Archive for October, 2010
Everywhere we look, there’s beautiful bursts of orange, from the trees outside the window to the pumpkins on front stoops and porches (reminder to self: still need to buy pumpkins).
When you’re finding a college, just think about how a school’s colors can define it and its students’ style, such as in the attire on game day weekends. And you’ll often hear students and fans refer to the school’s hues in chants and cheers.
In the traditional colors of Halloween season, here’s a look at five schools with orange and black in their colors. Don’t be spooked by the interesting connections and histories for some of the school:
Princeton University
Students at this Ivy League school – the fourth oldest college in the U.S. – proudly wear their orange and black. Presidents, politicians, military leaders, executives, astronauts, mathematicians, scientists, Pulitzer Prize winners, and even celebrities such as David Duchovny, Wentworth Miller, Ethan Coen, and Brooke Shields are among graduates of the New Jersey school, which has about 7,500 students. Among the other famous graduates are First Lady Michelle Obama, who just happens to be related to someone at another orange and black school.
That school is…
Oregon State University
Students, alumni, and fans root on the Beavers wearing orange and black, as the school’s basketball team is coached by Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson. Even Nike, which is based in Oregon, came up with a pair of sneakers featuring the color combination. The school, which has about 22,000 students, is located in Corvallis, Oregon, about 90 miles south of Portland and about an hour from the Pacific Coast. Its programs in agricultural sciences, conservation biology, forestry, fisheries and wildlife management, nuclear engineering, community health, pharmacy, and zoology are nationally recognized.
Greenville College
Despite its verdant name, Greenville College, a four-year Christian college with more than 1,600 students, boasts black an orange as its school colors, along with the panther as its mascot. The school is located in Greenville, Ill., about 45 miles outside of St. Louis.
Kalamazoo College
This four-year Michigan school with a focus on experiential education is among the 100 oldest colleges and universities in the country. More than two-thirds of students completing an internship or externship, more than half of students participating in service-learning projects, and more than 85 percent experiencing other cultures, with 59 programs in 25 counties on six continents.
Wartburg College
This orange-and-black school has been named one of the best liberal arts college in the nation by US News & World Report and the Princeton Review. The Waverly, Iowa school, which is affiliated with the Lutheran Church, was named after the fortress in Germany where Martin Luther translated the New Testament during the Reformation. The school has about 1,775 students representing 26 U.S. states and 46 countries, and its students tout the value of being “orange.” Students also compete for the Knights in a variety of sports.
Are you applying to an orange-and-black school? Let us know!
–Lori Johnston
October 29th, 2010
The tours happening on some college campuses this week are not your typical college tour. Instead, these often-unofficial tours at schools such as College of Charleston, University of Houston, and others tell spooky tales of haunted halls and paranormal activity.
The ghostly spirits that some believe linger at colleges and universities are part of legends that you’re likely to hear about during a campus tour. These eerie events are often part of the school’s past and even current reputation.
Do you get the creeps easily? Check out what some believe makes these five campuses haunted.
East Tennessee State
This Southern school has plenty of reports about spooky campus events. The ghost of the school’s founding president, Sidney Gilbreath, is believed to still watch over Gilbreath Hall (think doors mysteriously shutting closed and lights being turned off). Then there’s the story of a former professor, Christine Burleson, who committed suicide in the 1970s but is believed to inhabit a portrait of her father in Burleson Hall. The eyes in the picture appear to follow students at this Johnson City, Tennessee school as they walk past.
Ohio University
The Athens, Ohio, school is believed to be one of the most haunted campuses in the country. Here’s just one of the stories: 
Room 428 in Wilson Hall, which might have been built on top of a cemetery, has been closed and sealed off. The legend is that the room wasn’t used anymore after students reported objects flying off shelves and smashing into walls and doors opening and closing. There also were sightings of the ghost of a female student who once lived there and “died violently after using the energy of the room to practice astral projection, a method where the human spirit separates from the body and travels on its own,” according to the local visitors bureau.
Kenyon College
One of many ghost stories about this Chicago school is about the “Greenhouse Ghost.” The school’s Shaffer Dance Studio used to be the pool, with a glass roof, hence the nickname “The Greenhouse.” The ghost is believed to be a Kenyon student who died there in a diving accident. A school publication reports that “one version has him bouncing too high, shattering the roof, breaking his neck, and drowning.”
University of Minnesota, Crookston
Reports of doors and windows opening on their own and students feeling like they’re being followed may not just be paranoia but paranormal activity in this school’s oldest student residence hall, McCall Hall. Author and researcher Chad Lewis told a local newspaper that the legend is that hall is haunted by the ghost of a young woman who simply refuses to leave the building.
