest and thoughtful insight into the learning process involved in pursuing a creative career.
As Valerie spoke with GCC students about her experiences, she offered these words of wisdom:
“If you can learn to write well and speak well, the world is yours.”
For Valerie Perry, these words of wisdom have truly opened up the world.
Learn more about the Department of Communication Studies & Visual Arts here.
Learn more about Valerie Perry’s new book Sea More: Caribbeanhere.
Senior Communication Studies major Adrienne Scrima is currently studying abroad at the King’s College in New York City. This past summer Adrienne was one of the students accepted into Grove City College’s unique Redbox Missions program, where accepted students are granted funds to complete mission work of their choosing throughout the summer.
Why did you decide to pursue the redbox program and what did that process look like?
I applied my sophomore year and was rejected, but encouraged to apply again my junior year. I applied because it was a great opportunity to do any kind of mission work on scholarship. I applied my junior year after Dr. Graham stopped me in the hallway to follow up and encourage me again. That happened the day after I asked friends to pray for my summer plans. I applied, interviewed (funnily enough my interview sophomore year went far better), went to the theology/missions training sessions, met for meals with the Red Box students, and spent months and months researching, consulting, and praying about my missions decision.
Can you describe your program and the calling you felt towards that area?
I applied to Athletes in Action after a speaker at Fellowship of Christian Athletes spoke about how he was impacted by his experience at an AIA camp. I definitely didn’t feel called. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I thought God had better plans for me, ones that would be more sacrificial and less fun. However, God’s plan was easy to see when every other option for the summer fell through.
What were some favorite moments from the summer?
I began to see that God has gifted me in ways that are advantageous as a journalist. I started to see journalism as ministry. It actually prepped me for my King’s College study abroad journalism program. By far, the best part was the community. Everyone was extremely intentional on being open, vulnerable, and gritty about personal issues. Interns for example, initiated group discussions on homosexuality, beauty, and diversity.
How your experience affected you and impacted those around you, relationally and in your faith?
Relationally, I get to live the rest of my life miserable that I may never experience community like that again. But actually, it just showed me how valuable intentional Christian community is. And how fun it is. I entered the program with the goal to get to know myself better. I felt as though I had a ton of blind spots and wasn’t sure of how I came across. I made sure to ask people why they complimented me or get feedback, criticism on my actions. And my faith is always on a high when I can dialog with others freely and openly about God.
What would you say to a student considering applying for the redbox program? Is it worth it?
Yes. You can do whatever you want. Red Box isn’t for a specific kind of person, Its perfect for any Christian, regardless of calling, with a willingness to serve. Also, learn from my mistakes and don’t think too hard about it. I tried to be the best steward of the scholarship I could be, thus indecisively passing decision deadlines.
Anything else you might like to add that isn’t covered above?
Senior Aimee Lynch is probably one of the most Christlike and humble girls on campus. She remains unassuming, while possessing an unusual mix of interpersonal and intellectual talents.
Having had a strong interest in science from an early age, Lynch completed two summer internships at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center while still in high school. Even before attending Grove City College, she knew she wanted to minor in astronomy.
This semester, she’s taking Observational Astronomy, where she enjoys utilizing the campus observatory. “I love being able to identify constellations at night, and to be able to actually understand what is going on in the sky,” she enthuses.
As a communications major, Lynch also directs Lambda Pi Eta, the honorary for senior communication studies majors. In October 2015, the group hosted Anna Watson Carl, a GCC alum and author of The Yellow Table, an award-winning, Paris-inspired cookbook. According to Lynch, “the honorary is a great way for motivated students to get involved in the department and to have an avenue to put [their] ideas to work.”
Lynch has had plenty of practice being a leader. As an RA during her sophomore and junior years, she enjoyed great friendships with staff and students as well as the constant learning opportunities that came with the job. “Our weekly staff meetings were filled with interesting discussion, learning how to live reflectively, and affirming our first responsibilities to the Lord,” she reminisces. This year, although she misses being a resident assistant, she has decided to explore her other interests, one of which is learning Farsi.
With a passion for language, Lynch is considering graduate school for linguistics. She has also applied to the State Department’s competitive Critical Language Scholarship, where she aspires to further develop her Farsi skills in Tajikistan.
If that doesn’t pan out, she’s also applied to a study-abroad program in New Zealand and for a product innovator position at ThinkFun. “It’s exciting to think that I could be absolutely anywhere a year from now!” she says. “I know that it can often be stressful for seniors to try to decide where to go after graduation, but I am enjoying the process of brainstorming right now and I know that the Lord has it all planned out already.”
A liberal arts education at Grove City College allows you to explore your interests with both breadth and depth. In this series, you will meet GCC students who are discovering their passions, pursuing their interests, and customizing their education as they pursue their desired careers.
Coming into college, Abby Genzink (’16) knew that she wanted to pursue a career in international development. Her passion for faith and relationships led her to become interested in community and international development.
Specifically, Abby’s passion for international development grew out of her heart for restoring human dignity and respect.
“I love watching people be dignified and watching people be respected and there are so many places around the world where that is not happening,” she explains.
