Photo Courtesy: Emily Williams

Two teams of Drexel students raced recycled cardboard boats in the DAC swimming pool at the sixth annual Rec Recycle Regatta Feb. 22. The Recycle Regatta is a yearly environment-friendly competition where students construct boats and paddles made entirely of cardboard and duct tape, and then race them along the pool.

For the last few years, Jillian Formanski, coordinator of Intramural Sports has run the event. She said that Recycle Regatta is “a fun event that’s not the typical intramural sporting event … [and] is just something different, especially for the non-traditional athletes to try to get involved.”

Competitors can also win awards at the event. The Black Pearl award is given to the team who crosses the length of the pool the fastest. The Mayflower award recognizes the team with the best construction. The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria award goes to the team with the best sportsmanship and team spirit. The Titanic award goes to the boat with the best sinking moment. The participating teams come to compete but also to have fun. “There’s a lot of camaraderie among the people in the boats and competing against the other teams as well,” Formanski said.

In the past, the number of participating teams fluctuated, with up to six teams showing up in one year. This year, there were two competitors, whose boats were named the Titanic++ and the USS Sandy. The Titanic++ was built and decorated to resemble a pirate ship, complete with pirate hats and swords for crewmembers Tomer Shemesh and Andrew DiNunzio, both pre-junior computer science majors. The USS Sandy, named for a crew member who ended up not being able to attend the event, was manned by senior communication major Stan Wright and senior business and engineering major Ryan Wendl.

“I got an email and I was just like, we have to do this! I showed him and said, ‘we’re doing this, it’s not an option,’” Shemesh said on what brought him to the regatta.

His co-captain DiNunzio added, “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it at first, but then I was like, yeah, let’s go all out!”

The crew of the Titanic++ spent about 10 hours working on designing and building their cardboard masterpiece. They even used mathematical formulas involving buoyancy and force to see how far into the water their boat would sink in the pool once they got in. When asked which award they would be most pleased to win, they responded that the Black Pearl award would be the most apropos, given their pirate theme.

The USS Sandy, made much more colorful with the addition of some last minute sharpie art by Wright, was put together in a little over three hours. The design relied on a wide flat base with three triangular hulls on the bottom to keep the boat above water, as opposed to the open-box format used for the Titanic++.

The event was attended by 10 spectators who cheered on their respective teams as the regatta ensued. Getting into the water with a huge cardboard box proved challenging, but both teams got started quickly.

The Titanic++ had a slow start, but then steadily advanced to the end of the pool in an impressive one minute and two seconds, possibly the fastest time ever demonstrated at the regatta, according to a lifeguard. Sandy, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. About a third of the way across the pool, the boat and its crew experienced an unfortunate but amusing descent into the water. The boat was pulled across by Wright and Wendl.

After making it across, Formanski suggested that the crew of the Titanic ++ attempted to make it back across the pool again, adding that she had never seen anybody succeed with this. Though the crew tried valiantly, they only made it about a quarter of the way back across the pool before the water-logged cardboard stopped all movement.

At the end of the event, the crew of the Titanic ++ won the Black Pearl and Mayflower awards, and the crew of the USS Sandy won the Titanic award.

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Photo Credit: Ann Haftl
Above features dry ice being repelled off a superconducter

The Drexel University Department of Materials Science and Engineering co-hosted the fifth annual Philly Materials Science and Engineering Day Feb.7 at the Bossone Research Center. The event was led by students and volunteers from Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Institute, the Chemical Heritage Foundation and the

The event showcased nearly 40 demonstrations for all ages in addition to a plethora of “Nano Nookactivities geared toward younger visitors, as well as hands-on workshops for specific age groups. Children were given sheets to stamp at every table at the event to encourage them to see all of the demonstrations.

This year, a few changes to the event organization included color-coding tables demonstrating similar themes together so that children with specific interests could visit tables with the focus on those topics. Another major and popular change was the incorporation of tetrahedral balloon hats. According to Christopher Weyant, a professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering and the leader behind the event, balloons had been used in the past to create a giant, materials-related structure in a portion of the room throughout the course of the day. He said that kids would walk up, expecting to receive a balloon to carry around and would walk away disappointed. “So this year we’re making tetrahedra that kids can wear on their heads, which they are,” Weyant said. Tetrahedral structures, he explained, are key in materials science due to their stability and wide variety in nature.

On a more serious note, Weyant discussed the importance of the students who volunteered their time to make the Philly Materials Day possible. Michelle Marcolongo, another Drexel professor helping to direct the event, added that the student volunteers “really like being able to explain some complicated science [to the children] in layman’s terms.”

One popular demonstration table allowed kids to make their very own bouncy balls from relatively simple, household ingredients: glue, cornstarch, food coloring and borax (which is used in dish soaps).. The cornstarch and glue are both composed of long polymer chains of molecules, and the borax acts as a cross-linker to connect the tangled polymer chains in structural forms, creating the rubbery and bouncy end product.

