California University

Volume 21, Number 6 APRIL 8, 2019
KEEP UP WITH CAL U NEWS ONLINE: calu.edu/news

Conference
to Address
Safety in
Places of
Worship

G

regory Mullen, the chief
of police in Charleston,
S.C., during the time of the
shooting at Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in June 2015, will
deliver the keynote address at the 11th
annual Conference on Homeland and
International Security.
“Protecting Places of Worship” will
be held from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. April 12 in
the Performance Center, located in the
Natali Student Center. The conference
is organized by the Department of
Criminal Justice.
Registration is available at
calu.edu/security.
Members of the public, including
law enforcement officers and criminal
justice professionals, are invited to join
Cal U students, faculty and staff at the
free event.
Mullen’s keynote presentation,
“Partnerships, Trust and Legitimacy:
How They
Integrate to Create
Resiliency During
Crisis,” will be
from 11-11:45 a.m.
Mullen, now
associate vice
president for public
safety and chief of
police at Clemson
Gregory Mullen
University, was
Charleston’s chief
police from 2006-2017.
He coordinated incident action
planning, crisis communications and
media management surrounding the
mass shooting at Emanuel AME
Church. Nine members of the
church were killed. Dylann Roof was
convicted of 33 federal hate crimes in
2016 and sentenced to death.
Other presenters at the conference
are faculty in Cal U’s Criminal Justice
Department:
• Dr. John Cencich, a former senior
U.N. war crimes investigator and
director of the Pennsylvania Center for
Investigative and Forensic Services, will
present “Threat Assessments through
Predictive Behavioral Analysis” from
9:15-10 a.m.
• Dr. Michael Hummel, a retired
military police officer and an active
municipal police officer in Charleroi
and Monessen, Pa., will present
“The Physical Security Challenge of
Protecting Institutions of Worship”
from 10:05-10:50 a.m.
For more information, contact
Dr. Julie Warnick, chair of the
Department of Criminal Justice, at
warnick@calu.edu or 724-938-5865.

Dr. Kimberly Woznack is a role model for women who are interested in STEM careers.

Chemistry Prof Inspires Women

F

emale students at Cal U who
aspire to careers in chemistry
have a role model in
Dr. Kimberly Woznack.
The professor in the Chemistry and
Physics Department began teaching at
Cal U in 2004. For the past year, she
has chaired the American Chemical
Society’s Women’s Chemist Committee.
The committee’s mission is to attract,
retain, develop, promote, and advocate
for women to positively impact diversity,
equity and inclusion in the society and
the profession.
Woznack and Dr. Gregg Gould are
co-advisers of Cal U’s student chapter of
the American Chemist Society.

“The WCC hopes to remove the
blinders as to what a chemist looks like,”
said Woznack, who also collaborates
with the ACS Diversity and Inclusion
Board.
“If you ask a child to draw a
chemist, they would draw a picture of
someone who looks like Albert Einstein
in a lab coat. They would not draw
someone who may have a different skin
color or be a different gender.
“We’re trying to give people
opportunities, support and raise
awareness and visibility.”
Thirty percent of ACS membership
is female.
“I would not say women are a rarity,

but we are still under-represented,”
she said. “We would like to see the
membership reflect the representation of
women in the industry, which is still a
bit below 50 percent.”
Woznack said women’s participation
in chemistry has significantly improved
at the undergraduate level, where the
population nationwide is 50 percent.
Seniors Taylor Potts and
Susan Renninger accompanied
Woznack and Dr. Min Li to the ACS
National Spring Conference,
March 31-April 4 in Orlando, Fla.
The two students presented posters
and accepted an ACS Student Chapter
— Continued on page 4

