The Journal

2022 Commencement

Marietta College Athletics celebrates Hall of Fame inductees

Winter Weekend celebrated the induction of two classes into the Athletics Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame Class of 2021 included Jennifer Carroll ’07 (Softball), Mark Johnson ’95 (Baseball), Tiffany Kovacevich ’09 (Track & Field), James Kennedy ’84 (Basesball), Kenny Sasu ’01 (Football), and the 1934 Varsity Heavyweight 8+ Crew. The Class of 2022 included Brian Hahn ’08 (Football), Roy Munk ’96 (Soccer), Emily McComb ’09 (Softball), and Shawn Shuster ’98 (Golf). Some of the former standout student-athletes sat down to talk about their time at Marietta.

Tiffany Kovacevich ’09

Shawn Shuster ’98

Roy Munk ’96

Kenny Sasu ’00

Jenny Carroll ’07

James Kennedy ’84

Brian Hahn ’08

Honing an entrepreneurial mindset

Watching her father love owning his own business, Alison Loase ’23 knows she wants to follow in his footsteps, so her entrepreneurship capstone during spring semester played a key role in helping her understand what it means to be your own boss.

“My mentor is Larry Sloter, who has multiple businesses, including The Busy Bee,” says Loase, who is majoring in Entrepreneurship and earning a Management minor. “He also has real estate, Air BnB apartments, and he’s opening a bakery. I could have chosen other entrepreneurs, but they were focused on only one area. I knew Larry would give me a more well-rounded look at entrepreneurship.”

Sloter, a 2002 Marietta College graduate, is a mentor in the Entrepreneurship Program at Marietta. Four students, including Loase, worked with local business owners for the entire spring semester. Other students included Allison Barnes ’22, Haylee Mott ’23, and Maddy Jones ’23. Like Sloter, business owners Chris Pfeiffer (Sourdough and The Bread Garage), Teri Ann Zide (Teri Ann’s), Laura Pytlik (Wit & Whimsy), and Bobby Rosenstock (justAjar Design Press) also served as Entrepreneurship Capstone mentors in Spring 2022.

“This experience consists of each student meeting with (working/shadowing) her capstone mentor (a local entrepreneur) for 50 to 75 hours during the semester to learn more about how the mentor conducts business, and how their way of doing business aligns with what we learn in class,” says Dr. Jacqueline Khorassani, Professor and Director of the Entrepreneurship Program. “The experience also has a classroom component.”

Chris Pfeiffer, Mott’s mentor, operates Sourdough, a marketing company, and The Bread Garage, a micro-bakery. He also works for another company. Mott was curious about how her mentor is able to operate both businesses and have fun doing it.

“This has been very enjoyable and a lot to soak in,” Mott says, who is majoring in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. “Chris has been able to give me many different opportunities to work and learn. This will help me when I start my own business; and if I ever get a job, I will have lots of experience.”

Barnes came to Marietta as an Entrepreneurship and Studio Art double major, but soon decided to focus on Entrepreneurship.

“One of the selling points to come to Marietta College was the Entrepreneurship Program,” Loase says. “When I was visiting schools, it was so new that it wasn’t even in Marietta’s pamphlet. It was stapled into a previous pamphlet. But I knew in high school what direction I wanted to go in. I wanted to do art and I wanted to work for myself. I’m a first-generation college student, so my parents didn’t really know how to guide me through what major I wanted to choose or what school to choose based on what I wanted to do. So when I saw this Entrepreneurship Program at a school that really appealed to me already, I knew my choice.”

Barnes was mentored by Rosenstock, whose downtown business specializes in custom woodcut and letterpress posters.

“The way it’s set up is that I have set times and days that I head out to the shop,” Barnes says. “Sometimes it’s just sitting, watching him do his work, and other times we talk processes on the art he’s working on or some of the business concepts. Sometimes he asks me questions about business things — professional advice.”

After winning the third round of PioBiz, Barnes got an LLC and now has her own business, Art on the Move, which is a traveling art class business.

Jones worked with Zide and Pytlik, focusing on how they have maintained successful businesses for many years and what they do to achieve their goals.

“The means of this project was to help myself as a college student understand the ins and outs of running a business, as well as the steps it takes to get there,” says Jones, who is majoring in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. “I was extremely grateful for the opportunity of working with two entrepreneurs rather than just one.”

Like her fellow Entrepreneurship majors, she wants to have her own business in the future. She holds a great deal of respect and gratitude for Khorassani.

“Professor Khorassani is an amazing woman,” Jones says. “The events and tasks that she puts on for the college are absolutely incredible for one person. Professor Khorassani guided me through this capstone by one-on-ones, emailing, and class sessions. Every other week she would give us the opportunity to tell her how we were feeling about the process of the capstone, being that I was one of the four students in the first graduating class of the entrepreneurship program. There was never a moment where I felt that I was doing this on my own or trying to figure things out for myself. Professor Khorassani was always there and prepared to step in and adjust something.”

