President's Newsletter
September 2024
Dear Juniata Community,
Campus is bustling as we welcomed 403 new students for the 2024-2025 academic year. It’s the second consecutive year we’ve celebrated an incoming class exceeding 400 students—the fourth such class in the past decade. This year, 45% of our new students received Juniata Community Scholarships through referrals from within our community. Thank you!
As you can see in this Mountain Day photo of me a decade ago, our traditions bring people together for fun, fellowship, and flying down a slip-n-slide! Not only do they build relationships with the students, faculty, and staff who are present on campus, but they invite alumni and friends to share the experience virtually or through social media.
Our commitment to partnering with our students is an investment in the future. Juniatians’ accomplishments and innovations drive them and the College forward every year. Their connection to the campus community is evident in the traditions that brought our community together in the past month—Lobsterfest, Storming of the Arch, and Mountain Day.
Juniata’s most recent national rankings reflect this success in an era of higher education disruption. Just this week, the U.S. News and World Report shared their annual rankings, which recognized Juniata as #90 among the best national liberal arts colleges the nation, placing #25 for Top Performers on Social Mobility and #66 among Best Value Schools.
These wins underscore the importance of the work we are doing collectively as a college through our First Year Foundations course to ensure our first-year students are connected and woven into the fabric of Juniata. As part of the classwork, students are reading “Connections Are Everything: A College Student’s Guide to Relationship-Rich Education.” I have found the book meaningful to how we work with students and help them flourish on campus.
Sharing our Juniata College community stories and successes is a critical way to encourage prospective students to consider visiting or applying. Spreading the word can make a significant impact through the Juniata Community Scholarship. Thank you for being a member of this community, and we hope to see you on campus this fall.
Warm regards,
President James A. Troha
Lobsterfest
Lobsterfest is more than just a meal—it’s a Juniata tradition that brings the campus community together. Clubs. Organizations. Crustaceans. What could be better? Here’s to the laughter, the lobster, and the lasting memories we create every year! Photos by Caden Beyer '28 and Christina D'Amato '25.
How do you
Mountain Day?
It's a day anticipated by the entire Juniata College community, from students, faculty, and staff to alumni and friends. A Juniata tradition since 1896, this special day energizes the campus, Huntingdon County, and every place alumni reside. Since 1896, Juniata has provided students with a well-deserved break to take in the fall beauty of the region and alumni enjoy marking the day with time outdoors or digital posters on their computers or in their offices. There is simply no wrong way to enjoy Mountain Day. Photos by Aaylah Ludwiczak '27
Celebrating Accomplishments
Alicia Elder '25 and Calvin German '25 completed a 10-week internship established by Gift of Life Transplant Foundation Executive Director and former Gift of Life Donor Program President & CEO Howard Nathan '75.
Olivia Dweh '25 was recognized with the Commonwealth Good Citizen Scholarship by the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP), which honored 19 students from the 85 member institutions.
Tess Ledeboer '25 was chosen to represent Juniata as an AMGEN Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She worked with a graduate student mentor and faculty advisor on a project that explored the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) activity in cancers.
Momoka Nakashita '25 received a Super Internship Award and completed the ASPET Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at the University of Florida. The experience helped her to expand her research skills.
Andi Bradsher '27 interned with the East Broad Top Railroad Archives and Special Collections this summer and created a digital exhibition celebrating the Archives in partnership with the Juniata College Museum of Art (JCMA).
Jackson Sharpe ’27 and Sean Chia ’25, members of the Juniata College Democrat club, recently interned as embedded volunteers with the Pennsylvania delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
Le’Naya White '25 received a Super Internship Award to serve as a teaching fellow this summer in an Uncommon Schools program for children in the autism program at North Star Academy Charter School in Newark.
Forty-two years ago, David Africa ’84 traveled to Germany as the first exchange student from Juniata College to study at the Münster University of Applied Sciences in 1982. After reconnecting with the institution via LinkedIn, the University featured an article about their alum.
David remembered, “The program was very broad and structured. I took the German Business Language course with a group of British students from Hull who were part of the European Business Program (EBP). I spent the other classes with German students. At that time, I took courses in contract law, data processing, and organizational behavior, among others. At the end, I also received the certificates of participation and, as an additional achievement, I wrote independent research papers that were set by the lecturer.”
He credits the study abroad experience with bolstering his independence and preparing him for graduate school.
“Overall, my two semesters were incredibly positive. The academic challenge was good for me. It made me tough. It made me a better person and taught me to appreciate my own country more,” David said.