State System Chancellor to Attend
Forum, Conference at Cal U

D

r. Dan Greenstein, chancellor of Pennsylvania’s
State System of Higher Education, will be on
campus April 24.
Chancellor Greenstein took office on Sept. 4 and visited
Cal U last October during his initial tour of all 14 State
System universities.
His keynote address for the conference will be at 11 a.m.
April 24 in the south wing of the Convocation Center.
At 1 p.m., Greenstein will hold an open forum in the
Performance Center, inside the Natali Student Center. After
a short presentation about the State System’s redesign, the
chancellor will take questions from the audience.
The entire campus community is welcome to attend the
conference and the forum.
Greenstein is the fifth chancellor to lead the State System
Greenstein is the fifth chancellor to lead the State System since
its founding in 1983. Before coming to Pennsylvania, he led
the Postsecondary Success strategy at the Bill and Melinda
— Continued on page 2

Dr. Dan Greenstein will visit Cal U April 24.

Page 2

APRIL 8, 2019

Suicide Event’s Message: ‘You Matter’

A

moving presentation, telling
statistics and sound advice
blended when the Cal U
Dance Ensemble and the Student
Wellness Center partnered to advocate
for the prevention of suicide.
“You Matter: A Suicide Prevention
Presentation” was held in the morning
and evening on March 26 in the
Natali Performance Center.
Donations were accepted for the
American Foundation for Suicide
Prevention of Western Pennsylvania.
Prior to the performances, several
Cal U faculty members and students
from the Dance Ensemble spoke.
Diane Eperthener Buffington, who
teaches dance and psychology, started
the event by citing some telling statistics
from the American Foundation for
Suicide Prevention and the Council for
Exceptional Children:
• In Pennsylvania suicide is the second
leading cause of death for ages 15 to 34.
• In 2017, 47,173 Americans lost their
lives by suicide, an average of 129 per day
and one every 12 minutes. Worldwide,
there’s one death every 40 seconds.
“It’s time to ask, listen, act and
make a difference for someone before it
happens,” Buffington said. “We want to
help anyone here who may be uncertain
of where to go and how to get help.
“Education and awareness are the
answers. You are not alone, and you
definitely matter.”
According to Rachel Wells, a dancer
and psychology major, the 8-minute
dance “explores the process of what
someone might be experiencing.”
“We wrote narratives for three types
of people: those who are afraid to ask for
help, those who are crying out for help,
and those who regret a suicide attempt,”

added dancer Jessica Kroll, a childhood
education major.
Dancer Alexandra Wilson, along
with Wells, said she and many of her
classmates have all had their lives
affected by suicide.
“It’s heartbreaking to watch someone
suffer and find out that they are alone
because no one would take them or their
troubles seriously,” Wilson said. “I want
to see this change on campus and the
topic of suicide prevention and awareness
stop being taboo or something that we
ignore in hopes it will go away.”
Wells added, “All it takes is one
person to stand up, speak up, stand in
and save a life.”
The dancers recently presented their
performance at the American College
Dance Association Mid-Atlantic North
Regional Conference. Other dancers
who performed were Holly Grainger,
Juliann Marraccini, and
Amanda Woodburn.
Dr. Holiday Adair, chair of the
Department of Psychology, discussed
warning signs and risk factors, citing
the classic risk theory of one feeling
burdensome, a social disconnect and a
lack of fear of death (capacity).
“Suicide can be an incredibly
impulsive act or be a well-planned out
act and requires different strategies for
each moment of that time,” she said.
"We think about risk factors, and I would
like to say that we are all at risk. We are
all on this continuum, and we all change
our position on this continuum as we go
through life.”
Dr. Dawn Moeller, from Cal U’s
Counseling Center, discussed where
to get help on campus at the morning
presentation. Dr. Jayna Bonfini, also
from the Counseling Center, addressed

Cal U’s Dance Ensemble performs ‘You Matter.’

that topic at the evening performance.
While explaining services provided
by the counseling center and the 24-hour
availability of University Police, Moeller
urged students to rely on their own
instincts and ask another student if he or
she is feeling suicidal.
“It’s a big hurdle to ask someone
that, but do it,” she said. “You are the
frontlines for each other.”

