Plymouth State University hosted a community-wide event to promote collective well-being on October 24, featuring Scarlett Lewis, founder of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement. An opening presentation in the Hanaway Theatre was followed by an afternoon of family-friendly activities on Alumni Green.

Scarlett Lewis founded the Choose Love Movement after her six-year-old son, Jesse, was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012. Motivated to research forms of compassion and teach the world how to avoid similar future tragedies, Lewis found that love, connection, and belonging are universal wants and needs that connect us all. Today, the movement has programs that have been accessed in all 50 states and in 111 countries.

The University will be focusing its efforts on integrated prevention and clinical intervention and evidence-based treatment for at-risk children, adolescents and transitional-age youth (18-25 years), with a special emphasis on meeting the needs of those at risk for mental illness, substance use, intimate partner violence and suicide, and those least likely to seek continuous help. The funds will also be used to focus on New Hampshire’s opioid crisis and post-pandemic behavioral health needs.

Plymouth State University has been awarded a $208,445 grant from NASA’s Science Activation Program to study the atmospheric impact of solar eclipses.

The “Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project” is being championed by researchers at Montana State University and will result in the largest volume of atmospheric data ever collected during a solar eclipse. Eric Kelsey, a research associate professor at PSU, will serve as a ‘Pod Lead’ for the project, training students and researchers throughout the region to launch weather balloons during the October 2023 and April 2024 solar eclipses and study the atmosphere’s response to a sudden pause in solar energy.

“PSU’s Integrated Clusters learning model emphasizes the interconnectedness of traditional industries in today’s society, and this new position reinforces that model by supporting an interdisciplinary inquiry into functional meteorology,” said PSU Interim Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Ann McClellan. “The recipient of this endowed position will enrich the experience of PSU students and faculty in majors outside of meteorology by sharing his or her research with our community on an annual basis.”

“Once fall sports were in full effect, the field was used daily for up to 70 hours a week,” says Associate Director of Athletics Courtney O’Clair. Teams that took advantage this fall included Field Hockey, Football, and the Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse, Soccer, and Track and Field teams.

Strength and Conditioning coaches have made use of the turf field for training opportunities, Campus Recreation uses the site for intramural and club sports, and the Health and Human Enrichment academic programs frequently utilize the field for classes.

In a recent examination of Shakespeare’s 1603 tragedy, Othello, Helms’s students read aloud from the Folger Shakespeare Library, an online compendium of the playwright’s works. The free, full-text resource is in keeping with Cluster Learning’s emphasis on Open Educational Resources, and rather than strictly following the traditional analytical canon, students’ voices and their projects become central to the ongoing story of the course.

Teaching Lecturer Megan Heidenreich is now in her third year of running a TWP course concerned with one of life’s essentials: drinkable water. Her class includes students from a variety of disciplines, which Heidenreich encourages classmates to work across. Students combine their creativity to make a difference through team projects.

Creating and promoting events requires knowledge of branding, target market analysis, project management, promotion, and more. Students learn and apply these concepts through the implementation of large-scale events on campus, which in previous years have included rail jams, chili cook-offs, and career fairs.

Goode specializes in early and nineteenth-century American literature, sustainability studies, transnational American studies, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She had previous experience in teaching literature-based courses on food and environmentalism, but what makes the INCAPS unique is their foundation in Cluster Learning.

The basis of Cluster Learning Springboard is both to be a Cluster Learning course in practice and also to help students think about what Cluster Learning means. Students design most of the course work, both individually and in groups.

Its genesis stems from Plymouth State University’s popular interdisciplinary studies (IDS) major, which is consistently named one of the top programs of its kind nationwide. IDS students use their intellectual curiosity, imagination, energy, and passion to design customized studies that fulfill eclectic academic interests and which move them toward successful careers. The content of Cluster Learning Springboard, previously required of IDS majors as part of a three-credit course that occasionally drew curious non-IDS participants, has been reformulated as a two-credit course to attract more diverse participation.

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Chandler is also speaker of the Student Government Association and has been running meetings remotely via Zoom while deployed, despite the seven-hour time difference. He previously served as vice president of the student body and as student trustee to the University System of New Hampshire Board of Trustees. His busy life fits together in a life of service to the nation, central New Hampshire, and the Plymouth State community, and in his career goal of becoming a physician assistant.

