Philadelphia Zoo internship proves ‘priceless experience’ for Randolph student

Sara Graul ’13 nurtured her love for animals during trips to The Philadelphia Zoo while she was growing up. So when she was given the opportunity to work there, it was too good to pass up.

This summer, Graul interned for the Philadelphia Zoo, the oldest chartered zoo in America. She ran educational stations where she taught zoo guests about conservation while also studying the animals and their habitats.

Sara Graul ’13 worked in education and research programs
in the Philadelphia Zoo this summer.

“This internship was a truly priceless experience that has affected me in a very powerful and positive way,” Graul said. “I have learned how challenging and rewarding it is to be on the front lines of educating people on matters of science and conservation.”

She applied for the position after Doug Shedd, a Randolph biology professor, gave her a list of websites where she could search for summer internships. “I knew that working at a zoo would give me a unique experience getting to work with animals and also closely working with people of all ages in education,” Graul said. “It also would expose me to the entire array of people that make a zoo function.”

She visited Randolph’s Experiential Learning Center for guidance in drafting her resume and application. Shedd provided a recommendation letter, and then Graul snagged the job after a phone interview.

Graul’s responsibilities included education and research. She helped run “exploration stations,” where visitors looked at artifacts and participated in games that taught lessons on conservation. One of the zoo’s major themes this summer was orangutan conservation, so many of her presentations focused on the importance of trees and the effects of palm oil plantations on orangutan habitats.

For the research portion of the internship, Graul was assigned to observe various animals and events to help with ongoing research projects. She also designed her own research, which investigated interactions between the zoo’s male and female rhinoceros hornbills, “Bob” and “Nancy.” She concluded that project with a research paper and three presentations to the public.

Graul said her college studies helped prepare her to get the most out of the internship. “The material that I’ve learned at Randolph allowed me to field questions that many others could not,” Graul said. “I was able to engage in thoughtful discussions with staff concerning important issues facing science today. I also had a solid foundation to start with, allowing me to really take advantage of the knowledge that was given to me at the zoo and also to be confident in teaching others the principles of biology and conservation.”

Nursery School ready for new year, taking applications for limited seats in class

Randolph College Nursery School (RCNS) has been busy this summer. After hosting five week-long summer camps with themes such as science, construction, and camping, the teachers rearranged their classrooms just in time for the school walls to receive a fresh coat of paint.

Now, with a new class of eager learners scheduled for the roster, RCNS is prepared to begin another exciting year of classes on August 20. There is limited space available for students ages three and four.

RCNS uses the High Scope Curriculum, an instruction plan that focuses on child-led, play-based learning. It involves teaching many academic topics and social skills through real-life situations the students approach as they play, explained Holly Layne, director of the school.

The lessons share more than basic reading and math skills. “We teach them how to think critically and how to problem solve with another individual. They learn how to go through the steps of problem solving, brainstorming, and finding a solution. By the time they are in the senior class, they are working problems out on their own.

Enroll Your Child Now

Randolph College Nursery School has limited space available for preschool children. You can apply online.

“It is amazing to see two children work out a problem together,” Layne said.

The school has five teachers, including Layne, and enrolls around 30 students per year, (15 in each class) granting each student a significant amount of individual attention.

“We get to know those children and their families really well. They become our family, and we become part of their families,” Layne said. “We know the kids so well that we are able to really meet their needs.”

Children worked with real tools during a construction-themed
summer camp at Randolph College Nursery School.

The preschool was opened on the College campus 69 years ago. Throughout this year, the school will be preparing to celebrate its 70th school year beginning in 2013. While it is located on the Randolph College campus, and enrolls some children of staff and faculty, RCNS serves mostly students from outside the Randolph community. The school consistently receives a four-star rating from the Virginia Star Quality Initiative.

Layne said the school gains many advantages from being on a college campus. During the fall, students roll in leaves on Randolph’s front lawn or collect leaves and other items from nature. In the spring, they get to see chicken eggs hatch in the Organic Garden. There are many educational opportunities, too.

Earlier this year, a pre-kindergarten student came to Randolph College Nursery School with a seashell collected on a beach vacation. As the class examined the shell, Layne called one of the College’s biology professors, who offered to identify the shell and teach the class more about life in the ocean.

“No other school offers the opportunity to take the children to visit the biology labs on a whim,” Layne said. “I can’t say enough about how unique we are because of the College campus.”

Alumna chosen to moderate presidential debate

The second time that President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney take the stage to debate each other in person, one of our alumnae will take the stage to moderate the forum.

Candy Alt Crowley ’70 will moderate a town hall-style presidential debate on October 16. She will be the first woman to moderate a presidential debate in 20 years.