The exchange between the Department of Economics at Münster University of Applied Sciences and the Juniata College still exists today. A group of students visited the university this past summer.
Sam Gary '17 successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in June. Sam’s graduate research focused on understanding therapeutic resistance in brain tumors. John Unger, associate professor of chemistry and Sam's undergraduate research mentor from his Juniata days, attended the defense virtually. After his thesis defense, Sam took some time to acknowledge people who inspired him and experiences that helped define his path. In particular, Sam praised the Juniata community and spoke about the many valuable relationships he built at this school that were instrumental in helping him realize his potential. Dr. Sam Gary is in the M.D./Ph.D. program at the University of Alabama Birmingham. He will complete the M.D. portion of his degree over the next two years and plans to pursue a career as a physician and a scientist.
This month, we feature the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, which kicked off the academic year with a gathering of faculty and students, and celebrated the achievements of the past several months.
Kara Pytko, assistant professor of biochemistry, coauthored the publication, “Replication protein A dynamically re-organizes on primer/template junctions to permit DNA polymerase δ holoenzyme assembly and initiation of DNA synthesis,” in the journal Nucleic Acids Research. Kara joined Juniata's faculty in August.
Amber Helsel-Ickes '04, assistant professor of chemistry and laboratory coordinator, completed Department of Transporation HAZMAT awareness, security, and function specific training.
Ursula Williams, associate professor of chemistry, presented "Impact of ligand substitution on the properties of iron(III) amine triphenolate complexes," at the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in June. The presentation featured research accomplishments of Rachel Sabatino '24 and Isabella Stranick '24. In addition to presenting, Ursula also organized and presided over the session, "Inorganic Coordination Chemistry and Catalysis."
Will Ames, associate professor of chemistry, continued his work on the organizing committee of the American Chemical Society's Project SEED Program, which provides significant STEM research, learning, and growth opportunities for high school students with diverse identities and socioeconomic backgrounds so they can be empowered to advance and enrich the chemical science enterprise. Will is a member of the Awareness and Expansion subcommittee, which met several times in the summer to work towards planning and implementing new ACS goals for project SEED. Specifically, the subcommittee has been tasked with improving the relationship between the committee and SEED coordinators/mentors, as well as looking for more growth opportunities for project SEED, both domestically and internationally. In addition to this work, Will has recently contributed by helping to review the summer 2024 mentor research proposals.
Peter Baran, professor of chemistry, presented “Back to My N-oxide Roots” as a plenary lecture at the XXIX International Conference on Coordination and Bioinorganic Chemistry in Smolenice (Slovakia) in June. The presentation featured research accomplishments of 8 JC students, Molly Hunter '22, Adam Kensinger '20, Caleb Taylor '19, Yvonne Wojciechowski '18, Nick Morgan '14, Duc Vu '15, Joey Woodrow '25, and Frank Dorman '25. At the same conference, Peter Baran also coauthored two other oral presentations, one by Zuzana Baranová '08 who is currently a tenure-track assistant professor of chemistry at the Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans and the second by Jindra Valentová, an associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia). He also presented “First Example of Copper(II) Compounds Demonstrating Diamagnetic Behavior at and above Room Temperature” as a section talk at the 45th International Conference on Coordination Chemistry in Fort Collins, CO in August with nine JC chemistry students as co-authors: Molly Hunter '22, Adam Kensinger '20, Caleb Taylor '19, Yvonne Wojciechowski '18, Nick Morgan '14, Duc Vu '15, Joey Woodrow '25, Frank Dorman '25, and Zuzana Baranová '08. At the same conference, Peter Baran also coauthored an oral presentation “A New Type of Pyridine N-oxide Schiff-Base Ligands and Their Transition Metal Complexes” by Zuzana Baranová '08.
Call for Hall of Fame Nominations
The Juniata Athletic Department invites nominations for the Class of 2025 Hall of Fame induction. The deadline to submit candidates is October 25.
To be eligible, an athlete must have earned two or more varsity letters and have graduated 10 years or more ago (2014 and prior). Athletic support personnel are eligible after ending their service to the College. Professional athletic support staff are eligible immediately after their service and students who served as athletic support personnel are eligible 10 years following their class years. Any friends, special contributors, or others will also be considered with preference given to those who have been associated with Juniata Athletics for 10 or more years.
To nominate, click here. You may also submit newspaper clippings, photos, letters, or other documentation via email to grantb@juniata.edu.
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