Ten ��ݮ���� students are gaining professional experience this fall at the Washington Community Scholars’ Center (WCSC). They represent nine different majors, showing the range of placement possibilities available through the program. The diversity includes four computer science majors (with two also double majoring in math), two history and social science majors, one social work major, one liberal arts major, one digital media major, and one peacebuilding and development major.

The center, located in the nation’s capital since 1976, is a program of ��ݮ����.

The semester-long experience is also a community-building endeavor, with students living together in the Nelson Good House in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, DC. This semester’s placements include several organizations that are long-time hosts of EMU students, highlighting WCSC’s deep ties within the region. Many alumni can trace their careers back to a pivotal experience at WCSC. 

Read more about WCSC success! Nursing major Ashlyn Eby talks about personal growth and learning from her internship. Grads Tessa Waidelich and Terry Jones find full-time work after their internships.

Read on to learn more about the students, their placements and the organizations they are involved with. 

Zyeasha Ba, a peace and development major from Stafford, Virginia, is with the peace education program . She helps to lead discussions about conflict resolution with elementary school age children and men experiencing homelessness.

Seth Andreas, a math and computer science major from Bluffton, Ohio, is doing a variety of tasks at , from scripting to 3D modeling, in the realm of virtual reality game development.

KC Argueta-Rivas, a social work major from Springfield, Virginia, works with case managers at providing legal services and social services to clients.

Cor’Shauna Cunningham, a liberal arts major and psychology minor from Brooklyn, New York, is with , an addiction treatment center.

Mykenzie Davis, a digital media and communications major from Lititz, Pennsylvania, is with , where she is filming and editing videos for clients and enhancing her portfolio for post-graduation job search.

Natalia Hernandez, a computer science major from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, is with , where she is implementing malware detection software. She was recently offered a position as a service desk engineer at the same organization.

Anya Kauffman, a history and social science major from Goshen, Indiana, is interning at the criminal defense law firm, . “I help two legal assistants with tasks including requesting accident reports from the police department, scheduling hearings at the DMV, checking for court dates or case numbers. I think the most significant learning experience will be working in a fast-paced law firm, understanding the ins and outs of a criminal defense firm, and learning the process of a criminal legal case.”

Tace Martin, a history and social science major from Eugene, Oregon, is with . The site was one of the first public schools for African American children in the United States, and currently houses a museum, a research room, art exhibits, and the archives of the District of Columbia Public Schools. He is documenting and rehousing collections related to the school itself, as well as “pulling collections for upcoming scholarly visits.” Martin is also contributing to the site’s draft application to be listed on the National Park Service Register of Historic Places.

Joey Sun, a computer science major from Shenyang, China, is with the . His role consists of providing technical support to all Smithsonian employees regarding verification issues, technology assistance, and moderating access to special documents. He is learning to navigate the user interface and software the OCIO uses to support the entire Smithsonian network.

Noah Swartzentruber, a math and computer science major from Lancaster, Pa., is working on projects for the Smithsonian National Zoo’s website and collaborating on a web-based tool for zookeeping staff.

Summer 2022 placements included:

• A physical therapy practice
• Mennonite Central Committee’s National Justice and Peace Ministries office 
• Community of Hope, a community health clinic that provides quality healthcare and housing to families 
• Covenant House, an organization that provides educational programs, job training and placement, medical services, mental health and substance use counseling, legal aid and beyond to homeless youth
• St. Anthony Catholic School, gaining experience working with children and observing different teaching styles
• Washington Digital Media, making business cards and several other templates.
• Bread for the City’s primary care clinic in a Spanish-language setting
• Anacostia Watershed Society with their adult education classes, tree surveying, invasive species removal, wetland planting, and boat tours on the Anacostia River
• Keegan Theater
• Girls on the Run DC
• Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development, which fosters just and equitable community development solutions that address the needs and aspirations of low- and moderate-income district residents.

Jamie Reich, WCSC’s associate director of communications and retention, contributed to this article.

After spending last summer interning at a health clinic in Washington DC, nursing major Ashlyn Eby returned to her senior year studies at ��ݮ���� with some valuable field experience and a more realistic picture of the healthcare world.

Eby says getting out of the classroom and into the real world to interact with patients of all ages and backgrounds, including marginalized populations, has led her to a better understanding of the many factors involved in providing quality care.

To gain this experience, Eby enrolled in ���ѱ�’s Washington Community Scholars’ Center, a program that offers professional internships and a community living experience located in the nation’s capital. She interned with Community of Hope, a community health clinic that provides quality healthcare and housing to families. Eby was on two interdisciplinary teams with goals of reducing uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension in the population they serve.