Women Discuss Immigration

I

n the midst of an ongoing national
conversation about immigration
policies in the United States, Cal U
hosted two speakers on the subject as part
of Women’s History Month.
According to U.S. Census Bureau
data, roughly 22,000 refugees were
resettled in the United States in 2018.
There are more than 43 million
immigrants out of a population of 323
million people. The undocumented
immigrant population is estimated at
11 million.
Emily Pence and Amy Lyons spoke
about some of the issues via Skype on
March 19 in Duda Hall.
A service coordinator for Immigrant
Services and Connections, Pence works
for the Jewish Family and Community
Services of Pittsburgh.
She connects refugees facing language
or cultural barriers to services such as
housing, public benefits, medical services,
education, or childcare.
An artist originally from Pittsburgh,
Lyons is a parent of three children
who have attended Brooklyn Arbor in
New York.
Her middle son is in fourth grade and
has been with the same Spanish duallanguage class since kindergarten. Maria,
the mother of one of his classmates,
has cancer; the classmate’s father has
been deported.
Lyons and other parents have become
involved with legal agencies with hopes
of the father gaining temporary re-entry.
They’ve also raised $40,000 through

Cal U’s Counseling Center, in
Carter Hall G-54, is open 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
Monday-Friday. The center's phone
number is 724-938-4056. The Cal U
Police Department can be reached 24
hours a day at 724-938-4357 (HELP) or
911. The National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline is 800-273-8255 (TALK). The
Crisis Text Line can be reached by
texting HELLO to 741741.

State System
Chancellor
to Visit Cal U
— Continued from page 1

Cal U students participate in a Skype conversation about immigration policies.

a GoFundMe site. Lyons signed legal
documents to be a temporary guardian if
the mother becomes incapacitated.
“It’s been grueling for them. I can’t
even understand how Maria does it each
day keeping her house in order and
finding food for her children,” she said.
Lyons, who is working on a children’s
book about the life of a 12-year-old
German immigrant in Williamsburg in
1901, believes the uneasy political climate
has roused people.
“Maria’s voice has kind of been
amplified because so many people have
been outraged over the process of illegal
immigrants becoming naturalized and
getting any kind of residency,” she said.
“I think there’s been a lot of pushback
because so many illegal immigrants are
doing the daily work of running the city.”

Pence emphasized language and
cultural barriers, and how daily life
— using a credit card, operating an
elevator, filling out an application, using a
restroom — can include serious obstacles.
“These are things that we take for
granted but these people have never
seen,” she said.
Though she’s seen more rude behavior
over the past couple of years, Pence
believes language access, including the
use of interpreters, has become better. She
added that many refugees and immigrants
are adept at starting own businesses and
cited the ethnic grocery and restaurant
stores in Pittsburgh.
“There’s a lot of successes, and they
are amazing and heart-warming,” she
said. “These people have an awful lot to
offer our society.”

Gates Foundation. He also was a
top administrator in the University
of California system.
Dr. Gregg Gould, director of
the Center for Undergraduate
Research, said the Strike a Spark
Planning Committee reached out
to President Geraldine M. Jones,
who enthusiastically extended an
invitation to the Chancellor.
“Obviously all of us involved
with the planning for this year’s
conference are very pleased to
have such a high-profile keynote
speaker and one that is certainly
very interested in the research,
scholarship, and creative activities
of our students and faculty,”
said Gould.
“Being our fifth anniversary
it's very special to have Chancellor
Greenstein here and I am confident
he will leave with a very positive
impression of Cal U’s academic
achievements, and the energy
and enthusiasm of our presenters
and performers.”
To learn about this year’s
conference, visit calu.edu/
strikeaspark. Questions about
the conference can be directed
to Dr. Gregg Gould at
gould@calu.edu.

APRIL 8, 2019

Page 3

Cal U has
hosted
the FIRST®
Robotics
Greater
Pittsburgh
Regional for
six consecutive
years and
has become
a premier
regional
destination
for robotics
competitions.
Next up is the
Bots IQ Finals,
which will take
place
April 26-27
at the
Convocation
Center.