The Ringling College of Art and Design
The legend at this Sarasota, Florida school is that a young woman met an untimely death in the stairwell of what now is the school’s Keating Center, a residence hall created out of a restored 1920s-era hotel. The ghost of the woman, who had been staying at the hotel, is believed to stir the paintbrushes in rinse cups on art students’ desks and walk the halls, according to the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau.
–Lori Johnston
October 28th, 2010
As I mentioned in my blog on Monday, it’s definitely cool having friends in the theatre. Catching up with them usually means meeting them after the show in New York, but this time, the location was Las Vegas–home of gambling, strip clubs, and the one and only Cirque du Soleil.
My old Wagner College buddies Mary Cloutier Barnett and Becky Slater Stephenson are former East Coast residents who love their life and work in Vegas. They were good friends in college and are now even better friends through Cirque; Mary is one of the stage managers at LOVE and Becky is one at nearby Ka, the show that is often referred to as “the opera of Cirque du Soleil.”
“I didn’t know what a stage manager was when I first was at school,” Mary admitted . In fact, unlike myself, she had entered the theatre program for performance “until I saw the error of my ways,” she jokes. She began to look at stage management as a viable option for a career, worked on show after show at Wagner in a backstage or management capacity, and the rest is history.
While it’s clear that she ultimately learned what a stage manager was while we were at Wagner, I can tell you that there was nothing at our college that could prepare anyone for the craziness that is Cirque. Frankly, no college can—no Broadway theatre, let alone a college theatre, could literally contain a Cirque show. In fact, Mary told me that Cirque shows usually require theatres to be built or renovated specifically to accommodate them.
So how does one become a stage manager at Cirque? “Stage management is 80 to 85 percent communication,” says Becky, referring to the fact that she is the link between the cast, crew, and everything and everyone in between. Mary agrees. Despite Cirque being unlike any other show on stage, it is like other shows off stage. “You learn by experience,” she says. And while a theatre degree certainly helps, Becky says that she would advise any aspiring stage manager to also take classes in management and communication to prepare them for backstage life.
I caught up with Becky and Mary when they were both on maternity leave. Becky said the Cirque cast and crew has prepared her well for motherhood. “I’m a glorified mother [at Cirque],” Becky said with a laugh. It’s true—part of being a stage manager means rounding up the “kids,” making sure they are ready for the show, and generally keeping the rest of the “family” happy.
Becky, left, and Mary, with their new little ones.
The technical part of the job, of course, comes with “calling” the show, the term used for the cues the stage manager gives during the show as to when lights go on or off, when sets change, and, in true Cirque du Soleil fashion, when a cast member literally comes flying onto the stage.
“I have a healthy fear of calling shows,” Becky says when I questioned her about what it’s like at work. But she’s no shrinking violet; this “fear” is simply something that keeps her on her toes for every second of the performance. And rightly so: there are 80 cast members in Ka (Mary has 65 in LOVE), and there’s a whole lot that can go wrong. Is every show a marvel of technical perfection? No, but that’s the beauty of live theatre.
It used to frustrate Mary to no end when she’d go and talk to her advisor about her future career in the theatre. “What do you think?” she’d ask, and he’d reply, “Figure it out.” But that was one of the best lessons she could learn during school. “Professors advise—you figure it out,” she says.
In college, theatre majors often set their sights on Broadway, but Las Vegas is about 2,000 miles away from midtown Manhattan. You won’t hear any complaints from Becky or Mary, though; be it Vegas or New York or any random city they experienced from their touring days, they’re doing the work that they love.
–Barbara Bellesi
October 27th, 2010
Twitter was once again behaving itself this week, which is a good thing because our latest #CollegeBound chat was EN FUEGO. And rightly so–after all, we were talking about hot topics in college admissions, including college rankings and legacy admissions, so it did come with the territory.
We met up with some old friends yesterday as well as a few new cool tweeps. There was a question from one of them–do we need an invite? NO! #CollegeBound chat is open to anyone who is interested about/involved in the college admissions process. And our chat is very much a come-as-you-are party–drop in for a few minutes or for the whole hour. We’d love to see you!
If you missed us yesterday, check out our transcript and get caught up. Hope to see you next week!
–Barbara Bellesi
October 26th, 2010
Last weekend, I returned from BlogWorld & New Media Expo, which also happened to be my first trip to Vegas. I knew that I was going to be busy with conference sessions and networking events, but I made a pact with myself that I would not leave until I saw the Beatles-inspired LOVE, a Cirque du Soleil production that is in residence at the Mirage hotel and casino.
Had I known the good and generous people at Cirque du Soleil would be giving out free tickets to BlogWorld attendees and that I would be one of the lucky recipients, I would have set my Sin City sights higher. As in, “I’m not leaving Vegas until I win $10,000 on roulette” or “I’m not leaving until I get a role in The Hangover 2” or something like that.