Jared Ely, a senior materials science major, turned from the chaos to comment, “This is so much fun.” Ely worked the bouncy ball table for two hours in the afternoon after helping in the Nano Nook for the first part of the event. He explained that the reason the final step was so tricky was that the children didn’t roll the ball into a form fast enough — they got it stuck to their hands instead. The substance is non-Newtonian, meaning it has to be “hit hard” to become a solid: the magic step in the process. Ely has participated in Philly Materials Day every year since its start at Drexel in his freshman year.

Another popular demonstration with non-Newtonian fluids was a pit of “oobleck,” a mixture of cornstarch and water. Kids who ran barefoot quickly across the surface of the liquid could make it across the pit without sinking into the liquid. But if they stood still, slowly their feet would disappear into the gooey fluid.

Photo Credit: Ann Haftl

The showstopper, however, was the liquid nitrogen ice cream demonstration — complete with sprinkles, chocolate sauce, candy pieces and other sundae toppings for the children to pile onto their scientific frozen treats. A mixture of cream, sugar and vanilla was prepared and then frozen on contact by liquid nitrogen. This was carefully dispensed from a canister that maintained the -320 degree Fahrenheit temperature required to keep the nitrogen in the liquid state. The Drexel volunteers running the table all agreed that it was the most popular demonstration of the day. However, they were also baffled that all of the children left the table as soon as they were given their ice cream.

Sophomore materials science major Karen Wells said, “It’s been really cool [volunteering] … The amount of kids who actually come here and know about science is incredible. … I think it’s also cool to see the parents get into it.”

At another table, freshmen materials science majors Jeremy Pitock, Maria Lefchak and Gary Saporetti helped out at a table focused on differing structures and their varying strength. They agreed that the main point of the event was to be “an outreach program to expose kids to materials engineering,” as Pitock put it.

Lefchak came to the event for the first time during her sophomore year in high school, without any previous interest or knowledge in materials science. She commented that the event was a good way to introduce materials science to the public as the little known engineering field. “People mostly know about mechanical [and] chemical engineering, so it’s a good way to get kids exposed to it since materials is everything. … They say it’s the science of stuff. It’s a little more fun than the others,” Lefchak joked.

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Two Drexel University alumni, Matt Campana and Ron Connolly, have teamed up to form Legendary Coffee, a company focused on developing the best possible coffee by using science to help the roasting process bring out the natural flavor of every bean.

Campana, 2011 Drexel graduate with a degree in music industry, decided to team up with his old friend Connolly, 1991 graduate with a chemical engineering degree, when both realized that their passion for coffee could be combined with their passion for creating businesses.

Campana, now a Fortune 500 systems analyst, a composer and arranger for Grammy- and Emmy -award-winning producers, shared that he has developed a deep appreciation for coffee in his busy life and wanted good-tasting, quality coffee to keep him going. Connolly is a founder and leader of Frontage Laboratories Inc., a pharmaceutical company that helps get young pharmaceutical labs off the ground.

Using the chemical and engineering skills Connolly obtained through his Drexel education and his career at Frontage, the pair use their combined knowledge “in order to observe how roasting occurs from a scientific standpoint,” according to Campana.

He added: “We do testing with different crops and batches of beans … [and] observe certain parameters of the roasting process and track the differences in each roast so that we can better control the process and create a more flavorful and accurate roast time after time.”

This insight on the delicate treatment of coffee beans came from Connolly’s experience with the pharmaceutical process. The key components of both the pharmaceutical process and the coffee treatment process, according to Campana, are “quality of raw materials, consistency of the process and [the] ability to control the critical process parameters that impact the final quality.” It is with this fine attention to detail and process that Legendary Coffee produces its roasts.

When asked about the future of the company, Campana disclosed that there would definitely be a release of many more roasts, after new bean sources are found and potential new roasts have been put through a demanding series of tests and observations to optimize the final results. However, there will be no physical storefront to boast the company’s wares. “We want to bring the product to people and we [offer] shipping online to individuals and businesses. … We want to partner with what the community is already doing at events [and] festivals, and plan to have a mobile rig to bring coffee to students during finals week,” Campana said.

The idea is to make Legendary Coffee a company that serves the community at large — this is more effectively achieved with the ability to reach all people, through Internet availability and travel, rather than offering set locations. With that ideal comes a promise from Campana himself, conveyed on the website: each bag of coffee that is bought is roasted, packaged and shipped within 48 hours of purchase, to ensure maximum freshness for consumers.