Robotics Teams Conquer ‘Deep Space’ Challenge

T

he challenges are always new at
the FIRST® Robotics Greater
Pittsburgh Regional Competition.
This year’s mission, DESTINATION:
DEEP SPACE, was held March 21-23
at Cal U’s Convocation Center, the
sixth year the event has been held at
the University.
Teams used remote-controlled robots
to gather as many cargo pods as possible
in 2 minutes, 30 seconds and prepare
their spaceships for departure before the
next sandstorm.
The annual competition encourages
high school students to develop skills
in science, technology, engineering and
math, along with project management,
problem solving and teamwork.
The theme was announced in
January. Teams had just six weeks to
build their robots.
Dr. Jennifer Wilburn, an assistant
professor in Cal U’s Department of
Applied Engineering and Technology,
has been a judge for the competition
since 2014.
She said this year’s game pushed
students to investigate and apply
new technologies.
“As a judge, I look for a thorough
engineering design process, and that the
students are the driving force behind the
design and build process,” said Wilburn,
who is also the coordinator of Cal U’s
four-year mechatronics engineering
technology program.
“I also look for innovative solutions,
particularly those that perform
promisingly in the field.”
Brandon Snyder, a senior from
Girard, Ohio, and a co-pilot for The
RoboCats, said the addition of the
“sandstorm” which eliminates vision
except from the robot’s perspective,
makes the game unique. He said it
particularly increased his programming
skills and camera knowledge.
“Instead of the first 15 seconds
being all autonomous robot control,
you can actually manually control your
own robot,” he said. “You have to put a
camera on the robot to give you vision of
the field while you’re playing, which is a
big difference.
“It’s a really fun game and because
I’m the co-pilot and on the field often if
something goes wrong I want to be able
to fix that.”
In all, 45 teams from six different
states competed.
Cal U President Geraldine M. Jones

Championship
Bound

These teams qualified for the
FIRST® Championship, April 24-27 in
Detroit, Mich.
Regional Champions: Team 48,
Team E.L.I.T.E., Warren, Ohio; Team
3324, The Metrobots, Columbus,
Ohio; Team 5842, Royal Robotics,
New Port Richey, Fla.
Chairman’s Award: Team 5811,
BONDS, Dayton, Ohio.
Rookie All Star Award: Team 7515,
Dark Side Robotics, Parkersburg,
W.Va.
Engineering Inspiration: Team 5740,
Trojanators, Cranberry Township,
Pa.
Wildcard qualifiers: Team 3504,
Girls of Steel, Pittsburgh, Pa.;
Team 4150 FRobotics, Murrysville,
Pa.; Team 1787, Flying Circuits,
Cleveland, Ohio.

opened the competition on Friday with
welcoming remarks.
“I am eager to see how far your
creativity and technical skill will take
each of your teams,” she said.
The weekend included a display of a
self-driving car from Uber, a ride-sharing
transportation company.
It also included a 900-pound
commercial cleaning robot from
Discovery Robotics, located in
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Alumnus Leonard Verdetto, who
majored in robotics and mechatronics
engineering technology, said the
Convocation Center provided a unique
testing environment for the machine.
“We want to see how it performs
specific tasks in a variety of
environments. I suggested Cal U because
of the robotics and mechatronics
programs and because of the venue.”
Sydney Gillen, a freshman on the Avi
and Friends team from Sylvania, Ohio,
summed up the experience as she charted
her team’s opponents’ match schedules.
Involved mainly with the nontechnical aspects of the competition, she
found the experience to be gratifying.
“No matter what you do in this
program you are going to learn
something that you will use the rest of
your life,” she said.

®
Sean Grivna volunteers in the machine shop during the FIRST Robotics competition at Cal U.