“WCSC’s program has enabled our nursing students to gain experience in the health care field that significantly broadens their perspective and prepares them for the workforce,” said Professor Melody Cash, undergraduate nursing program director. “Our students return with increased confidence, increased skills, and practical knowledge gleaned from interacting with colleagues in the field.”

Internships such as those offered through WCSC also provide nursing students with valuable professional references when they begin job hunting, Cash added. “These experiences always provide opportunities to not only show capacity for but also grow in professional communication, teamwork, collaboration and organizational skills.”

Nursing, pre-med and other pre-professional health sciences majors have great opportunities in Washington D.C. to find rewarding and challenging internships, says program director Professor Ryan Good. 

WCSC programs run in the fall and spring semesters. Participation fulfills ���ѱ�’s intercultural requirement. Typically a semester experience fits best in the spring of sophomore year prior to beginning the clinical level of the program, Cash said. 

Other options for nursing students include participating in the summer between junior and senior year. The program has a strong reputation for placing students in internships that often lead to full-time job offers after graduation.

Read more about successful students who were offered full-time employment after graduation (two computer science grads were just the latest: Tessa Waidelich ’21 and Terry Jones ’21).

Learn more about summer 2022 internship placements here.

Below Eby shares more about her summer at WCSC with , a nonprofit organization dedicated towards improving health and ending family homelessness to make Washington, DC more equitable.

What is a highlight of your internship? 

The highlight of my internship was being on interdisciplinary CARE teams at Community of Hope. Because of the explosion of medical TV shows in the past ten years, there is a picture of how medicine works that is broadcasted by these shows. A clear hierarchy where doctors are on top of the rest of the staff is included in the show, they are seen as less than or as if they must take the doctor’s word as gospel. In this CARE team I saw a nurse taking the role of leadership, medical assistants not only being valued for the work they did, but given support with their work. Providers were willing to do non-traditional tasks to help the group and balance the workload, and everyone was truly appreciated for the contributions they make to the healthcare process beyond typical diagnosing and treating. 

What skills will you take with you? 

I was able to grow my critical thinking skills and grasp of the nursing process in the context of long-term care and care over a lifetime, in comparison to the nursing process of short-term acute care we develop during clinical experiences. I was able to use the nursing lens and truly appreciate all of the factors of daily life that impact a person’s health and how socioeconomic status and healthcare infrastructures can create significant barriers to health. 

What have you learned about yourself? 

I learned I am very passionate about equal healthcare access and the ways in which our system needs to be changed to catch up with the rest of the world.

How does this build on your nursing coursework and experiences? 

I was able to see a different side of nursing than we learn about at school. In nursing school, you get to learn the “cool” side of nursing (NG placement, venipuncture, medication administration) but at Community of Hope, I was able to learn about how nurses take leadership and managerial roles in the primary care setting. Nurses at Community of Hope are responsible for providing education and higher-level nursing care to the entire population of the site, from newborns to elder populations. I also learned about government and private funding and grants and how nurses can be responsible for making sure their clinics are funded.

If you could change something about healthcare, what would you change?

I would change the businesslike model of hospitals and the influence insurance companies are allowed to have over healthcare providers and their patients. 

What do you think other nursing students or future medical professionals could learn from working in a community health center? 

I think all healthcare students should volunteer in the community health setting for one semester. Working in this setting allows you to understand what these populations are fighting against to improve their health and all of the cards stacked against them in our current system. The populations you are working with are also typically stigmatized in the media for their health struggles and working in a community health setting allows you to see how these individuals ended up in these situations.

Jamie Reich, WCSC associate director of communications and recruitment, contributed to this article.

This semester’s Suter Science Seminar lineup at ��ݮ���� include professionals working in disease ecology, behavioral health and crisis services, animal health, and biology.

The events will be held in Swartzendruber Hall of the Suter Science Center, and will be livestreamed for the off-campus community on the . [You do not need to be a member of Facebook to view the livestream.]

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 4 p.m. “Emerging Vector-borne Disease in the Commonwealth” with Dr. Gillian Eastwood, assistant professor of vector-borne disease ecology in the Department of Entomology at Virginia Tech.

Saturday, Oct. 8, 10 a.m. “Building-up the Behavioral Health System in a Time of Crisis: Opportunities and Challenges” with Dr. Rolando L. Santiago, chief of behavioral health and crisis services for the Department of Health and Human Services in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Wednesday, Nov. 9, 4 p.m. “Count Up: My Reflections on Science, Industry, and Life…” with Raul E. Diaz Lugo, global quality lead for Merck, Animal Health North America.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, 4 p.m. “Characterization of Sensory Driven Intrinsic Iris Constriction in Mammals” Dr. Marquis Walker, assistant professor of biology at James Madison University.