Still relatively small, Legendary Coffee is quickly growing with the release of its first roast to public sale online, the Luna Roast. Sold at $11.99 per 12-ounce bag, and bundled with a free MP3 download of some of Campana’s musical work, the Luna roast went through a vigorous six-month testing and experimental period before being deemed ready for sale. The Luna is a single origin coffee, whose beans are sourced from Ketiara Cooperative. Ketiara, based in Indonesia, is a company led entirely by women and is responsible for over $48 million worth of action in various social services, including education, health care and clean water. The choice to source beans from places like the Ketiara Cooperative reflects the founders’ high standards of gender equality, organic agriculture and fair-trade practices.

According to Campana, the mission statement of Legendary Coffee is “to develop communities and help others to be successful … [and to] build Legendary to a point where we are helping others, including those who are less fortunate in society, to be successful in achieving their life dreams and goals by launching other ‘Legendary’ business ventures and incorporating people in their sectors.” Legendary Coffee is built on the idea that “fresh” wins out over genetically engineered or non-organic beans, and that helping others is essential to developing the community at large.

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Photo Credit: aaayyymm eeelectriik

The Scattergood Foundation will be installing a mental health screening kiosk at the Drexel Recreation Center in February. The kiosk will be a self-serve screening machine where students can go to evaluate their mental health without having to talk to a professional or mental health specialist. It will be private, but not hidden. One of the goals is to use the kiosks to help eliminate the stigma currently associated with mental health and mental health disorders. In addition to the main campus location, another kiosk is planned to be installed at the Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services Center, which is run by the College of Nursing and Health Professions.

According to their website, the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation is a non-profit, “philanthropic, grant-making foundation” dedicated to increasing productive and innovative dialogue about mental health and its impact on our society. The foundation awards grants to companies and people who demonstrate initiative and innovation in the behavioral health field. The Scattergood Foundation and Screening for Mental Health Inc. partnered up and started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign Nov. 17 with a goal of raising $25,000.

The money was set to be used for development of new kiosks, the identification of new and secure locations, advertisement of new kiosk locations, kiosk delivery and installation, training of staff for kiosk use and the introduction of mental health awareness and evaluation of kiosk use and impact. The Scattergood Foundation has also pledged to match the first $5,000 raised to show commitment to the betterment of mental health awareness in the city of Philadelphia.

The partnership has already resulted in the first kiosk, which is now installed in a Philadelphia ShopRite clinic inside of a grocery store. The goal of the kiosks being placed in public places is “to reduce stigma by making learning about and screening for treatable conditions like depression or anxiety as commonplace as a blood pressure screening,” according to the campaign description. The questionnaire offered by the kiosks is also available online, starting with a simple question: “How are you feeling?” followed by a brief explanation of the screening, which states: “Mental health is a key part of your overall health. Brief screenings are the quickest way to determine if you or someone you care about should connect with a mental health professional — they are a checkup from your neck up.”

Upon starting a screening, there are six options which fall into the broad categories: depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, alcohol use disorder, eating disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, listed beneath small statements about general feelings. Then, the questionnaire asks for age, gender, racial identity, year in college and residence (on or off campus). At the end of the screening, a broad “diagnosis” is given, followed by a statement that the screening is “not a substitute for a clinical evaluation and cannot provide an actual diagnosis.” Finally, a large list of resources is provided related to the relevant mental health issue.

Caitlin O’Brien, a second year master of public health student, is working with the Scattergood Foundation, helping with their annual design project and on other projects based on mental health parity issues. In a blog post for Drexel’s School of Public Health, O’Brien wrote about the severe issues of mental health aid and funding in Philadelphia and in America as a whole. O’Brien pointed out that “one in [four] American adults have a diagnosable mental health condition … [and that those] living with serious mental illness have a life expectancy that is 25 years lower than the general population.”

In 2008, Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equality Act, but five years later regulations were still being added, and insurance companies were completely ignoring the provisions of the act. According to O’Brien, approximately 4 million individuals with diagnosed mental health disorders remain uninsured despite legal requirements that mental health illness be treated equally with physical illness. “From 2009 to 2012, 29 states cut their funding for mental health programs. Pennsylvania cut $6 million, which paled in comparison to New York’s $204.9 million cut and California’s appalling $764.8 million cut,” O’Brien said.

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Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock

Drexel University, People’s Emergency Center and Fresh Start Foods revealed a new partnership Nov. 20 that would involve the production of fresh, nutritional, low-cost meals to low-income communities and homeless families. They will also offer food service apprenticeship program for young adults with little to no educational experience or job training.

The product of this partnership, Fresh Start Foods West Philadelphia, will be providing meals to local West Philadelphia schools and also to families directly through a retail store. Though this project was organized only about two years ago, it has already received over $700,000 in federal and state grants and has found support from the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy Food Financing Initiative, according to its press release.

People’s Emergency Center focuses mostly on serving homeless single mothers and their children. Founded in 1972, PEC was originally intended, in part, to allow Drexel and University of Pennsylvania students learn about and battle the problems of homelessness that surrounded their local communities.

