University science departments hold day of community outreach
Every year, different departments plan and host a number of outreach and initiative programs. In the Department of Communication, there are high school initiatives held by the Waynesburg PRSSA 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 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 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,” said Baldauff. “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.
A large majority of the high school initiative and community outreach programs provide benefits such as giving students opportunities to learn about colleges and about possible careers.
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.