Graduate Helps to
Keep Robots in Game

A

lumnus Sean Grivna enjoys
helping the FIRST® Robotics
teams so much he takes vacation
time to do so.
An operations manager for
PetraFab Inc., a stone fabrication
company in Baltimore, Md., Grivna
has run a machine and welding shop
for FIRST® teams in Helsel Hall
since the Greater Pittsburgh Regional
Competition started taking place at
Cal U’s Convocation Center in 2014.
Initially he served this role when he
was a teaching assistant for
Dr. Jennifer Wilburn, an assistant
professor in Cal U’s Department of
Applied Engineering and Technology.
“She asked if I had any interest in
helping the students out in the machine
shop,” recalled Grivna, a 2014 graduate
who studied technical studies and
industrial technology management. “I
had a whole bunch of fun, so I decided
to do it every year.”
Since helping that first time,
Grivna has taken time off work to

return to his alma mater.
“It’s a three-day vacation,” he said. “I
like working with the kids every year and
seeing how they progress and come up
with answers to challenges.”
Jeff Laurenson, a mentor for the
second-year Brashear Bulls Robotics
team, was grateful after Grivna cut a
bracket to fit his team’s robot’s
bumper frame.
“For significant cuts you need a
metal shop; you can’t do that in the pits,”
said Laurenson, who teaches calculus
and robotics at Brashear High School,
in Pittsburgh, Pa. “He was incredibly
helpful and saved me a whole lot
of time.”
Grivna looks forward to returning
next year.
“My education at Cal U has helped
me take a company from $2.3 million
to soon breaking $4.7 million as well as
creating an entire base platform and how
to measure metrics for the company,”
he explained.
“Will I be here next year? Yes, sir.”

Page 4

APRIL 8, 2019

­­­Campus BRIEFS
Students Gearing Up
for The Big Event
Hundreds of Cal U studentvolunteers will tackle chores for
local residents during The Big Event,
starting at 8:30 a.m. April 13.
The annual student-led service
project aims to make a difference
for Cal U’s neighbors and local
organizations. Window washing,
litter pickup, painting and yard work
are some of the projects on the list.
Cal U’s Student Government
Association and the University’s
Center for Volunteer Programs and
Service Learning have been teaming
up since 2007 to encourage student
volunteers to lend a helping hand
around the borough of California.
Businesses or residents interested
in receiving student-volunteer help
should email volunteer@calu.edu or
call 724-938-4793.
Jae´Len Means heads into the outdoor season as a two-time All-American after finishing
fifth overall in the 200-meter dash at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field National
Championships.

Student Art Display
Begins April 18

Sprinter Earns
All-American Honors

G

raduating senior Jae´Len Means
became the first individual male
sprinter in Cal U history to
garner a first-team All-American award
in a flat sprint race when he placed fifth
overall in the finals of the 200-meter dash
at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track
and Field National Championships on
March 9.
A flat race includes 60, 100, 200, and
400-meter runs.
He crossed the finish line at Pittsburg,
Kan., with a time of 21.34 seconds while
competing in the second heat of the
finals. In the preliminaries he broke
his own school record with a time of
21.33 seconds.
A 5-foot-9 senior, Means received
NCAA First-Team All-America laurels
for the first time in his career. He earned
NCAA Second-Team All-America
honors in the 200 meters at the 2017

A student exhibit of drawings and
ceramic art, Pots and Other Thoughts,
will be on display in the third-floor
gallery of Manderino Library from
April 18 through May 1.
Extended viewing hours for this
exhibit will be from 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Monday through Thursday;
9 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday and Saturday;
and noon-6 p.m. Sunday. The library
will be closed April 21.

NCAA Indoor Championships.
“We were extremely excited
for Jae’Len and very proud of his
performances,” said Daniel Caulfield,
Cal U men’s and women’s track and
field and cross country head coach. “His
event coach, Sandy Estep, had predicted
he would run as fast as he did, so we
weren’t shocked.
“However, the fact that he went
from being ranked 15th to finishing
fifth was fantastic.”
Before the NCAA meet, Means
was named the Most Outstanding
Track Athlete of the Pennsylvania State
Athletic Conference (PSAC) Indoor
Championships after winning the 60- and
200-meter events. He was also named the
PSAC Indoor Track Athlete of the Year.
The 2019 NCAA Division II
Outdoor Championships will take place
May 23-25 in Kingsville, Texas.