Fresh Start Foods is an organization dedicated to creating menus and recipes full of nutrition, flavor and visual appeal in order to feed communities that are currently under-served in affordable nutrition and fresh food options. FSF intends to employ and provide training and education to otherwise underprivileged young adults in urban communities. The main targets for FSF are local schools. “Schools and childcare centers are excellent places to begin introducing better foods to young people in large numbers,” the organization’s website states.

In partnering with the PEC, FSF will have an opportunity reach families who are especially needy and will also be able to work with an organization that already has its foundation.

Photo Courtesy: University of Wisconsin-Extension

Jay Guben is one of the leading forces behind Fresh Start Foods Philadelphia, which was officially incorporated in 2013. Previously, Guben was a founder and director of the Restaurant School and also founded and ran over ten restaurants from 1970-1990.

Guben, his wife, Mary, and co-leader Tom Burns had talked about the ideas behind FSF for a while, before deciding to try it out and make something concrete in the creation of Fresh Start Foods West Philadelphia. Guben and his wife now work primarily on the FSF project.

“[Hunger is] a global issue … The question was whether we could create a model that could be duplicated in many other places,” Guben said.

Now that the project is coming to fruition with training scheduled to start in late March.

Guben explained how one of his biggest hopes for the program is that Drexel approaches this partnership in a way that will include more and more student involvement over time. “One of the things that we’ve talked to Drexel about is that they offer a change in the traditional food program to include a section that really looks at the food issue in a larger scale: [not] just cooking for fine restaurants, but … how [to] make food for the public at large, and the world at large. … One of the things that we were hoping is that we would find students who would be interested in trying to do that work as their placement,” he said.

On the Drexel side of the project, Deutsch also shared his excitement for this partnership, and what it may mean for our community in the future. “We are really pleased … and proud to be asked to partner on this,” he said, “We think it’s a great thing that PEC and Fresh Start Foods are doing, and we’re thrilled to support them, improving lunch options for kids in the neighborhood.”

While it’s important for students to recognize and comprehend the situation in the communities around them, Deutsch added that it is also very important that it be students who attempt to solve these problems.

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Photo Credit: Jennifer Lam

A group of protestors gathered in front of the Creese Student Center at 9 a.m. Dec. 5 to object to the conference event “Philadelphia: The Next Great Energy Hub,” hosted in part by Drexel University.

The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce’s CEO Council for Growth, “comprised of executives from the region’s biggest corporations in the energy, chemical, and infrastructure sectors” staffs and supports the Greater Philadelphia’s Energy Action Team, which hosted the protested conference. Companies which were involved in the committee to host the conference included Braskem America, the Dow Chemical Co., Exelon Corp., Monroe Energy, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the Public Service Electric and Gas Co., Sunoco Logistics, UGI Corp. and many others.

The conference invited natural gas investors, as well as leaders in chemical and financial groups involved with natural gas energy resources, to hear speakers about the expansion of natural gas production and usage in greater Philadelphia. The speakers for the panel discussion on the usage of the Marcellus formation were Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, George Stark, director of external affairs at Cabot Oil & Gas, and John Walsh, president and CEO of UGI Corp.

The Facebook group organizing the Drexel student protestors states that the conference promotes activities which would “exacerbate groundwater pollution already being seen in Pennsylvania as a result of hydrofracking for natural gas … increase air pollution in our neighborhoods from refineries and petrochemical factories … [and] increase greenhouse gas emissions and further exacerbate global climate change.”

The group organized to demonstrate that Drexel students are against these practices. Another statement of the protesting students said, “With all of Philadelphia’s leaps in sustainability and Drexel’s supposed commitment to the environment, this plan represents a giant step backwards. We can only stop this destructive vision with immediate and deliberate action.” Protesting groups of Drexel included the Sierra Student Coalition, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Group, the Naturalists Association and others.

The protest included more than just Drexel students, as members and involved citizens from 19 Philadelphia and national environmental and sustainable energy groups were in attendance. Following the protest there was a counter-conference held concurrently with the disputed conference to “discuss what a sustainable Philadelphia could and should look like,” according to the protestors. At the anti-conference, speakers Kevin Pool of the Grays Ferry Neighbors Association, Poune Saberi from Physicians for Social Responsibility, John Scorsone of SolareAmerica and Drexel student activist Matthew Wang provided information on Philadelphia and sustainable energy as well as information on natural gas.

