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University offers outreach programs for high school students

By Abby Wernert, For The Greene County Messenger 5 min read

WAYNESBURG – Every year, different departments at Waynesburg University plan and host a number of outreach and initiative programs for high school students.

In the Department of Communication, there are high school initiatives held by the Waynesburg PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) Chapter, as well as the John Knox Writing Contest. The entire campus prepares something for Merit Badge University, which gives Boy Scouts an opportunity to earn a variety of merit badges.

As for those interested in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, each year the different science departments host the biannual Science Day.

During Science Day, which was held on Dec. 4, high schools from Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, and occasionally from Allegheny County and West Virginia, are invited to visit the campus for a day to learn about the sciences.

“We invite local schools to come to campus to participate in a lot of different hands-on science activities and presentations and demonstrations done by our students and faculty,” said Dr. Evonne Baldauff, chair of the university’s Chemistry and Forensic Science Department.

Baldauff said that by inviting students to participate in Science Day, she hopes those students will realize that studying science is really exciting, that there are a lot of job opportunities open to them should they choose to go down the path of science as a profession and that Waynesburg University is a great place to study science.

Besides inspiring students to pursue a major, and eventually a career, in the sciences, Science Day as a whole is beneficial to both the community and the university.

“It benefits the participants that are coming, it benefits the university because it gives these students a chance to visit Waynesburg and learn about our science programs,” Baldauff said. “I think if we convince anyone that it’s a good idea to study science, then it really kind of is a benefit to society because we need more people that are good at math and good at science and that will pursue those.”

The high school initiative programs and the community outreach events hosted by the different departments have proven to be successful in both promoting the university and assisting college prospects in discovering what they might want to do in life.

Another one of the popular high school outreach programs is the Mock Crime Scene, held twice a year by the Criminal Justice and Forensic Science Departments.

Each semester, the Criminal Justice and Forensic Science Departments invite students from all across the country to visit campus for the Mock Crime Scene. While most of the students are local, some students will travel from both near and far in order to participate in the event.

At the event, one of which is geared more toward those interested in forensic science and one for those who are interested in criminal justice, students attend an opening ceremony and then are split into different teams.

While in their teams, the students attend and rotate through general workshops until after lunch, where they learn to use more specific skills that focus on more detailed scenarios.

Senior forensic science major Jeff Strider has been volunteering to work the Mock Crime Scene since his freshman year and now deals more so with the planning side of things.

Strider said the event was a great way to reach into the community, especially as forensics has become a big thing in pop culture these days, with shows such as “Criminal Minds” being popular among the general public.

The Mock Crime Scene is an event that appeals to those interested in both forensics and criminal justice. No matter if student interest stems from pop culture or not, it does help high school students recognize the differences between real life and what they see on television.

“Part of the benefits of doing these events are (that) people who are interested in the field or think they’d be interested in forensics or criminal justice and crime scene processing and investigation, they can get a better understanding of what the field really is like, what the jobs really entail,” Strider said.

Besides helping to cultivate an interest in the forensics or criminal justice fields and providing insight into the fields, the Mock Crime Scene has additional benefits that help the student volunteers, the visiting students and the university.

Strider said the students who work the event benefit as they get to hear lectures from specialists and professionals in the field, but also because of the experiences they get to share with the visiting students.

“We get to show off a little bit of what we know,” Strider said. “It’s fun to do. It’s fun to work with people who have the same passions as you do for a specific career field.”

A large majority of the high school initiative and community outreach programs provide similar benefits.

Strider said the Mock Crime Scene benefits visiting students as they not only learn about the field they will probably want to go into, but they also have the chance to meet possible future classmates and forge bonds with some of the students at the university so they will know people upon entering college.

The university also benefits from these programs because the programs have proven to be a very successful recruiting tool, as it gets the name of Waynesburg University out – not only into the community, but across the country as well.

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