The lectures are made possible by the sponsorship of the Daniel B. Suter Endowment in Biology and the co-sponsorship of supporting programs. 

Named in honor of long-time EMU biology professor, Daniel B. Suter (1920-2006), the Endowment in Biology was established in 1986 through the generous donations of alumni and friends and currently consists of over $1 million of invested funds. EMU hopes to double the Suter Endowment in order to more adequately support distinguished faculty and to increase scholarship aid to deserving students.

EMU’s 2022 alumni awards will be presented at the Oct. 7-9 Homecoming and Family Weekend celebration.

Recipients include Amy Rosenberger ’86 and Camila Pandolfi ’12.

Dr. Joseph Gascho ‘68 – cardiologist, poet, author, photographer and professor – is the recipient of ���ѱ�’s 2022 Distinguished Service Award.

Gascho was a professor at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center at Pennsylvania State University and director of the Penn State Cardiology Fellowship Program for 25 years. His research has been funded by the National Institute of Health and has been documented in approximately 60 peer-reviewed and published papers. Gascho began exploring themes of medicine and his profession through the media of photography and poetry about 20 years ago. 

“Penn State Hershey was the first medical school in the US to have a humanities department,” he said. “I didn’t realize that humanities emphasis when I came there, but it was there and changed my life.”

That same university honored his unique healing capacities and relationships with patients, families, and healthcare colleagues with the 2018 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award. 

Now recently retired, Gascho has by no means stopped working. “I have a lot of projects in the works,” he said. His collected works include five books of poetry, photography and memoir; his latest is Heart & Soul: A Cardiologist’s Life in Verse. (Learn more about Gascho’s arts and collected works at .)

Throughout his life, Gascho has been guided by his Anabaptist heritage. Psalm 16:6 —  The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places; Surely I have had a good inheritance — speaks to “how fortunate I’ve been,” he said.

Support from others

How did a Mennonite farm boy from Nebraska, educated in a one-room school, carve out an impressive medical career and his award-winning arts? There is no doubt Gascho worked hard for his success, but he acknowledges  many people have made a tremendous contribution towards his accomplishments… beginning with his parents.

Gascho’s father moved the family from Nebraska to Virginia when his son was 13 so he could attend Eastern Mennonite High School. “He left behind a life as a respected pastor. He left behind precious family,” Gascho said. His father worked at EMC as a watchman and maintenance person for 75 cents an hour. (Years later, he would honor his father with a featuring Hershey Medical Center support staff, including a maintenance worker, a painter, a shuttle bus driver and others.)

His mother also influenced Gascho with her interest in photography and writing and being “ambitious for me,” he said. “I’d probably not have gone into medicine without her.”  Gascho earned his MD from the University of Virginia and completed postdoctoral training there  as well as at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

He also credits his wife, Barbara Sue Brunk, a registered nurse and chaplain, as “someone without whom I’d have never made it,” Gascho said. “She’s the person who has held our family together through the hassles of a physician’s sometimes wild life.” The couple have two adult children — Joseph Gascho ‘95, a harpsichordist and music professor at University of Michigan, and Susan Gascho-Cooke ‘97, a musician and pastor at Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster — and four grandchildren.

Roots and influences

Gascho cites significant events that pointed towards a career in science and supported his interest in photography and poetry.

His time as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War is an example. He describes his experience as being a “human guinea pig…probably not the wisest thing I did.” In a NASA-sponsored project, Gascho endured two cardiac catheterizations, rides on a human centrifuge, 19 complete days of bed rest (which included bedpans and urinals), numerous blood draws and stringent diets. He was so hungry he remembers sneaking into the kitchen and eating “mustard off of a knife.” However, it showed him what medicine was like from the point of view of a patient. “Overall, a defining experience in my life… I knew despite it that I wanted to be a doctor, I could empathize with my patients, tell them I’ve had a heart cath myself.”

Gascho also counts his mentors as part of his good fortune. One significant influence guided him in “the decision to go into academic medicine rather than private practice.” His time as a professor at Penn State Hershey Medical Center exposed him to the strong humanities program. Another mentor with a degree in literature recognized Gascho’s talents as a poet and took the time to “encourage me, push me, critique me in a way that was helpful.”

Changes

Gashco’s intersecting work in medicine and the arts continued to evolve. Mid-career, he changed from specializing in cardiac catheterizations to reading echocardiograms. Learning a new skill set later in life was an “onerous process,” he said. “But the concept of echo … the seeing of heart structures and its broader concept… for me, looking at the image that I will photograph or write a poem about and then bringing that image to life as a photograph or a poem has been very important to me.”