As Pennsylvania has established its dominance as the leading natural gas producing state in the United States, this conference falls in the middle of a very controversial period of policy creation and federal involvement in energy commerce. The biggest reason for this controversy is the disagreement evolving between environmentalists and economists concerning the pros and cons of natural gas production and usage. According to the Council for Growth, “the current daily gross production of natural gas from the Marcellus [shale formation] is in excess of 15 billion cubic feet — and at that level of production the formation has well over a 100-year reserve life.” This huge reserve of natural gas is enticing for economists and politicians, especially in this tense period between the U.S. and the countries which provide oil imports the U.S. has relied on for the past several decades. However, environmentalists are concerned about potential pollution-causing effects of natural gas drilling and usage.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Lam

The ongoing disputes between the two camps on natural gas usage have yet to be affected significantly by state and federal legislation. Currently, the Pennsylvania government offers grants for alternative fuel development and deployment programs as well as projects supporting the creation and research of natural gas vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency made its last regulatory decisions on natural gas and oil in April 2012. The latest federal legislation to govern the industry demanded certain standards on natural gas and oil containment tanks and was updated August 2013. Right now, the fighting between camps is definitely mobile only on the civilian and corporate levels, and not within legislatures.

A final comment from the protest organizers stated that “we [the protestors] believe that with Drexel’s advertised support of green technologies and sustainability, the University should not be hosting events and providing support for the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. Philadelphia itself claims to be a leader in sustainability as far as cities go, and we believe that turning the city into a natural gas hub would be a major step backwards.” The protestors decidedly demonstrated an organized front against the conference to support this claim.

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Photo Courtesy: Joseph Master

Saxbys Coffee is partnering with Drexel University to open an experiential learning cafe to be entirely run by Drexel entrepreneurial students. The new cafe will be located at 64 N. 34th St. and will be operated and managed entirely by Drexel students on their co-ops. The first manager of this new cafe will be pre-junior Meghan Regan, who “is spending her co-op hiring and developing the team,” Saxbys CEO Nick Bayer said.

The goal of the new cafe is to create a place where Drexel entrepreneurial students can really join in an amazing, hands-on learning opportunity. “Saxbys Drexel will be entirely run by Drexel students, which will really allow the Drexel community to take ownership of the cafe,” Bayer said.

Saxbys was founded on the idea of franchising “custom-designed, authentic neighborhood cafes” which would partner with “entrepreneurial franchisees to operate locally relevant, community-oriented cafes,” Bayer added. The new Saxbys Drexel is consistent with this mission.

Because of Drexel student management, the cafe really will be a place Drexel students and faculty can call their own. As for custom-designing and making the cafe locally-relevant, Bayer said that Drexel has been a big help with the location for the cafe and its design, and has been including “reclaimed … items from the former University City High School” which Drexel now owns. The cafe will be decorated with Drexel’s blue and gold colors and will be very school-spirit oriented. Also, the central location on campus and especially the proximity to the freshman dorms will be a positive aspect of the cafe for students.

This partnership is unique in that Saxbys — a large and well-known company with its roots in Philly — is putting the affairs of a whole location in the hands of students. Bayer explained in an interview how he found so much faith to chase this bold partnership. Three years ago, after founding Saxbys, Bayer began teaching entrepreneurship classes at universities, including Drexel, Temple University and Cornell University. In that time, he “realized that there were so many entrepreneurial students that could absolutely run a successful cafe.” Bayer came to Drexel and found that the leaders of the University were doing a “tremendous job teaching and supporting entrepreneurship.”

During his time at Drexel, Bayer felt that entrepreneurship was really expanding throughout the University, especially with the creation of the Baiada Institute for entrepreneurship and the start of the Close School of Entrepreneurship. However, Bayer “felt the one missing component was experiential learning — an opportunity for students to run a real business and ultimately put what they’ve learned in the classroom into practice.”  It was this lack of experiential learning that got Bayer intrigued with Drexel and the possibility of opening a Saxbys cafe with Drexel students. It was this intrigue that led to the creation of Saxbys Drexel.

Bayer is very excited about the project. “We’re confident that this experiential learning center will turn Drexel students into bona fide entrepreneurs. … We want to give the Drexel community a cafe that is ‘their’ cafe — we hope it will be a place to gather, enjoy drinks and food and help launch the next generation of influential Drexel entrepreneurs,” Bayer said.

Saxbys Drexel is not the only new location being opened by the Saxbys franchise right now. Saxbys is in a period of aggressive expansion, and has just opened a cafe in Peddler’s Village right outside of the city. Saxbys is a Philadelphia company and wants to be “known as an iconic Philly brand” according to Bayer. Other locations being opened soon include a cafe in Washington Square West and the rehabilitation of the 30th Street Station and Penn cafes.

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Drexel Sacramento

The 2014 Sacramento Business Journal’s “40 under 40” awards event Nov. 19, honored 40 business leaders under the age of 40 for their passion and innovations in business. The award recognizes outstanding young business leaders in the city of Sacramento for their accomplishments. Drexel’s name is also being recognized this year, as six Drexel Sacramento graduates won the award.

The graduates include Ashley Brand, community benefit manager for Dignity Health; Jessica Kriegel, organizational development consultant at Oracle; Dean O’Brien, health construction financing specialist at Cal-Mortgage Loan Insurance Program; Clarence Lee, founder of Each of the recipients recently graduated, all within the past four years.