“I realized that a better way to understand what was going in and out of the pantry could help us better predict what was needed,” says Griffin. “Then we could be more proactive in asking for donations.”

“She asked me to sing a song,” Nguyen recalls. “She said, ‘I will close my eyes. You can do any song. I’ll turn away and just listen.’” The compassionate prompting made all the difference. “She helped me to open up and try something new,” Nguyen says. “I wasn’t so scared to make a mistake. That’s an opportunity. We can learn and grow from that.”

Plaza is a libero, a back-row defensive specialist who wears a different color jersey then other team members and never serves or rotates to the front line. She’s made a new home for herself, with a new team and new school, in a quite different part of the country.

Simeti is a health educator with Communities for Alcohol and Drug-Free Youth (CADY), a regional nonprofit devoted to preventing and reducing youth substance misuse. He will be involved in many different programs involving direct work with youth, including community-based projects, after-school programs, and in-school educational workshops. From CADY’s base in Plymouth alongside the PSU campus, he will be going into area middle and high schools, primarily in Campton, Holderness, Plymouth, and Rumney.

School was not an option for Kabari until he was 16 and after his family had immigrated to the United States in 1998, settling in Manchester, NH. The focus of his high school experience, though, was learning how to speak English, and his academic scores were significantly lower than he needed for college entrance. He worked an assortment of odd jobs, including training athletes at a YMCA. This sparked a desire for a college degree in exercise physiology, and Kabari’s relentless persistence was engaged.

Howard’s willingness to take a stand against society’s shortcomings began early on, and as a teenager she journeyed to Louisville, KY, to work on civil rights issues. She recently reconnected with Louisville through a podcast segment in a conversation with the director of Speed Art Museum focused on “Promise Witness Remembrance,” an exhibition dedicated to the life of Breonna Taylor, and the protests and conversation around racism, violence, and policing that ensued following her killing.

The Priscilla and Mario Semprini Portsmouth High School Endowed Scholarship Fund honors the brothers’ late parents, “…two beautiful people who I feel could have served as ambassadors for the Greatest Generation,” says Kevin Semprini. “They were very hardworking people who didn’t have an opportunity to attend college. However, they were committed to saving so their sons could attend if they chose to.”

Esther “Estie” Ott ’93, ’01G and Tim Allison and were married on June 26, 2021, in Durham, NH.

Brad Faria ’02 and Jeanne (Gilligan) Faria (attended 1996-97) were married on June 4, 2021.

Lindsey (Paynter) Carroll ’11 and Eric Carroll were married on May 22, 2021.

Lexi Casale Keenan ’13 and Aaron Keenan were married on October 9, 2021, at the Common Man Inn in Claremont, NH.

Lauren Salmon ’14 and Adam Nassaf ’14 were married on November 5, 2021, in Captiva, FL.

Rachel Pantazis ’15 and Andrew Burton Kelley ’15 on December 23, 2020.

Miranda (Beaudry) McAlister ’16 and Dakota McAlister were married on July 10, 2021, in Irasburg, VT, at the Creek Hill Barn.

Emily (Benton) Gaudion ’19G and Tim Gaudion were married on October 16, 2021, at the Margate Resort in Laconia, NH.

Wes Roy ’02 and his wife Rachael welcomed daughter Harriet M. Roy on September 21, 2021. Harriet joins big brothers Oliver and Max.

Kristen (Michaud) Gonzalez ’05 and David Gonzalez welcomed daughter Addison Harper Gonzalez on October 10, 2021.

Ashley (Breen) Snow ’09 and Jameson Snow ’10 welcomed Lyla Loretta Snow on July 31, 2021.

Erin Maggio (Norris) ’12 and Matthew Maggio welcomed their first child, a daughter, Madeline Terese Maggio, on June 12, 2021, in Ithaca, NY.

Dorothy (Haycook) Shackelford ’13 and Austin Shackelford ’13 welcomed their son, Daniel Nathan Shackelford, on April 19, 2021. Daniel joins big brother Samuel.

Nicole (Vermette) Anser ’15 and Jesse Anser ’15 married on August 1, 2020. They welcomed daughter, McKinley Josephine Anser, on June 29, 2021.