Summit on Aging
April 12
The Department of Counselor
Education, the Master of Social
Work, and Gerontology programs
are offering a free professional
development opportunity for
students, faculty, staff and behavioral
health professionals.
“Summit on Aging 2019”
will be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
April 12 in the Convocation Center.
The free conference is approved
for five continuing education units

available to licensed social workers,
licensed professional counselors and
nationally board certified counselors.  
Some of the topics will include
caregiving, community health
choices, dementia, depression,
geriatric competency, and suicide.
For more information or to
register, contact Molly Jenkins
at jenkins_m@calu.edu or
724-938-4163. The summit is
limited to 175 attendees.
The conference is supported
by a $1.9 million grant funded by
the federal Health Resources and
Services Administration, an agency
of the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services. In addition
to preparing future counselors and
social workers, the grant supports
training for Cal U students and
their field-placement supervisors,
University faculty and communitybased professionals.

Comedy Continues
Theater Season
The Department of Music and
Theatre will continue its spring
season at 7 p.m. April 17-18 in Steele
Hall Mainstage Theatre.
Commit to the Bit: An Evening
of Sketch Comedy and Improvisation
will be a two-act show made up of
sketches that Cal U student actors
created through improvisation.
Jeshua Myers, Shane Callahan,
Noah Dohanich, Mack Freed,
Elijah Gilbert, Christina Kent and
Quest Sawyer will perform.
Tickets are $12 for adults; $6
for those 55 and older and 12 and
younger. Cal U students with valid
CalCards pay 50 cents, plus a $5
deposit that is refunded at the show.   
For information or to charge
tickets by phone, call the Steele Hall
Box Office at 724-938-5943.

Correction
The expansion to Coover Hall
is 4,200 square feet. An incorrect
measurement was published in the
March 25 Journal.

Woznack Inspires Women in Chemistry
— Continued from page 1
honorable-mention award for
their programs and activities. This
is the chapter’s second honor in
three years.
Potts praised Woznack as a mentor
and role model.
“Dr. Woznack has been a
huge inspiration to me and helped
me tremendously over the last few
years,” Potts said. “It’s important

that women chemists are recognized
and treated with respect. She is a great
professor and a great example of
how it is absolutely possible to
manage a career and family, as well
as make connections with her students
every day.”
In February, the chapter sponsored
a breakfast to support female chemists.
“At the conference I can introduce
our students to a larger chemistry
network, which is something we can do

here electronically but is obviously not
the same,” Woznack said. “Events such
as the breakfast educate and show people
facts on women’s involvement, which
they need to know.”
Woznack, a mother of two,
has shared her experiences in
Mom the Chemistry Professor. She was
the lead editor for the book’s second
edition and was a chapter author and
co-editor of the first.
The book features 40 personal

accounts of the challenges and rewards
of combining motherhood with an
academic career in chemistry. The
book also contains a chapter on safety
issues for pregnant or nursing women at
academic institutions.
“We wanted to showcase success
stories, because you don’t have to be
afraid,” said Woznack. “I’m a professor
and a mom, and it works. Nobody’s life
anywhere is perfect, but it can be very
rewarding and incredible.”

The California Journal is published by California University of Pennsylvania, a member of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.
Geraldine M. Jones
University President
Dr. Bruce Barnhart
Provost and Senior Vice President
for Academic Affairs

Dr. Nancy Pinardi
Vice President for Student Affairs
Christine Kindl
Vice President for Communications
and Marketing

Office of Communications and Public Relations

Robert Thorn
Vice President for Administration and Finance
Anthony Mauro
Vice President for University
Development and Alumni Relations

250 University Avenue

California, PA 15419

T. David Garcia
Vice President for Enrollment
Management

724-938-4195

Wendy Mackall
Editor
Bruce Wald
Writer

wald@calu.edu­­­­­­­­­