Students volunteered their help to many local non-profit and service groups present at the 9th Annual Community Volunteer Fair held on Jan. 27 in Plaster Student Union.

About 50 groups representing a myriad of causes set up booths at the event.

Lori Street, representing Ozarks Public Television, said she spoke to around 40 students during the fair about her group.

“We need volunteers primarily to work during pledge drives to answer telephones,” she said, adding that students can also help with bulk mailings to existing donors and other special events as need.

Ozarks Public Television provides PBS content to the Ozarks area and is funded through donations.

Karl Schmidt of the Southwest Missouri Region of the American Heart Association also was pleased with student interest in the volunteer event.

“Students are interested in not only helping us, but the community as a whole,” Schmidt said. The group had signed up six students during the three-hour event.

Schmidt was primarily working to promote the upcoming Heart Walk, held April 10. The five kilometer walk is a national campaign to promote healthy living through exercise. Groups participating gather donations, with the money going towards medical research and educational programs.

“It helps save lives,” Schmidt said.

Tiffany Warriner, representing the Alzheimer’s Association, found that many of the students who visited her group’s booth knew someone who had suffered from the disease and either wanted to help the cause or wanted more information on Alzheimer’s.

“We can always use volunteers and extra help,” Warriner said. About 20 students had signed up for information at her booth.

The event was sponsored by Missouri State’s office of Citizenship and Service-Learning (CASL).

Service-learning links “academics to the community (in order) to develop the skills, sensitivities, and commitments necessary or effective citizenship in a democracy,” according to the CASL website.

More information can be found at www.missouristate.edu/casl.

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Pulitzer Prize winning poet Ted Kooser entertained a crowd of MSU students for an event sponsored by the English Department on April 17.

Kooser, also a two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and Stanley Kunitz Prize winner, read several of his most famous works, while also discussing his life and experiences, before a packed crowd in the Plaster Student Union Theater on Friday evening.

With a soft, but resonant voice, Kooser began with a humorous introduction of himself, in which he recalled the story of a young boy who noted Kooser’s resemblence to a hobbit in a picture from the newspaper, before turning to his poems.

His simplistic works have called forth a generation of memories and vivid images that almost any audience could relate to. Among the many poems he read, a few were “Tattoo,” “Father,” “At the Cancer Clinic,” and “Site.”

The depth of his words captured many in the audience and few appeared disinterested. In the hour that he read, he spoke of death, life, the plains and about several people that influenced his own life in one way or another. He visited an era long forgotten by the fast paced world of today.

After the reading, his books Delights in Shadows, The Poetry Home Repair Manual, and Sure Signs were for sale and a book signing took place.

Prior to the reading, Kooser visited several MSU creative writing poetry classes and gave a question and answer session. For many students, the ending of the poem is the most difficult portion to complete, so one student asked him how he finishes his poems so well.

“My endings are not always deliberate,” he said. “The objective is to set it up, confine the reader, squeeze them in, before letting them go at the end.”

Kooser’s poetry is world-renowned for it’s deft and detailed imagery.

“I have always be known to be a descriptive poet,” he said, “and simplicity is key.”

Kooser mentioned throughout the question and answer session and the reading that he prefers not to write in the first person. He said he despised putting himself too much into his own work.

April 1, 2009, was not a day just for fooling around.

English Society hosted one of its central programs in the Plaster Student Union on April 1, where they served cookies, soda, and delectable information,

Faculty members of the English department and other speakers discussed the possibilities  of what a student can do with an English degree.

A total of six speakers made presentations, kicking off with junior Tyler Snodgrass.

Through poetry and pure humor, he set the ball rolling and entertained the students and faculty that attended.
Tracey Glaessgen, academic advisor at the Advisement Center, followed with a spectacular presentation of her own.

She got to the heart of the issue, directly asking the students why they wanted to be English majors. Many of the answers were vague, like, “I love to read. I love to write. It’s all I can see myself doing.”

Glaessgen challenged the students to think deeper. She said English is a gray major because there are so many channels that one can follow.

She emphasized the critical thinking skills English majors attained through their various literature and writing courses.

Danielle Evans, an instructor for the English department, followed with information about publishing and creative writing. Evans received an M.F.A. in Fiction from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Her short story, “Virgins,” was published in The Best American Short Stories of 2008. She was also published in the Paris Review, Phoebe, Black Renaissance Noire, and the L Magazine. She discussed the ins and outs of publishing, shared her experiences of M.F.A. workshops, and described the sacrifices one must make as a creative writer. Evans also touched on editing and agent opportunities.