Supporting student research

Sitting at a picnic table near the Bartlett porch during a particularly hot day in June, Kennedy Couch ’24 and Dr. Suzanne Parsons checked data on their laptops before heading into a lab in the Rickey Science Center to check on the melanoma cells that Couch grew.

Under the guidance of Parsons, who is a McCoy Associate Professor of Biochemistry, Couch worked for six weeks this summer on her research project, “The Effects on Different Parabens on Cholesterol Levels in Melanoma Cells.” Couch was one of four students selected for the Investigative Studies program, which provides a stipend for students to conduct research or pursue a creative project. Each student is teamed up with a faculty member, who also receives a stipend.

“Some people think you have to go to a big research institution to gain this experience, but Kennedy is conducting research at that level right here at Marietta,” says Parsons, who is the Director of the Investigative Studies Program. She has mentored a student in this program nearly every year since 2013.

Psychology major Olivia Dunlap ’23, who was mentored by Dr. Charles Doan, studied the “Unsupervised Categorization Behavior Among Different Developmental Populations.” Her work examined concept learning in adolescents and how it may be related to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Madeline Kuhl ’23, who is also a Psychology major, teamed up with Dr. Ali Doerflinger for her project, “The Effects of Depression and Anxiety on Ability to Concentrate.” Her volunteer test subjects completed surveys and also underwent an eye-tracking task on a computer. Ashley Manion ’24, who is majoring in Theatre and Music, wrote “A Musical Summer” for her artistic project, which she worked on with Associate Professor Andy Felt. The project involved songwriting and scene writing.

Students interested in the program submit an application package, get a recommendation from their faculty advisor, have an additional faculty reference who can talk about their ability to carry out the project, and also write a proposal that provides background, methodology, current knowledge of the topic, and what they plan to do. Students also write about their expected personal and professional outcomes regarding the project, as well as where they plan to present their research findings or creative project. A faculty committee then chooses the students who can participate in the program. In addition to the stipend, students can live on campus for the duration of their research if they choose.

Parsons is working with the Advancement Office to find support for more students who want to conduct research or pursue creative projects through the Investigative Studies Program. It costs about $5,000 for each student project, but the experiential learning that takes place is priceless.

“This internal opportunity for the summer fellowship is so important,” Parsons says. “If students can get research or a creative project done in between their sophomore and junior year, the world is their oyster. I’ve had students go to national and to regional conferences, and REU fellowships run by research institutes. I firmly believe that the reason they get picked for those experiences is because of the research they’ve done the previous summer. This program sets them up for being accepted into really elite programs — we have one student working with NASA, and a big part of that is because she did the summer fellowship last year.”.”

Dr. Josh Jacobs, Vice President for Advancement agrees.

“Undergraduate summer research with a faculty partner is a wonderful way for students to expand their educational opportunities and prepare for graduate programs and the workforce,” Jacobs says. “In time, we hope to expand this program so every student on campus could compete for a donor-funded summer research project in their department.”

Manion worked with Felt to create “A Musical Summer (An Original Musical Development), which combines both of her majors. Though the project was ambitious, she was confident that her musical would be ready by the Fall Symposium, which is when all Investigative Studies students present their projects to campus.

“I chose this project because I believe that I could make it in this industry with more experience, no matter how slim those chances are,” Manion says. “I want to allow people to invest in what I am creating, whether that's through a monologue I've written or a song that I've worked on. This project is the start of an extremely valuable test-run for me, and that is something that is rare to come by.”

Alpha Xi Delta house

Alpha Xi Delta house back porch fire damage

Alpha Xi house update

Alpha Xi Delta’s sorority house is more than just a building.

This historic site held a certain sense of comfort, enjoyment, and the feeling of home to all of the women who lived there and those who came for dinner, meetings, and even hang-outs.

With 40 members at the time — 15 being seniors — nothing could take away this feeling, until the night of November 9, 2021, when a terrible fire at the back of the house caused damage to the historic building, the women’s possessions, and that special sense of having a second home. After months of transitioning to new rooms, finding new clothes, and catching up on schoolwork, there is much work to be done before the historic house can be fully restored.

Now President of Alpha Xi Delta Lizzie Stern ’23 knows that their sisterhood could not be broken by losing their house. With the help of the panhellenic community, Alpha Xi alumnae, the Marietta community, family, and friends, the sisters of Alpha Xi Delta are more connected and excited to see what the future has in store for them.

“322 Fifth Street was a main source of pride for the Marietta College chapter of Alpha Xi Delta since 1954,” Stern says. “Many classes of sisters have made memories in and loved the home, the residents during the 2021 house fire being no exception. Although it is heartbreaking to see the house in its current condition, Alpha Xi Delta rests assured 322 Fifth Street will be returned to its former historical glory for sisters of the future to enjoy. Alumnae and current sisters of Alpha Xi Delta are so grateful for everyone who has helped us get back to normal after the tragedy of November 2021.”

The Alpha Xi Delta House Corp Board President, Dana Harshbarger ’14, continues to update the members of the community on the restoration of this beautiful, historic home. As of now, the house will be up and running for new sisters to live in by the 2023 fall semester.

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