Just kidding. I felt like I hit it big anyway when I was ushered to my stage-side seats in the Mirage’s theatre. It was a little nerve-wracking to be up that close, sort of like sitting in the exit row on an airplane. I realized that should a stunt go awry, there could have been a very good chance that I would be the one to cushion the fall of one of the performers, or “artists,” as they call them in le monde of Cirque. Luckily, the show was flawless, and I didn’t end up as part of it.
You don’t have to be a huge Beatles fan to get swept up into the magic of LOVE. True, the music of the Fab Four doesn’t immediately evoke women soaring on trapezes or men flipping about the stage on trampolines. But it’s all just groovy, baby. It’s breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and at times, in true Cirque du Soleil fashion, just plain weird. But there’s a reason that there are seven separate Cirque shows playing in Las Vegas: Cirque du Soleil is truly a spectacle beyond words, and you need to see it for yourself to understand what the big deal is.
I admit that there were plenty of other, um, shows that I could have seen while I was in Vegas. But I was there to blog, folks, and to be honest, I had been waiting to see LOVE for several years now, especially since one of my college friends is a stage manager for the show.
Aha! There’s the Cirque-college connection, my friends. That’s right—I went to college with not only one of the stage managers at LOVE, but also one of those at Ka, which is in residence at the MGM Grand. I was an English and technical theatre major at Wagner College, and although I opted for the writing life over the dramatic one, many of my friends are working actors and technicians in theatres all over the world. I have lost count of how many backstage tours, house seats, and autograph sessions I have been privy to over the years–and honestly, it never gets old to have friends who are working in the theatre.
So I took my old college friends Mary and Becky to lunch while I was there. We caught up on our lives, and of course, I asked them about their work with Cirque. I was less curious about the performance on stage than I was about the performance backstage—as in the work they do on a daily basis as stage managers.
Check back in with me on Wednesday for the second part of this blog and I’ll spill the details of our conversation. If you’re an aspiring theatre major, you may want to share this with your parents, too, to prove that “starving artist” isn’t your only after-college option– there ARE long and fulfilling careers to be had in the theatre.
–Barbara Bellesi
October 25th, 2010
Even though I love the fall, October is feeling like a pretty long month this time around. And if you are a college-bound student, I’m thinking you might feel the same way.
That’s why I’m here to say that it’s OK to feel stressed when you are applying to college. It’s OK to feel overwhelmed with AP classes. And it’s MORE than OK to feel that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH when you’ve got parents, counselors, teachers, and coaches giving you conflicting advice about college at every turn.
Relax. It’s October. Eat some candy corn. Bob for apples. Carve a pumpkin. Someone did for our office, as you can see. Give yourself a rest from all that college stress and focus on something else, be it spooky, scary, funny, or silly. Your college apps will still be waiting for you when you get back. How’s that for scary?
–Barbara Bellesi
October 21st, 2010
We’re back from the BlogWorld Conference in Las Vegas, and boy, did we learn some cool stuff. We’ve got BIG plans for this blog and our sister blog, CollegeSurfing. Look out interweb, The CollegeBound Network is back in town!
Only problem is, we’re still a bit jet lagged. And it seems that Twitter felt our pain on Monday when we had our chat, because the stream was s-l-o-w. Still, we had our group of regulars and newbies join us. Here’s Monday’s transcript. Why not join us next Monday at 4 when we’re more rested? Hopefully, Twitter will have recovered by then…
–The CollegeBound Network
October 20th, 2010
Have you ever felt like the more advice you get about the elusive college admission essay, the more stressed out you become? I don’t know about you, but poring over books of successful essays from Ivy League schools just makes me feel inadequate. So don’t think of this post as advice – consider it a psych-up session to start writing your essay!
First, a few don’ts:
- DON’T write about the big game. It’s been done, done again, and then WAY overdone.
- DON’T thesaurusize (yes, it’s a word – check your Urban Dictionary).
- DON’T go on and on and on and on. We got the point five run-on sentences ago.
- DON’T use clichés. Sound like a plan?
- DON’T forget who will be reading your essay. Save words like “cool” and “wack” for your dawgs.
Now that we’ve gotten the negative instructions out of the way, let’s talk about choosing a topic. If you’ve experienced a personal tragedy that you feel comfortable sharing and that allows readers to get to know you, by all means write about it. Sometimes the most interesting essays are based on a personal struggle or challenge that you have overcome or are in the process of overcoming. If your life has been tragedy-free up to this point, consider yourself lucky and choose another theme that illustrates your personality. Something as simple as an object, a conversation, or an event that has affected you can make surprisingly good reading.
Once you’ve chosen a topic, start writing, and keep it specific. Whether you’re describing your old teddy bear, your crazy family dinners, or a tree you love to climb, concentrate on the details. The more specific you make your essay (e.g., not your love for the whole animal kingdom, but that special horse you connected with one summer), the more compelling it will be. Think small moments.