A poignant example is the poem “To Myself” from his book Heart & Soul: A Cardiologist’s Life.

TO MYSELF

You gaze upon the image on the monitor

Made up of bits of sound that bounce from probe

Through skin to heart then back again

And think it shows what broke your heart.

I only wish there was a tool

I could use on me not you

To look inside not heart but soul

so I could know for what it yearns

so I could learn to make it whole.

Integrating photography

Gascho describes several experiences in 2003 as “one of those serendipitous, unbelievable kind of ‘the-constellations-coming-together-in-a-wonderful-way.’” The gift of a Nikon digital camera inspired participation in  a workshop on expressing spirituality through digital photography At the same time, he was studying the contemplative writings of Trappist monk Thomas Merton. He came to understand that the creative side of his brain “was good and it pushed me in the direction of using my interest in photography and budding interest in poetry with fervor and without apology,” Gascho said. His initial project of his patients’ portraits came to fruition because of that workshop. “I worried the flame would die, but it has sustained me now for 19 years.”

Gascho’s 2022 essay “” encapsulates his seamless weaving of science and photography into a congruent whole, telling a more complete story of human life. Penn State houses — patients enjoying their favorite pastimes, doctors in settings outside the hospital context, and ancillary staff dressed to the nines with their tools, such as a mop, wrench, or clipboard. Such employees “are indispensable to a hospital’s functioning,” Gascho wrote in the exhibit abstract. “These unique displays of portrait photographs decrease stress and distress in a hospital environment and humanize both patients and health care workers.”

An epiphany

Growing up in a conservative church, Gascho was taught that God was a redeemer God. “That impacted me greatly, even into mid-career and church work.” Acting as an agent of God to “redeem” and extend God’s holistic peace was his highest priority. 

“My epiphany,”he says,”was that God is also sustainer and creator.” The whole of his work, in medicine, poetry, and photography, then, “is doing God’s work,” he said. “My epiphany about God has been very important and crucial to me.”

Gascho’s devotion to his faith, and dedication to bring that to his work as a cardiologist, photographer and poet is reflected in the words of Albert Einstein, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mystical. It is the fundamental experience which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”

Lauren Jefferson contributed to this article. First published 8/15/22.

Two new majors at ��ݮ���� will prepare students for careers in the thriving and expanding fields of business analytics and public health. 

Business analytics sees expansive growth

This new Bachelor of Science degree within ���ѱ�’s Business and Leadership Program combines elements of the current business administration major and a recently-approved data analytics minor within the Mathematics and Computer Science Program. The program launches in fall 2022.

Business analytics uses data and statistics to help businesses improve their performance and make efficient and forward-thinking decisions. Analysts use a variety of techniques, tools, and technologies to gather and examine data, create models, and make and implement recommendations. 

“Business analysts are in high demand for positions that offer excellent salaries and job security,” said Professor Jim Leaman, program director. “This is a new and expanding subfield of the broader business world, which means graduates of our program will have lots of job options.”

Business analysts work in an interdisciplinary role to communicate and exchange information between data technicians and executives and clients, he said. Coursework aims to prepare students to bridge the gap between technical knowledge and problem solving in business contexts. 

The program includes overlap of courses required for the data analytics minor, Leaman said. “Adding just one class gives you a minor and additional expertise.”

Public Health

���ѱ�’s public health major builds on the strong reputation of the undergraduate pre-med, nursing and STEM majors, as well as the MS in Biomedicine program. Coursework is wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, building strong foundational knowledge with research and communications skills and intercultural competency. The interdisciplinary nature of the field allows for integration across the fields of biology, pre-med and nursing, social sciences, statistics, and global development. 

Beth Good, professor of nursing, has worked in public health in many countries. She holds a doctorate in nursing science and research and a Master of Public Health Nursing degree, and will be teaching some of the courses in the program. 

Read more about EMU’s community health course and its project-oriented learning experience.

“The past couple of years have highlighted for the U.S. and the world the importance of a strong public health workforce,” Good said. “Employers are recognizing that graduates of undergraduate public health programs have a solid foundation in a broad range of skills and knowledge and there is an increasing interest to businesses and non-profit sectors engaged in education, civic affairs, international development and health-related activities.”

Students can choose to follow one of two tracks: environmental health, which taps into EMU’s strong environmental science program, and computer programming or data analytics, to help students develop data science competencies.

The first introductory course begins in spring 2023, with the program officially launching in fall 2023. If interested, incoming students in fall 2022 will be able to take required courses to prepare them to transition into a public health major in fall 2023.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for skilled public health professionals. A variety of career opportunities include health education, research, environmental health, journalism, community development and policy work.

Read more