Four of the graduates earned a Master of Business Administration degree, while Brand graduated with a master’s of public health and Kriegel with a doctorate in education. Kriegel now works with the Sacramento Area Organization Development Network, “a professional association of organization development (OD) professionals, non-professionals, and students,” according to its website.

The organization focuses on building the networks of communities to help them better serve the needs of their residents. Citizens can join the program in a professional track or in an open track, and are teamed up with members of the organization who help them network and increase their levels of business-related success.

Alternatively, Brand works for an organization called Dignity Health, which owns six hospitals in several California counties.

Brand said, “Through this position, I … carry out Dignity Health’s mission into the communities we serve by developing partnerships with community organizations and creating programs that increase access to quality health care for underserved populations.” Brand works directly with the community in Sacramento to increase health care accessibility.

Brand is not alone in her endeavors of reaching out to the community. Interest and active involvement in one’s own community is something Sin believes Drexel is skilled at developing in its students.

“[Drexel] is really involved in civic engagement here at Sacramento. … They do so much to make sure the students and the alumni are really engaged in the communities in their areas, so that their professional development continues [with] support from the university,” Sin said.

Sin is a U.S. Navy veteran and works with other female veterans through the California Department of Veterans Affairs. However, she has always had high aspirations and hopes for the future even after the Navy.

“I was always, throughout my career in the navy, wanting to go back to college,” Sin said. After ending her career in the U.S. Navy, she did just that, finishing her MBA at Drexel University Sacaramento. “I joined the Navy so that I wouldn’t have to go to college. … I was intimidated.”

However, Sin now cites her graduation with an MBA as her biggest accomplishment thus far in her career. The Drexel approach to hands-on learning and putting students in real-world situations has shown to be an effective tool for teaching students what to expect after graduation.

“[Drexel] gave us the chance to meet a lot of great emerging leaders and established leaders here in California. … I think that [Drexel] definitely provides a lot of introduction into that community,” Sin said. She also mentioned that her nomination for the 40 under 40 award came from Drexel and expressed her gratitude for that nomination.

“[Drexel does] so much to make sure the students and the alumni are really engaged in the communities in their areas, so that their professional development continues [with] support from the University,” she said.

When asked what they considered a large part of their success was due to, the recipients replied with their education from Drexel, as it supplied them with much more than just academic learning.

“Drexel prepared me by setting high expectations for their students with regards to making us accountable for what we got out of the program,” Brand explained.

The fact that 15 percent of this year’s 40 under 40 recipients were Drexel graduates is something the university and its students and faculty should be proud of. Each Drexel recipient is also very unique — the range of business administration being performed by each recipient is impressive. However, the scope is larger than the University and larger than a simple award given out to 40 recipients each year. Sin sums up this idea: “It’s not so much about me or about the award as much as it is about the activity of bringing people together to further the development of this region. … That’s something the [Sacramento Business Journal] does well and that’s something that Drexel obviously does well.” The focus here, as it often is with Drexel, is on the goal of bettering the community into which graduates enter after college.

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Photo Courtesy: Laura Taylor

Author Lee Gutkind visited Drexel’s ExCITe Center Nov. 3 to share his work. The genre was called “Creative Nonfiction with Students and the Community.” The event was a workshop titled, “True Stories Well Told — About Science and Society,” and also hosted Philadelphia Fellows Gwen Ottinger, David Schleifer, Brian Kahn and Emily Fertig, who all spoke of their experiences in scientific fields and the translation of those experiences into writing, specifically using creative nonfiction. The event opened with an hour-long workshop presented by Gutkind.

Gutkind has been called the “Godfather of Creative Nonfiction” by Vanity Fair and is known widely for his talent in creative nonfiction, as well as for his mission to spread creative nonfiction to several highly interdisciplinary fields, such as science. He has been on “The Daily Show,” “Good Morning America” and BBC World News. He is founder and editor of “Creative Nonfiction,” a literary magazine which is the only existing publication to exclusively print creative nonfiction, and is also the author and editor of over 30 books.

Gutkind is also a leading contributor to the project “Think Write Publish,” funded partially by the National Science Foundation. Years after its small start in 2011, the project brought together 12 science policy scholars and 12 creative nonfiction writers out of an application pool of 225 people to collaborate and publish scientific research in a way that would be engaging to the common public.

This most recent project under “Think Write Publish” began in 2013 and took a year and a half, including two weeklong sessions. The first session paired creative writers with the science policy scholars while the second was a revision workshop at the end of the 18 month long research-and-writing period. Famous literary magazines such as The Atlantic, Harper’s and National Geographic sent editors to the workshop to help with this process.

