Being a student athlete defines the Wilkes experience for generations of University alumni. This year’s The 2018 inductees to the Athletics Hall of Fame reflect on their most memorable moments and the lessons learned on the playing field that they’ve applied to life after Wilkes.
The Gateway to the Future Campaign continues its goal of enhancing Wilkes University “brick by brick” with a project launching this summer at the Ralston Athletic Complex.
A multi-use field is planned that will transform the experience of student athletes with improved playing fields that will allow better scheduling of games and practices. It also will provide playing surfaces that will be better able to withstand the kind of weather that often accompanies a soggy spring in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Continue readingBy Koren Wetmore
Ruth McDermott-Levy ’82 arrived in Finland in summer 2018 during the third heatwave in what would become the nation’s hottest year on record. Finland’s average temperatures have already rose 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures — exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius maximum set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and double that of the rest of the globe.
Continue readingBy Vicki Mayk MFA ’13
When Amanda Schall ’17 graduated from Wilkes, she received a present from Jeff Stratford, associate professor of biology.
It was a machete engraved with the Wilkes logo, Schall’s name and the words “Stratford Lab Legends.” The memento commemorated the four years she spent as a student researcher in his lab. Stratford, who is an ornithologist, is assisted by students as he studies environmental impacts on bird populations, food webs and other ecology-related topics.
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At the start of the fall 2018 semester, students returned to a dramatically different Wilkes campus. Pictured here, the Fenner Quadrangle has been transformed with an expanded gateway linking it to South Main Street, new walkways and meeting places. All photos by Earl & Sedor Photographic unless otherwise noted.
The bulldozers and earth movers arrived on campus two days after the May commencement ceremony. They left the Fenner Quadrangle less than a week before first-year students arrived on campus for fall semester. In between their arrival and departure, a series of projects created a green oasis in the center of campus, planted new trees, built walkways and put the finishing touches on a renovation to Stark Learning Center. These campus enhancements, completed during summer and early fall 2018, have achieved Wilkes’ goal of creating a traditional residential campus within the City of Wilkes-Barre. Part of a $100 million plan, the completed projects include an expanded gateway linking the southern part of campus to the Fenner Quadrangle. Other recently completed projects created new green space and a companion gateway at the south entrance to the Henry Student Center. These pages offer a look at a campus transformed.
By Koren Wetmore
Samantha Sonnett ’04 rides a radiation detection boat in New York harbor – one of the tools she uses in work detecting chemical hazards. Photo by Dan Z. Johnson
Samantha Sonnett ’04 recalls the moment that changed the course of her education and career: It was Sept. 11, 2001, during a public speaking class at Wilkes. Her instructor switched on a television and Sonnett watched in horror as the Twin Towers fell.
“It angered me so much,” she says. “Right after 9/11, I decided to focus my career on ensuring that something like that doesn’t happen again.”
Homecoming Weekend 2018 – often a time to remember the past — kicked off with a celebration of Wilkes University’s future. Alumni, faculty, staff and students gathered for the Gateway to the Future Campaign Kick-Off Celebration. The event, held in the in the McHale Athletic Center, launched the public phase of the $55 million fundraising campaign that will help to transform the University. The kickoff highlighted the development goals for the upcoming years for Wilkes, brick by brick, opportunity by opportunity and student by student.