Abby finds joy in connecting people with others who are unlike them and she describes this process as building bridges.
“I’m so passionate about development and bringing dignity to people, especially in regards to providing for themselves and their families, and along with that, teaching people how we can partner with people who are in poverty in ways that we aren’t, because we also have issues that they can teach us,” she explains.
As she considered her interests and options, Abby decided to pursue a double major in English and Communication Studies in order to gain an interdisciplinary approach to international development.
“I’ve always loved literature, but I also loved how literature could help me to understand culture in a different way,” she says.
In addition to learning in her English classes, Abby’s communication classes have given her the opportunity to learn more about international development through various projects.
“For my Research Methods project, I did a study on how conflict affects poverty. I feel like I learned so much from that. I feel like I’ve gotten, in my own way, a focus in international development through my comm major. Communication has given me the skills but it has also given me freedom to learn more about development through a communication lens,” she says.
Several experiences outside of class have also encouraged Abby’s interest in community and international development. During her sophomore year, Abby had a service learning internship with Olde Town Grove City, where she learned more about issues in community development. This past summer, Abby was able to experience international development through a service trip to Armenia with the Red Box Missions program at GCC.
In Armenia, Abby partnered with the United Methodist Committee on Relief, where she visited several of their programs and partnerships. She visited many places such as a farm, a refugee center, and a school, and Abby wrote stories about each for the organization’s website.
For the second half of her trip, Abby worked on a variety of projects for a small nonprofit in the city of Ejmiatsin which teaches classes for Armenian children about government, justice, their rights as citizens, and practical skills for trade. Abby explains that teaching children is an important aspect of development. “Part of what they say about development is that you need to teach children from the very start so that they are equipped to have minds that are creative and problem solve and understand that they deserve to be respected,” she says.
As a result of her wide variety of learning experiences at Grove City College, Abby has found a niche for herself in communications within the field of international development.
“The more that I’ve learned about myself, the more I’ve learned that I want to do communications within that field….in international development, you need doctors, you need economists, and you need people doing communications and I feel like that is where I fit in,” she says.
Reflecting on her experiences so far, Abby recognizes the importance of taking initiative when it comes to pursuing your passions.
“If I had it in my head that I was looking for the opportunities, I always found them…My professors were really good about partnering with me and helping me find the things that would be geared toward what I wanted to do and would prepare me for my future.”
While many college students are invested in obtaining their own college degrees, Victoria VanBuskirk (‘14) is dedicated to funding the education of other young women across the globe.
When Victoria and her sister Ashley were both in college, they founded Flora Stationery, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships for women in Eastern Europe to receive a college education in their own countries.
Victoria says that the inspiration for Flora Stationery began when her twin sister studied abroad in Kosovo and met a young woman there named Ema.
“Ema had a really compelling story about how she couldn’t afford education due to means outside of her control and how she was also the sole breadwinner for the five members of her family,” Victoria said. “Unemployment in Kosovo, which we learned after learning more about [Ema’s] story, is currently 45% for students between the ages of 16 and 24—the second highest in the world. After hearing about that and hearing about how Ema couldn’t afford an education in her own country and in her own language, that was something that really compelled Ashley because she went to Kosovo on a full scholarship.”
While her sister developed a passion for educating women after her trip to Kosovo, Victoria also discovered her passion for education through her Communication Research Methods class at Grove City College. “Research Methods is really where I found a passion of mine…I remember the moment of finding a webpage about the disparity of literacy in the world—700 million illiterate men and women in the world and 500 million of those are women. That has made me want to pursue education initiatives to help people read and write and know their rights, which I think is really powerful,” said Victoria.
Driven by a desire to make college education affordable to young women in Kosovo, Victoria and her sister developed the idea for Flora Stationery. “We talked about it and thought of making some sort of sustainable way to support scholarship for women who want to study in their own countries to then benefit their own countries,” Victoria said. After considering what product to sell in their business, Victoria and her sister decided on stationary because it represented the idea of school and education.
An important part of starting the organization occurred when Victoria saw a poster for the VentureLab program in the entrepreneurship department at Grove City College. “We worked through the VentureLab program just to get the idea off the ground…bouncing ideas off of different people through VentureLab was really helpful for the first semester that we were working on it,” she explained. Victoria said that her VentureLab advisor, Dr. Mech, supported the launching of Flora in multiple ways. “I think the most important thing that he encouraged for Flora was prayer, actually. Before he made any decision or talked about Flora whatsoever, we would pray about it. I think that just set a really good tone for all of our decisions that we made and all of our conversations. Here, at Grove City, I was able to get that because, at the end of the day, Dr. Mech’s purpose and my purpose was to glorify God through it.”
For Victoria, the greatest rewards in her nonprofit work come from hearing the stories of students helped by Flora and inspiring other people to become involved in the cause. “Next semester we are funding two mothers and two of their daughters, which is so cool to see a full circle,” she said.
Flora Stationery recently received an offer from Keds to create a special line of footwear and accessories using artwork from the students in Kosovo. The collection will be available in the spring of 2016 and the proceeds from the sales go to Flora Stationery.
