De sales university

DeSales is known for maintaining a friendly and safe campus. This is the result of mutually reinforcing messages coming from many different components of the DeSales University family. The faculty set the tone with the high quality of their courses and their professionalism of deportment. Various administrative offices are courteous and responsive to student needs and confusions. The athletic teams not only win their games of competition but also regularly receive sportsmanship awards from the athletic conference. The maintenance workers of the campus continually clean and improve the look and feel of the buildings and grounds. The new chief of police has years of experience in law enforcement and community involvement. The police force is proactive in establishing bonds of friendship and support for the students. In conjunction with the director of counseling, the director of student conduct instituted a Concern Assessment ResponsE (CARE) Team this past year.  Faculty and staff referrals through the early alert system have increased.  The team is always prepared to assess the needs of the students of concern, and creates plans to best serve these students.  This team helped to reach students that may have typically “fallen through the cracks”.

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  The nurse practitioner continued to expand her role, assessing and prescribing greater than 200 patients, while the physicians assessed less than 160 patients.
  
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  The staff continues to see a diverse population of students with both physical and psychological issues and provides high quality health care to students.
  
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  The health educator has continued success with the weeklong “safe spring break” campaign which addresses issues regarding responsible alcohol use, sun safety, personal safety, tobacco awareness, and travel safety.
  
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  The health educator co-organized the Journey to Wellness Fair with the director of the counseling center, Wendy Krisak. Representatives from DeSales as well as the outside community participated.
  
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  The health educator participated in campus alcohol screening using the fatal vision and fatal reaction programs at the DeSales University Center.
  
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  The health educator, in conjunction with the counseling center, conducted depression screening to students.
  
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  The Health Center staff obtained continuing education credits as required by the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing, that best enhance the practice/role of the college health environment.
  

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  The director expanded the August one-day PACE training to five days. The training continued to include the twelve hour required BACCHUS Certification training, but also included more in-depth information regarding presentation skills as well as counseling skills.
  
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  The director worked on four professional development workshops: The Process of Addictions through Kutztown University, Why does Culture Matter? Isn’t Counseling Just Counseling? through the American Counseling Association, The Power of Positive Psychology, and Trauma, PTSD & Traumatic Grief.
  
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  The director worked with Fred Richter in athletics to bring local high school athletes to campus for the healthier choices program.
  
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  The director brought in a speaker from the Remuda Ranch Eating Disorder Clinic to speak on red flags to watch for regarding disordered eating of any kind.
  
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  In conjunction with Jennifer Bunting, director of student conduct and assistant to the dean of students, the director ran the CARE Team. Faculty and staff referrals through the Early Alert system have increased.
  
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  PACE brought in the highest attended PACE program this year with over 200 students and staff in attendance with It’s Not an Accident, It’s a Choice, a program on drunk driving. This program won the SGA award for program of the year.
  

2. Opportunities for social, cultural, and religious engagement

Student leadership and engagement with the various activities on the campus form an essential component of the life of the student affairs office. This year there were 204 individual events with over 16,500 participants. The office of student engagement maintained oversight of 51 events run by the various clubs and student organizations of the institution, 15 events run by the student government association, and a wonderful spring break trip to Rome with 28 student tourists.

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  Nick Luchko, Chad Serfass, Gregg Amore, Leah Breisch, and Jaime Gerhart reinvented Leaders Emerging at DeSales University (L.E.A.DSU) from a semester long program to a yearlong program to include monthly character sessions, career development programs, multicultural movies with meaning programs, weekend summit, and final capstone project.
  
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  Nick Luchko along with SGA developed a new budget request and hearing procedure for clubs, organizations, and groups for proper programming needs.
  
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  Fall orientation was a success with a new training program for peer mentors, new check-in process for new students, a program that was more diverse and intentional for college students, and the captains had more input in the decision making process.
  
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  Nick Luchko and SGA developed a new constitution, new executive board positions, and made significant changes to semi-formal, formal, and senior events.
  
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  Tracy Gallagher advised eight students on the student night life to National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) Festival to plan and reserve events for 2012-2013.
  
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  Nick Luchko worked with residence life to have one “town meeting” in each residence hall to discuss events and involvement on campus. Over 175 students participated in the process.
  
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  Nick Luchko and Jonathan Osborne developed and oversaw a series of programs and events to improve spirit on campus. They included the mascot of the university at various events, in game promotions at sporting events, and the development of class identity events.
  

b. Office of Community Service and Social Justice (CSSJ)

This year, the department enhanced the community service engagement component of the “Character U” program by putting the first-year students’ learning into action. The fall semester of “Character U” focused on the students’ completion of a service project, group reflection, a written reflection, and a presentation at the end of semester. The center also strengthened its diversity programming by embedding diversity in all departments, offering a semester book club which focused on diversity in America during the fall semester and religious diversity in the spring.

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  We received a grant from Pennsylvania Campus Compact that allowed a full-time VISTA volunteer to focus on the tutoring/mentoring program Helping Other People Everywhere (H.O.P.E.) in the Allentown School District. The H.O.P.E. program is an intensive tutoring program which incorporates community service and promotes civic engagement for the college and middle school students.
  