Five of the nine successful essays produced from this collaboration were printed in the summer 2014 issue of “Creative Nonfiction.” The essays include such titles as “Collective Forgetting,” “What Fish Oil Pills Are Hiding” and “Little Cell, Big Science” to name a few. In a summary prior to the essays in the magazine, Gutkind wrote, “‘Think Write Publish’ is only the beginning of a new narrative — a way in which experts in different fields can learn from one another while making an impact on a large and diverse readership.”

When the presentation started, Gutkind opened with a fact: he hated English classes when he was a student. Despite this, though, he went on to describe how much he loves writing, especially creative nonfiction.

What is creative nonfiction? “Basically [it] is telling stories that matter: good stories, well told,” Gutkind said about the genre. Creative nonfiction aims to make narratives, or real stories about real people, and weave them into scientifically — or socially — relevant research projects. “Creative nonfiction is really a balancing act between style, which is story, and substance, which is what your readers want to know … [it] informs while keeping a reader interested and involved,” he explained.

Gutkind also informed the audience that creative nonfiction is now the fastest growing genre in the literary world. “Why is this happening,” he asked, following instantly with the reply, “Because the brain is wired for story.” People want to hear about why research and scientific information matters to them. This is the value behind creative nonfiction: it turns scientific breakthroughs into human breakthroughs. The narrative elements make it personal. Gutkind said that this is extremely important.

During the presentation he said, “Don’t think. Please don’t think. Don’t think about what’s the point you want to make. Here’s what we want to know first: Where is the story that leads to that point? Where’s the narrative? Where are the people?”

It’s all about pulling in the audience to the story and having them want to know more. This is the next big thing for the scientific world in the ways of communication; this is how to really make the general public want to learn more.

Gutkind then discussed the creative nonfiction writing process. He began by discussing the structure of a creative nonfiction piece. “The building blocks of creative nonfiction are scenes … little stories,” he said. He then showed a picture of a ladder-like story outline. The words “scene” and “information” were staggered back and forth down the graphic, and he explained that this should be the skeleton for any creative nonfiction piece. He went on to describe his method called the “Yellow Test.” Gutkind is a fan of taking a yellow marker and coloring in all of the “scenes” in creative nonfiction pieces — the parts where the story, the narrative, dominates. He explained to the audience: the more yellow, the better. In creative nonfiction, the scenes are what make the piece relevant to the audience and without them, the piece will be less successful.

Finally, Gutkind discussed one of the most important elements of creative nonfiction: keeping the audience engaged all the way to the end of the piece.

“You never ever ever tell your reader what they want to know … Once you tell them, they’re gone,” he emphasized. Here, Gutkind cited an example from Ernest Hemingway. When Hemingway first wrote “The Sun Also Rises,” he sent manuscripts of his final draft to several friends, also writers, asking for feedback. F. Scott Fitzgerald was the last to reply. He finally confessed to Hemingway that he was bored in the beginning of the book: Hemingway had given away too much background information on his characters too early. Hemingway then took his friend’s advice. The first chapter of the published book was actually the fifth in the original manuscript.

Here, Gutkind became adamant, explaining that “background always comes after you get people involved enough that they want to know [more].” Gutkind insisted that good creative nonfiction begins near the end, right before some critical, defining moment in the overarching story — but that the climax was still, torturously, saved for the end of the piece. This general idea was referred to Gutkind as the frame of a creative nonfiction piece.

At the end of the hour, Gutkind took questions from the audience. Here, some of the community members who had attended — mostly journalists or scientific researchers — spoke up and asked how to transform their journalistic pieces into creative nonfiction.

“Creative nonfiction writings can push traditional journalism limits … using all of the literary and creative writing tools to write very true stories,” Gutkind said. He added, in reference to interviewing and researching subjects for the purpose of writing creative nonfiction, not to be afraid to go deeper, “New writers are often too shy to ask the hard questions … but we people want to know the hard questions… Don’t regret asking the hard questions because the hard questions get to the real answers.”

Free copies of “Creative Nonfiction” are available at http://www.creativenonfiction.org/

Photo Credit: Ann Haftl

Drexel students under chef Richard Pepino Jr. joined anti-poverty nonprofit Project Oct. 28 at the Free Library of Philadelphia to make and jar “Sister Mary’s Sinfully Delicious Cranberry Sauce.” The team of 11 Drexel students is taking the Center of Hospitality and Sports Management course “Food Preservation,” in which the students learn about jarring and canning techniques, as well as food health and safety skills.

The students worked hard with Project HOME’s social enterprise manager, Scarlett McCahill, and a team of four Project HOME residents to make large amounts of the relish, which they then preserved in jars for sale. By the end of the three-hour work period that evening, they had filled and sealed about 400 jars. On this, Pepino commented, “They’re doing good. They’re doing real good,” despite the hectic chaos which seemed to be dominating the relatively small kitchen space. “It is what it is,” he added.

Jonathan Deutsch, founding director of Drexel’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management was also present. He explained that this is the third year Project HOME was producing the cranberry relish for the holidays, but that this was the first time Drexel had been involved. McCahill had reached out to both Deutsch and Pepino for assistance and they happily complied.