“We’re really excited to be working with Keds in the spring,” Victoria said, “and we’re excited to be able to share so many stories with people when that comes out…the opportunity to connect more people with our purpose.”
Victoria says that her time as a student at Grove City College helped her to become the person and entrepreneur that she is today. “Looking back, I think that Grove City enabled me to think really critically and enabled me to build relationships with so many different people who inspired me. I think that when you’re surrounded by people who inspire you to be more, you become more, and so you do more. I’m really thankful for Grove City in the fact that I was able to cultivate those relationships that then pushed me to do more and be more for Christ.”
Good chefs follow recipes. Great chefs create their own.
When it comes to finding your calling, there’s not always a recipe for success. As 2002 alumna Anna Watson Carl can attest, sometimes you have to start from scratch. Though she now enjoys a successful career in food and journalism, it’s been quite a journey for Carl—one full of excitement, uncertainty, and a few tossed crepes.
As her passport will reveal, Carl’s world has certainly gotten bigger since graduating from the Grove. Still, she was glad to return to her alma mater to kick off this year’s Communication Pathways speaker series hosted by the Department of Communication & Visual Arts. As Carl whet the appetite of every foodie and aspiring creative professional in the room, her story proved to be one worth sharing.
Photo courtesy of Nate Poekert
Before she could even spell crème brûlée, Carl learned to see cooking as a “way of life.” Back in the seventies, her mother bought a yellow table that became the hub of family life in the Watson household, where little Anna developed a homegrown appreciation for good food, conversation, and hospitality. At the ripe young age of ten, she tried her hand at chefery, whipping up an impressive four-course Valentine’s Day dinner for her parents that “birthed a lifelong passion for dinner parties.” This culinary curiosity didn’t come to full boil, however, until her college years.
When she joined the Grover fold in the late ’90s, Carl’s knack for writing led her to enroll as an English major. But when junior year rolled around, this southern-bred belle’s wanderlust whisked her away to France where she “fell head over heels in love with food.” While abroad, Carl’s eyes were opened to a vivid world of new flavors, fresh ingredients, and rich food culture in which “each meal was treated as an occasion to be relished—never rushed.” She also gained independence and an ability to thrive in uncertainty, both of which would come in handy down the road.
Photo courtesy of Nate Poekert
After returning to the Grove with a kindled passion for food, Carl picked up a French major and Communication Studies minor with hopes of pursuing some sort of creative career that combined cooking and writing. Through an independent study with Professor Betsy Craig, Carl took advantage of the opportunity to explore cuisine as woven through the cultures of Belize, France, and Portugal. She also started a restaurant review column in The Collegian and leveraged her work to land food writing jobs right out of college. The next few years brought a smorgasbord of formative experiences, from working in restaurant kitchens to starting her own catering company, writing restaurant reviews, editing cookbooks, hosting dinner parties, and eventually moving back to France to earn her Grande Diplome Culinaire in professional culinary studies.
Though a self-proclaimed Francophile with a weak immunity to the travel bug, Carl eventually “put down roots” in New York City, where she’s been soaking up the metropolitan excitement since 2007. After starting her blog The Yellow Table in 2011 as a platform to share recipes, inspire gatherings, and nourish stomach and soul, Carl set out to write a cookbook. But as a “medium-size blogger” without an established following, did she stand a chance? Maybe not in the opinion of the agents and publishers she first called up. But that didn’t stop Carl.
In a leap of faith, she began developing content with a small team of designers and wrote a blog series called “The Cookbook Diaries” to document the publication process and garner support. After daringly deciding to self-publish, she launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 for the first print run. Knowing this “would require some unconventional tactics,” Carl set out on a month-long road trip, partnering with Whole Foods Market, Volkswagen, and GoPro to throw dinner parties in the homes of fellow bloggers and designers in eight cities across the country, from Raleigh to Seattle. When she reached the finish line, Carl surpassed her $50,000 goal by close to $16,000. Stunned but grateful, she realized afresh that seeking the impossible can be a worthwhile endeavor. “All you need is some creativity and elbow grease—and the courage to begin.”
Since publishing The Yellow Table cookbook in 2014, Carl has continued to let her creative juices flow, generating recipes for Delish and sharing her insight on hospitality through her latest project, The Yellow Table Supper Club. Now living in Brooklyn with her husband Brandon, two cats, and a baby on the way, Carl hopes to keep making memories around the Yellow Table as she inspires others to do the same.
“Cooking is deeply important to me, but it’s community that I crave,” says Carl. It’s no wonder, then, that Grove City was the right choice. Though a cosmopolite at heart, Carl is thankful to have been a part of Grove City’s unique community, affirming that it was “a wonderful, wonderful place to grow in my faith and develop key friendships” with people of “real depth and sincerity” before taking on the real world full throttle.
For current Grovers who have yet to do so, Carl’s advice was encouraging: “You don’t need to have your whole future planned … Instead, try out different things to see what you like (and don’t like), ask questions, work hard, build relationships, find mentors, travel, and don’t be afraid to take risks.” Even if a dream seems too grand, Carl says, “sometimes when you stick with it long enough, doors will end up opening.”
There is something happening in the art department at Grove City College.