Crowley is chief political correspondent at CNN and anchor of State of the Union with Candy Crowley. She is no stranger to high profile political figures, covering numerous presidential campaigns and national political conventions.

Here is Crowley’s reaction as she shared it on a CNN blog:

“As someone who is in awe and grateful every day  to be  in a country where freedom of the press, free speech and free elections are a way of life, I am wowed, amazed and excited by the opportunity to moderate a 2012 presidential debate."

Crowley has returned to her alma mater several times to share her experiences with students and the community. She delivered the commencement address at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in 2002. After the 2008 election, she came to Randolph College to share insights about that presidential race.

It will be exciting to watch her play a role in the important process of a presidential debate!

Lyric Opera internship provided great learning experience

Tierney Dickinson ’14 had thought about pursuing a career in arts administration, but she always wondered what the work would be like. This summer, she had the perfect opportunity to find out.

Dickinson interned at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, one of the most popular opera houses in the country. The Donald P. Baiocchi - Lyric Opera internship, which is funded by Amanda Clark Fox ’67 and her husband Matthew Fox, allowed her to participate in the day-to-day operations of an arts organization and see how the efforts of many people fit together.

“My internship was a great introduction to arts administration on the large scale,” Dickinson said.

She applied for the internship through Randolph’s Experiential Learning Center. She didn’t think she would be chosen, but soon after the interview,she was told to make plans for Chicago. “I couldn’t have been more pleased,” she said.

During the 10-week internship, Dickinson helped prepare for two of the Lyric Opera’s biggest fundraisers: Operathon, an all-day radio broadcast, and Fantasy of the Opera, a black-tie gala including a silent auction. She also helped with the administrative tasks of running two of the Opera’s neighborhood chapters and one of the boards in the nonprofit’s regulatory system.

“The people that I worked with were absolutely amazing and extremely supportive,” Dickinson said. “One of my favorite things about the intern program at Lyric was the effort that they put into teaching us how our work affected the big picture of what needed to get done for a successful season.”

Dickinson also joined other interns for weekly meetings with representatives from various departments, who taught them about tasks and responsibilities important in running an arts-centered nonprofit. “It was a great way to learn about how the company ran as a whole and about the different types of people and jobs that go into running a big company,” she said.

Physics research on roller coasters

Tim Slesinger ’14 boarded Dominator, a popular roller coaster at King’s Dominion that reaches nearly 70 miles per hour. Like other riders, he was seeking thrills from the speed, twists, turns, and dives.

Unlike others, he was seeking scientific data.

This year, Slesinger joined an ongoing research project on the physics of roller coasters. Several years ago, Peter Sheldon, a Randolph physics professor, and Kacey Meaker ’08 set out to use scientific equipment to measure the speed, acceleration, and other forces experienced by roller coaster riders. They have been working on a book that uses roller coasters to explain physics to a mass audience.

How does riding a roller coaster connect with scientific
research? Watch this video to learn how a Randolph professor,
student, and graduate explore the physics of roller coasters.

“The project started because I really like roller coasters,” said Meaker, now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkley.

As Dominator shot forward, Slesinger raised his hands in the air and cheered along with other riders. Meanwhile, an iPod Touch in his pocket recorded measurements from its accelerometer, an internal device that detects orientation and motion.

He said that his goal was to find out if the accelerometer could be used to perform inertial navigation—like a four-dimensional GPS that doesn’t need satellites.

Sheldon explained that airplanes and large boats use inertial navigation regularly with the help of expensive equipment that tracks exactly where they are—including latitude, longitude, and elevation—at any given point in time. But that equipment is so expensive that inertial navigation is out of reach for educational applications.

“Physics teachers have, for years, taken their students to ride roller coasters, but they really can’t do a lot of useful measurements,” Sheldon said. “We’re trying to develop a way to do inertial navigation on a small, less expensive scale. We’re trying to develop methods that would allow people to do this in the classroom.”

This summer, the research team rode roller coasters while carrying iPod Touches and gyroscopes as well as real inertial navigation equipment. Slesinger then compared readings from devices to determine whether the data from the accelerometer and gyroscope could map the same travel path recorded by the expensive equipment.

“Mostly, we want to be able to know that we can do inertial navigation with these devices,” Meaker said. Slesinger added that inertial navigation could have many applications in high school and college physics classes if it can be performed with affordable equipment.

The calculations showed that accelerometer data can map out an accurate path with enough computation, but this fall, the project will be continued in hopes of more detailed findings.

The Summer Research project was a good opportunity to learn more about the research process and practice computer programming, Slesinger said. It also strengthened his appreciation for the educational environment at Randolph College. “You really get to know professors here on a personal level,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like college, but it feels like family when you’re learning.”