“[This work is] a way to continue on Drexel’s mission of civic engagement … and also a way to get our students practical experience,” Deutsch said.

He continued, “Here, [the students are] going to work with a ton — an actual ton, not a figurative ton — of cranberries. … Here, we can get that real world experience. [That’s why] it helps for us to partner [with Project HOME], since we can’t do that in our own facilities.”

Chelsey Lowe, the social enterprise and sustainability Philadelphia fellow at HOME, was also in attendance, elbows deep in the relish-making process. She said that all of the cranberries were donated by a distribution center in New Jersey, but that the other ingredients were purchased by HOME. The jars will be sold by HOME vendors as well as online starting Nov. 1, selling at $6.95 a jar. “The residents are really appreciating the [help]. … This is a huge volume and we have more hands,” she said.

The process of making and jarring the relish was detailed and fast-paced. Resident Shonda Brabham said, “When you watch the Food Network channel, and they say go, they really mean go!” She was experiencing this speed first-hand as Pepino controlled the busy kitchen with orders and instructions, hoping to achieve a rate of 100 jars per hour.

Photo Credit: Ann Haftl

First, the jars had to be sanitized and the lids boiled. Then, five pounds of cranberries were mixed with white and brown sugar and about a quarter of a gallon of apple cider. This was boiled until the cranberries were soft and the mixture was thick, then funneled carefully into the prepared jars. Next, the jars were closed tightly and boiled — an essential step to proper jarring technique. Halfway through the night, Pepino proudly brought one of the finished jars over to McCahill, saying that the seal was perfect. An amused and interrupted McCahill just nodded approval, before continuing her discussion with a group of students and residents.

During the event, the team worked in two groups which switched roles halfway through. While one group was busy jarring the relish, the other was having a discussion about HOMElessness in Philadelphia with McCahill. The discussion started with a few statistics on HOMElessness. For example, according to McCahill, research has shown that approximately 9,000 HOMEless people are present in Philadelphia each night — which far exceeds the approximately 4,000 shelter beds available in all of Philadelphia. Also, about one-tenth of the entire HOMEless population actually “appear” as obviously HOMEless to the average passer-by. Finally, non-heterosexual youth are four times more likely to be HOMEless than heterosexual youth.

The discussion then shifted to some simple questions from McCahill: What exactly is HOMElessness? How do we define it as individuals and as a society? What causes HOMElessness? In answer to the first question, she told the group: “HOMElessness [is when] you don’t have a place to stay … that is, you don’t have a safe and dignified place to stay.” The other questions though, she did not answer, instead asking the group to generate responses.

After listing several reasons why HOMElessness occurs, finally the group arrived at the number one cause of HOMElessness, both in Philadelphia, and nationwide: a lack of affordable housing. Finally, McCahill broke the issues of HOMElessness down to the very nitty-gritty and brought a central point to the broad discussion: “This is a major issue. A complex social issue like this one … requires an equally complex response,” she said. The belief and vision behind Project HOME, she added, is that “None of us are HOME until all of us are HOME.” This, essentially, is the project’s mission statement: an effective, coherent and complex response to HOMElessness is the organization’s top priority.

“HOME” stands for affordable Housing, Opportunity through employment, Medical care and Education. Project HOME effectively addresses each of these goals through various programs. It owns over 600 units of affordable housing, where affordable is defined as 30 percent of an area’s median income, and in its 25 years of operation has housed over 9,000 people. HOME also owns and operates five small businesses in which residents are employed and given training for the general workforce. This year alone, 73 HOME residents were employed by the organization itself, and a total of 175 residents found jobs in competitive industries outside of the organization.

HOME also offers medical care in the form of medical, health and psychiatric attention available for all residents. As for education, it runs a K-6 school, multiple after-school teenage outreach groups as well as adult education groups. This year, 43 HOME residents were enrolled in college — a strategically important step for the organization, according to McCahill. Perhaps the most astonishing fact about the organization, in light of these statistics, is the distribution of its funding.

Most nonprofits benefit in the majority from single-source funding, but HOME is funded nearly equally in three parts: private donors, the city and federal government, and the rest from “Low Income Tax Credits.” Most organizations don’t know that nearly one-third of the market cost to build housing meant for low-income owners will be paid for by the government, as long as the organization’s accountant can figure out the paperwork. Luckily, a Drexel alum, now accountant, works for Project HOME and secures these funds. This range of funding makes it possible for HOME to tackle larger projects and initiatives.

The general consensus reached by the students involved in the event was that the opportunity to assist such an inspiring group as Home was unique and incredible. Deutsch said that after tonight, the biggest hope of both Drexel and HOME is that students who were involved will be inspired to come back on their own time to volunteer.

Project HOME has information on getting involved, taking action and donating time or money at