Make your essay a judgment-free zone. Admissions officers don’t want to read a negative, cynical personal statement. Take responsibility for your actions and don’t blame others for your misfortunes. That doesn’t mean you have to sugarcoat difficult events in your life – just find a way to be honest and keep your tone positive. If you’ve got to rant, get a diary.
And sometimes, you just need to remember to KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The more you stress about this essay, the scarier it will become. The KISS principle is a reminder to pick a direction and just start moving. Even writing a couple of sentences one day can be enough to get you started and help you feel less overwhelmed.
You don’t have to be a brainiac to write a good admission essay; you just have to be you. So stop procrastinating. Get started!
-Robyn Tellefsen
October 14th, 2010
I’m heading out to Las Vegas this week with my CBN editor, Gina LaGuardia, for the much-anticipated BlogWorld Conference. I’m hoping that the event organizers keep us really busy during the day, because I hear Vegas can be pretty lame at night.
Just kidding. I have been counting down to this conference for months. We are going to be very busy—seriously, I took one look at the agenda and needed to take a nap—but I’m sure there will be plenty of time in the evening to soak up some of the Vegas atmosphere.
For instance, the generous people at Cirque du Soleil have given me a ticket to Saturday night’s performance of LOVE, knowing full well that I will share the experience with you, gentle readers. What does Cirque du Soleil have to do with college? Don’t worry, I’m not comparing this French Canadian circus extravaganza to dorm life or anything like that. I have a legitimate reason to write a college-themed blog about LOVE, so please, stay tuned…
You might still be thinking what else would bring The CollegeBound Network to Sin City. Las Vegas might be known for the shenanigans that happen on the strip, but did you know that there are also plenty of people who head out to there to study? Yes, you read that correctly. Study. Las Vegas is home to various colleges and vocational schools, and the University of Nevada Las Vegas is the most noted among them. UNLV is home to more than 28,000 students and is considered to be a top research university, so I think Gina and I will be in good company when we get out there.
Follow Gina and me on Twitter this week at @CollegeBoundNet, @TheWriteWoman, and @GinaLaGuardia. While Paris Hilton might be persona non grata in Las Vegas, there’s room for new VIPs, so follow us and the hashtag #bwe10 and come along for the wild ride!
–Barbara Bellesi
October 12th, 2010
You may be counting down the days until you head off to college (even though you don’t know where you’re going yet), but one huge thing I learned as a college student was that it was up to me to survive.
Mom wasn’t there to do my laundry, although I tried to always bring it home and hold off on using the dorm washer and dryer until I had nothing left to wear. I had to learn to clean up after myself and my roommate, who sometimes left dirty dishes in the sink for days. I had to wake up early and get myself to class and work on time, whether by driving, walking, or taking the bus.
So it’s interesting to see a recent Associated Press story titled, “Are You Raising a Generation of Nincompoops?” make that point of calling out “college kids who’ve never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.” If any of this is new to you, ask your parents or friends now to help you get used to being on your own when away at school. They want to help, and some realize that it’s not all your fault.
Diane N. Quintana, author of Flying Solo: A Guide to Organizing Your Home When You Leave Your Parents’ Nest, writes: “I have found that while [my children] have lived in an organized and well-thought-out household, they were clueless as to how to set themselves up,” she writes. “Then I realized much of the problem was of my own creation. You see, this generation has had so much done for them.”
The Atlanta-based certified professional organizer recommends four things students can start to do this year to get ready for college life.
1. Spend an hour on the weekend thinking ahead. This short-term planning for the next week could include jotting down appointments you have, errands you need to run, special events you want to attend, and even chores, such as laundry and dusting, that have to get done. Knowing what absolutely has to be done in the coming week will help you figure out how to do them at convenient times, Quintana says.
2. Create an emergency card. That small item in your wallet or purse should include essential details such as any allergies you might have, doctors’ names and phone numbers, major surgeries you have had, contact numbers for you and your family, and a list of prescriptions and vitamins you take.
3. Discuss chores and expenses with your roommate. This is a step you can do well in advance, if you’re planning on living with a best friend or high school classmate. You’ll want to divide the chores and expenses, so make sure you know how to handle the chores you’ve agreed to do.
4. Keep track of your food. We’re not talking about making sure your roommate doesn’t drink the last of your milk (bought with your money), but making sure you’re not keeping outdated items in the refrigerator. If the date isn’t written on the item, use a permanent marker to note when it was opened on the bottom of cartons, bottles, jars, cans, and other items. Referring to a food storage chart can keep you from getting yourself sick at school, too.
What other ways do you feel unprepared for college? How can CBN help you figure it out? Leave us a comment below or tweet us at @CollegeBoundNet.
–Lori Johnston
October 7th, 2010
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