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  DeSales University continued tutoring programs with Allentown Catholic High School, the Boys and Girls Club of South Bethlehem, the Start Your Day Right program in the Allentown School District, while adding Trexler Middle School, Harrison-Morton Roosevelt Elementary, and South Mountain and Raub Middle Schools.
  
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  We continued our partnership with the Allentown Diocese Catholic Charities Foster and Adoption service. CSSJ hosted three campus-wide events for our students and the families of Catholic Charities. The Halloween, Christmas, and Spring Picnic had more than 400 students participating and completing more than 1,400 hours of total service.
  
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  CSSJ hosted four blood drives with 360 students/staff/faculty taking part.
  
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  CSSJ continued our partnership with Special Olympics:
  
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    10 students chaired the planning committee, serving more than 400 hours.
    
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    Recruited 150 DeSales students to participate on the day of the event
    
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    Recruited an additional 100 volunteers to help
    
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    Led more than 300 athletes for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Bowling Sectionals.
    
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  Global Education Week with the Education Department featured Sr. Cyril Mooney from Kolkata, India, who spoke and taught classes throughout the week of April 30-May 4, culminating with a panel that incorporated Sr. Cyril and UNICEF.
  
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  CSSJ hosted four alternative spring break trips and one fall break trip with more than 60 students participating in 2,000 hours of service.
  
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  A group of 10 students went to Kolkata, India, for 12 days over summer break to work with the Missionaries of Charity and the Loreto School.
  
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  The CSSJ office advises the following community service/advocacy organizations:
  
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    Advocates 4 Awareness – an organization that raises awareness and advocates on campus for social justice issues; i.e., genocide, fair-trade products on-campus, global poverty, and healthcare.
    
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    Rotaract – is a Rotary-sponsored service club for young men and women.
    
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    Best Buddies – is dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities by providing opportunities for one-to-one friendships.
    
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      DeSales Best Buddies won Chapter and Best Buddies President of the Year for the Eastern PA region.
      
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    Colleges Against Cancer (CAC) – is dedicated to eliminating cancer by working to implement the programs and the mission of the American Cancer Society.
    
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      CAC raised more than $18,000 for Relay for Life in April.
      
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    Earth 2 DeSales – educates and advocates for environmentally-friendly practices on-campus.
    

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  The assistant director worked to intersect campus ministry with other offices in student life and beyond. She spoke on “Vocational Discernment” in the senior success series; assisted with RA/mentoring orientation training; presented on Salesian spirituality to the admissions staff; and was one of the three student life professionals who met with students during the “leadership lunch” program.
  
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  Sr. John Marie, OSFS, had an active second year. In addition to teaching 2-3 education courses per semester, Sr. John Marie worked with various offices and programs of the university including: an online non-credit course on “Salesian Pearls of Wisdom” during the five weeks of lent sponsored by the Salesian Center for Faith and Culture; a presentation on “Transcendence” to the participants of the L.E.A.DSU; a presentation, “St. Francis DeSales Makes Me Nervous” for the Salesian spiritual insights program offered by the Salesian Center for Faith and Culture; and a brown bag lunch presentation on her May 2011 service trip to India. Sr. John Marie also oversees Philotheas (a women’s spirituality group), offers spiritual direction, is a consistent presence at the 5 pm weekday community mass, and presents prayer/teaching sessions at the student life staff meetings as well as conducting a vocation discernment group for female students on campus.
  
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  Catholic Basics, a program for those wishing to be received into the Catholic Church or complete the sacraments of initiation, was started in mid-October. One student participated and was received into the church and received the sacraments of Eucharist and confirmation on April 15, 2012.
  
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  Two discernment groups were started this year. Approximately 10 men participated in the national Melchizedek project, a series of directed discussion meetings from October to May. A similar discernment group was started in the second semester for women students.
  
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  Capping off a full year of preparation, campus ministry offered a spring retreat in late March 2012. Nine student leaders lead 26 fellow students on this two-day retreat. Maggie Riggins is to be commended for her steady and direct formation and leadership of the student team. Two other retreats were conducted: a freshmen retreat, adapted to one evening and on campus due to the predicted incoming hurricane; and a women’s retreat, led by student leaders, but held for the first time on the convent grounds of the Oblate Sisters in Childs, Maryland.
  

3. Healthy and Safe Recreational Activities

This is an exciting time for DeSales athletics. For over a decade, the performance of the DeSales athletic department has placed it in the top quarter of the entire MAC and at the very top of the Freedom Conference. Because of major athletic upgrades at several of our conference rivals, we are now faced with new competitive challenges. We will meet these challenges by continuing our focus on educating the entire student-athlete and providing high level coaching and instruction. We believe the implementation of our athletic master plan will allow us the opportunity to more aggressively recruit high quality prospects; to not only get more and better prospects interested in DeSales, but to close the deal and get these student-athletes to say “yes” to DeSales.