Technical writing followed, with a presentation by Lyn Gattis, an assistant professor for the English department. Technical writing was described as the world of writing that’s invisible, but that people see every day.
Technical writers are responsible for the labels on toothpaste, proposals in the corporate world, and all the important stuff people tend to overlook.

Gattis discussed job opportunities that are available to technical writers, and her advice was supported by the speaker that followed.

Robert Blevins, a graduate student at Missouri State University, gave a show and tell presentation of his position in college. “It’s a lot of work. You are reading and writing about twice as much as you did in undergrad,” Blevins said. He discussed the big “GRE” and gave tips to proper preparation for it.

The event ended with an education section by Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, an instructor for the English department teaching professional writing. Her book, A Shout in the Sunshine, was published by the Jewish Publication Society in 2007. Besides discussing the facts of teaching English, she gave advice about what not to do as a graduate student. Ms. Ioannides advocated that, despite everything, English majors should love their jobs. If they don’t, then they’re in the wrong place.

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Last Wednesday’s volunteer fair in the Plaster Student Union hosted over 50 different organizations, all looking for motivated college students just wanting to help out.

With opportunities ranging in focus from dog-lovers to multi-lingual tutoring and bikers for a cause, students with a variety of interests can find a position unique to their desires.

One such opportunity exists at Christian County Animal Shelter.

They are looking for volunteers to do “a multitude of things,” said Lisa Haney, a representative from the shelter.

They need student support to run the thrift store that funds the shelter, to feed and walk the animals at the adoption center opening next month and even transporters to drive animals from one location to another.

“It’s like a dog relay,” Haney said. When dogs need to be transported to a shelter in another city, students can take dogs with them.

Haney described it as “ideal” for college students because they take the dogs on their trips home to see family and drop them off when they arrive.

Haney has worked in animal rescue for over 15 years now, and her reasons for it haven’t faltered. “It’s just saving these dogs that have no chance—that’s the amazing thing,” Haney said.

The shelter has already saved numerous animals that would have otherwise been euthanized because of overpopulation, and they look to expand that success with student volunteers. Check out http://www.cc-as.com to find out how to get involved.

The Literacy Center provides another option for volunteers to choose from, placing students in various elementary school settings in order to help kids with their homework and play games with them during recreation periods.

“These kids will fall in love with you,” W Roy Roworth said. “A lot of these kids, when they go home at night, don’t have anyone to nurture them. . . .Our focus is to get them through school.”

As a friend and a role model for these children, the student volunteers “give them a different perspective,” Roworth said—a different perspective on what they can become. He emphasized how the volunteers, by doing so, become “all the difference in these kids’ lives.”

For students with an interest in multi-lingual volunteer opportunities, many programs need help with their children from backgrounds where parents speak very little English.

The Literacy Center places volunteers in these after-school programs that focus on English as a second language. Roworth can be reached at wroyroworth@missouristate.edu.

Other groups, such as the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, provide short-term volunteer opportunities for students looking to participate in sporadic events. The group hosts various fundraisers throughout the year, two of which are Walk MS and Bike MS.

Walk MS takes place in downtown Springfield with three, six, and nine mile walks. The routes remain completely accessible for wheelchairs and scooters, so all kinds of participants can join. Afterwards comes lunch at Outback Steakhouse, so Heather Hodges, Development Coordinator, encourages all to “come out for a 4-hour shift and have fun.”

Bike MS involves a little more endurance. A two-day ride of 150 miles, the event starts in Springfield as bikers move to Joplin on day one and then ends at the same place when bikers return on day two.

“It’s so much fun,” Hodges said. “It’s a big, big machine once it starts.”

Hodges’ favorite story to tell involves a client with MS who, although he can’t physically walk or ride during the events, never misses his chance to participate.

He makes signs to thank all the volunteers for supporting him, then goes down the line “high-fiving all of them,” Hodges explained. Excitement lit up her face as she recalled the energy he brought to the cause.

Students paraded the different booths during the volunteer fair, scouting out various possibilities that would fit their focus.

As a therapeutic recreation major, junior Carly Scott utilizes volunteer work as a key element in her field.

In the past, she has participated in Champion Athletes and Habitat for Humanity, among various other organizations, but she doesn’t want to stop there. “I’m always trying to look for new places,” she said.

For Mindy Towe, a senior Psychology major at Missouri State, she’s “just now getting started.” Although she’s worked with various agencies in the past, she needs ideas of what to do because of her soon approaching graduation.

She enjoyed the idea of joining the Down Syndrome Group of the Ozarks. “I’m really going to try to get involved with that,” she said.