Meaker agreed with that sentiment. “Every summer I’m lucky enough to get to come back,” she said. “It’s like I’m coming home.”

Preservation and restoration summer programs give student a peek into career possibilities

The past two summers have allowed Monica Varner ’14 to hold history in her hands—and to make sure future generations can do the same.

Varner has traveled twice to Italy to help restore Roman paintings and artifacts. This summer, she spent eight weeks working on conservation on a historic island off the Massachusetts coast. The hands-on experience with archeology and art history opened a new world for her, she said.

Monica Varner ’14, right, spent her summer working on restoration and conservation
projects in Italy and in Massachusetts through programs connected to Randolph.

“There are these fields which I had no idea existed before I came to Randolph,” said Varner, who is from Northern Virginia. “Art history usually consists of sitting in a class and looking at a PowerPoint presentation, but in these programs, I have been fixing art, sorting it, and putting it back together.”

In 2011, she participated in the inaugural Archeological Conservation Institute, a program that the Centro di Conservazione Archeologica (Center for Archaeological Conservation) and the renowned conservationist Roberto Nardi launched in collaboration with Randolph’s classics department. Varner and five other students helped sort through rubble in a Roman villa, relaying a floor mosaic and repairing a fresco painting.

This year, Varner and six other Randolph students participated in the program, continuing the restoration work. Varner took advantage of the College’s RISE program to help pay for the experience this year.

After returning to the United States, Varner traveled to Massachusetts for Preservation Institute: Nantucket. This program run by the University of Florida lets students assist in restoration and preservation projects in one of America’s oldest settlements. This year, Varner and Laura Shearer ’12, a recent Randolph graduate, participated in the institute. Varner’s involvement was funded through an internship provided by A.J. Land and Lynne Coppage Land ’60, who pay for a current Randolph student to attend the program each year.

The RISE program and the alumna-funded preservation internship let Varner pursue interests that might have escaped her otherwise. “I'm so grateful that we have an alumna that is willing to support that scholarship every year, allowing me to come, not worry about paying for it, and be able to learn,” she said.


In the first few weeks in Nantucket, Varner and other students listened to seminars by various scholars, who gave them insight into the activities and goals of professional archeologists and conservationists. Then, Varner was paired with another student for a research project in a historic home.

“Our main goal was to extensively catalog the 54 windows and exterior doors of the Boston-Higginbotham House, which is a 240-year-old home in the historically black area of Nantucket,” Varner said. She and her research partner drew each of the windows and doors, analyzed paint samples, and made recommendations for the home’s restoration and repair.

The Preservation Institute added to the knowledge and experience Varner had gained in Italy and helped her solidify thoughts about her future studies and career. She plans to pursue graduate studies in art history and conservation.

Summer research yields new online English test, insight into college writing preparedness

A rite of passage for most first-year college English students is the traditional test to assess the student’s skills with the language. At the beginning of the semester, students taking the test might read over a collection of sentences and indicate whether each sentence is grammatically correct.

This summer, a Randolph professor and student set out to make a better test for those purposes.

Bunny Goodjohn, director of the writing program, said that the College has been using an online English skills assessment test that was free and worked well—when it worked at all.

“The idea was brilliant, but the execution was patchy,” Goodjohn said. Often, the website that hosted the test stopped working. “So I wanted to see if I could come up with an equivalent that would give us the same results but that would be more reliable, and something that we could tailor to our own needs.”

Goodjohn and Lauren Dowdle ’13 decided to work on the idea during the Summer Research Program.

As part of their research, Dowdle studied trends in students’ preparation for college-level English courses. She collected journal articles about the topic, and she also analyzed statistics about SAT scores.

Average SAT scores have usually risen in recent years, but Dowdle discovered that a high SAT verbal score does not always mean someone can write at the college level. Through further research, including more than 30 interviews, she learned that many students feel like high school writing courses did not prepare them for what college courses required. “Many students aren’t prepared for the expectations of their professors,” she said. “In high school, grammar is not covered as much. I heard that a lot in my interviews.”

Goodjohn said that Dowdle’s research shows a disconnect between what high schools prepare students for and what college professors expect.

Goodjohn focused her research on finding a way to recreate an online English assessment test. With help from Randolph College Information Technology, she found a way to administer the test online with SurveyMonkey.com. That platform has proven more reliable, she said.

Several Randolph English professors plan to start using Goodjohn’s assessment test this fall. Currently, the test uses the same questions as the free test formerly used by the College, but Goodjohn plans to rewrite them so that each sentence related to Randolph College, reflecting the College’s culture, history, and traditions.