High School Guidance Counselor Podcast #2

Welcome to the second in a series of podcasts by CCSJ for Calumet region high school guidance counselors. Click on the arrow below to listen.

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Swing into Spring with First Tee

There is a unique opportunity available to all CCSJ students to volunteer in one of the fastest growing non-profit programs in the country. The First Tee of Hammond has been introducing the game of golf to kids (6 to 17) in Northwest Indiana for the past ten years. Located just a mile and a half south of campus at Lost Marsh golf club the First Tee offers its participants a 9 hole golf course, putting greens, and a driving range. Along with the chance to learn the game the First Tee also educates its students through a Life Skills experience program that promotes character development and the values taken from golf and crossing them over to everyday life.

Each year the First Tee is actively seeking members from the community to donate time to help shape young lives. Barry C. Tyler, the Executive Director says, “We are currently working diligently in order to improve our level of outreach along with our quality of programming. This will definitely be a big year for us as far as community involvement and without volunteers we will not be able to reach our full potential.” Here at CCSJ we strive to educate our students and staff members alike to find ways to serve in our local community. There is no time commitment whatsoever and oftentimes volunteers leave feeling like they received more than they gave. This is a great way to give back even if it is only a few hours a week. This also would be an asset to add to a potential resume in the future.

The First Tee program begins the first week of May and runs through the middle of October. If you are interested in learning more about the First Tee or would like to apply to be a volunteer you can reach their offices at:
Hammond Youth Golf Academy at Lost Marsh
901 129th Street
Hammond, IN 46320
http://www.thefirstteehammond.org
Barry Tyler Jr., Executive Director
BarryTyler@thefirstteehammond.org
(219) 932-4653

Seth Frank - CCSJ Financial Aid Counselor

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Beyond our Borders

Attending a Catholic College such as CCSJ is a way to open your eyes to international events and to cultures other than your own. All students at CCSJ, in fact, will take Global Studies courses as part of their general education curriculum. CCSJ annual learning trips to Guatemala and Canada are open to all students. Student groups such as Los Amigos and the Black Student Union promote the exploration of non-white cultures. With this in mind, I recently traveled to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. As the son of a Chilean mother and a father who was a Director of the Peace Corps in Honduras, I have been blessed with international influences from my infancy. After graduation from college, I taught English as a Second Language both in my mother’s native country and later in Spain. During this time period, I was also fortunate enough to be able to travel through Mexico and Central America. Most importantly, I learned Spanish through this process.


My knowledge of Spanish has allowed me to learn a great deal from the residents of the countries in Latin America in which I have traveled. One of these conversations follows. While walking the main street in the old center of Managua, Nicaragua during my recent trip, I came across a sort of improvised shantytown built in what was clearly meant to be a city park. I was curious as to how this had come about. I stopped to speak with the children of a family who lived in one of the “houses.” The shelter consisted of a tarp strung over wooden posts (tree branches) pounded into the ground (see the photo above). The kids did not know why they were there. When I asked about their sleeping arrangements, they explained that the 12 members of the family who inhabited the space all slept on the ground. “On the dirt?!” I asked. “No. On pieces of cardboard,” the older of the children explained to me. Further up the street, I came across an elderly woman who was washing clothes in a basin between two more of the temporary shelters. I asked her why the shantytown had been constructed in the park. She explained that the residents had built the shantytown in protest. It turns out that the shantytown residents had worked previously in the banana industry in Chinandega Department, Nicaragua whose production had caused the workers serious health problems. The factory had been run by an American-Nicaraguan consortium. The workers demanded from the consortium compensation for their health problems. The consortium refused, and the Nicaragua government did nothing to help the workers’ plight, according to the elderly woman. As a protest, the workers had moved to Managua and taken up residence in the park. I admired the will of the factory workers and their determination to attain justice. I wished the woman well.

There were a number of encouraging signs that the region is progressing in positive ways, as well. I visited San Juan del Sur Nicaragua on my trip, a town that I had visited back in the mid- 80’s. Two decades ago, San Juan del Sur was nearly a ghost town. There was a single hotel in San Juan del Sur at the time, despite the fact that the town was adjacent to a beautiful beach. Running a fever at the time, there were no antibiotics available in the pharmacy. San Juan del Sur is now a thriving beach town with plenty of tourists both from abroad and from within Nicaragua. Open air restaurants line the beach. Clearly, tourism has proved a boon to the local economy. It remains to be seen whether the town becomes overdeveloped and loses its local charm.

While in Costa Rica, I learned that there was a very strong support system for both health insurance and retirement in that country. The taxi driver who took me back to the airport on my last day in San Jose told me that even he had been required to contribute. As a result, he was planning on living a fairly comfortable retirement within a few years. I was very impressed that a “third world” country such as Costa Rica had peacefully gone about creating a health and retirement system that appeared to be serving its population in very positive ways.

Though my trip to Costa Rica-Nicaragua had lasted just 8 days, I felt immensely wiser upon returning to my position at CCSJ. You can learn a lot from people and places that are forgotten by the glamorizing effects of mass media. Education is indeed a lifelong experience.


CW


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CCSJ Athletics Keeps Growing

New for the 2009-2010 academic year at CCSJ are NAIA level sport's in wrestling for men and competitive dance for women. This will bring to 19 the total number of intercollegiate sports offered at CCSJ. Having grown up in Iowa City Iowa, I learned first hand about the excitement that a competitive wrestling team can bring to a collegiate institution. My alma mater, the University of Iowa, has produced 21 national championship NCAA wrestling teams. It was not unusual for Carver-Hawkeye arena to be packed with upwards of 17,000 screaming fans for big matches against such arch rivals as Iowa State and Oklahoma. We're looking forward to CCSJ's wrestling team creating a similar level of intensity on our home campus.

"It is our goal in the first year to bring in 20 wrestlers minimum (2 per weight class). There could be a good opportunity of exceeding this goal based on the response of having this program and the fact that we are the only NAIA school in Indiana to have the sport," states Peter Haring, CCSJ Athletics Director. The 20 wrestlers would give CCSJ two in each of the ten weight classes.

Competitive dance should also have an immediate impact this fall at CCSJ. "The first year target for dancing will be 12-15," states Haring. "That is average for those schools who offer competitive dance as a sport. The nice things about dance is that the roster could get up to 20-24 and there would not be a big conflict over participation time because they all would be actively dancing. Competitive dance will be a unique sport that will show our diversity as an athletic department. The team that will be organized will have the opportunity to add to the spirit and entertainment of our home sports while also getting the chance to train and compete for national recognition.”

With the new CCSJ Athletics-Community Center set to open in June of this year, the College will be set to confirm its title as the leader in intercollegiate sports in the Calumet region.


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