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Now 90.5 WERG can add the Gold Microphone award for Outstanding Broadcasting Excellence given at the 73rd Annual Intercollegiate Broadcasting Conference (I.B.S.) in New York City.

In winning the award, the station surpassed criteria in categories such as service to the university and community, adherence to FCC policies and guidelines, providing news and sports programming in the public interest, student involvement in on-air and managerial capacities, and effective use of social media to promote the station.

Chet Laprice, WERG’s operations manager, and six Gannon students accepted the award at the conference, which was held March 1-3. Laprice also presented on two different panels at the conference: “Management Bootcamp” with Len Mailloux, chairman of the I.B.S. conference, and “Programming Your College Radio Station,” with several students and two other professors. Deb Carlson, a 2009 Gannon University graduate, hosted a session entitled “Station Underwriting: How to Get It, Run It, and Keep It Legal.”

Administered through the Department of Theatre, Communication and Fine Arts, 90.5 WERG provides a healthy, creative, and stimulating learning experience in broadcast operations and management while offering unique programming for Gannon and the Erie community.

Working at the station, students develop valuable skills such as effective public speaking, creative writing, digital editing, software maintenance, and teamwork. Students also have the opportunity to augment their proficiency in managerial situations by chairing various departments at WERG: programming, music, news, production, social media, and many other aspects that make up a successful broadcast operation.

This article was originally published on Apr. 29, 2013 on www.gannon.edu.

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Gannon was one of seven Atlantic Region teams to receive at-large bids to the NCAA Division II Tournament. Other at-large bids were granted to Davis & Elkins, Bluefield State, California (Pa.), West Chester, Charleston (W.Va.) and Millersville. Automatic berths were captured by Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) champion Indiana (Pa.), West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion Concord and Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) champion Virginia State. The Atlantic Region programs will join 10 East Region teams at the event.

The top three teams plus the top two individuals not on an advancing team from each regional (regardless of region) will advance to the 2013 NCAA Division II Men’s Golf National Championship May 20-24 at the Hershey Country Club in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The finals will be hosted by Millersville University.

The 2013 NCAA Tournament will have Gannon representation for the first time since Drew Deimel qualified for the NCAA Division II Atlantic/East Regional as an individual in 2010 and 2011. He later advanced to the national championship both seasons. In 2010, Deimel finished sixth at the regional and 18th at the national championship. In 2011, he placed fourth regionally and 11th nationally.

Gannon has recorded top-five finishes during seven of 11 events this season, including four of the five spring invitationals. The Golden Knights’ best finish came after placing second out of nine teams during their spring invitational. Other spring results include a third-place finish at the West Chester Invitational, a fourth-place finish at the Mercyhurst Invitational and a fifth-place finish at the Malone Invitational. A third-place finish out of 20 regional teams at the Atlantic Regional Preview in Lafayette, Ohio September 17-18 also proved to be an important result for the Golden Knights.

Cameron Zbrzeznj (Erie, Pa./Cathedral Prep) produced Gannon’s best average this season, recording 76 strokes per round. The freshman placed among the top 20 during 10 of 11 events this season, including three top-five finishes.

Seven Golden Knights had scoring averages under 80. The group included Jason Ramus (76.9), Jon Marcson (78.1), Sean Mahon (78.2), Max Fairman (79.0), Jesper Jensen (79.5) and Shyamal Nagindas (79.8).

For more about all of Gannon’s sports teams, check out http://www.gannonsports.com.

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Got a great shot for Edge? Tweet it @GannonU or @GannonEdge or tag us @GannonU on Instagram!

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Day of Silence is a national movement speaking out against the bullying of LGBT youths.  The idea is to remain quiet for one full day to commemorate those teens that have experienced the silencing effect of bullying.  By keeping silent for one full day, the movement hopes to call attention to the detrimental effects of harassment.  L.I.F.E (Love is for Everyone) sponsored a full week in preparation for the Day of Silence, which took place on April 19.  The activities during the week of April 15-21 consisted of many informational sessions.  These sessions educated students on the effects of bullying and suicide, as well as answer any questions students had about LGBT lifestyle.  Finally, on April 19, participants clothed in blue vowed to remain silent for a full day as they attended class and interacted with others.

After attending a few events hosted by L.I.F.E., I felt prepared on the subject of Day of Silence.  The night before, I printed off flyers for professors and peers explaining my sudden speechlessness. The day of, I wore blue and carried around a sign stating “I will not be speaking from the hours of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in support of Day of Silence.”  As I walked around campus, I saw a few of my fellow students with signs and even one wearing duct tape across his mouth.

I couldn’t help but notice the confusion of all the nonparticipants.  Even after handing them a flyer explaining my situation, they still tried talking to me, getting frustrated when I wouldn’t respond to them.  When I walked through large crowds while wearing my sign, I could feel others judging me; I felt immediately relieved when I was united with my friends for lunch at the L.I.F.E. table in Waldron.  Although my friends and I couldn’t converse with each other, I felt at ease just having them by my side, supporting a cause that we all thought was important.   It was difficult to remain quiet for such an extended period of time.  By the time 3 p.m. rolled around, I felt exhausted, both physically and mentally.

I believe Gannon University’s L.I.F.E. Week was a success. It brought attention to anti-bullying campaigns as well as helped the students understand hardships of LBGT youths.  I personally felt like I made a difference on campus and am hoping for an even bigger group of participants next year.

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1. Make a playlist. Music is something that many of us can’t live without. While you’re working, it’s great to have something to listen to that keeps you focused and keeps your energy up! I recommend music that you already know and like, so you won’t get distracted listening to new music. Try music with a heavy rock beat or lyrics that talk about getting things done or being on top.

2. No emotional eating. It may sound like a good idea at the time, but you will regret that Snickers later. Stress eating gives us a little bit of necessary sugar, but all you’re really doing is distracting yourself from your work. When you’re studying, fill a large glass or water bottle with ice water and drink that whenever you think you’re hungry. Drinking lots of water makes your body think that it’s fuller than it is. If you need a snack, try something healthy like nuts or veggies instead of going straight for the sugar.

3. Lock yourself out. If you’re like me, you’re never on the internet with only one tab open. Usually there are a few tabs of pertinent information along with Facebook or Twitter or sometimes both. Leaving these open – or being able to open them – is a huge distraction. This is where the Pomodoro technique comes in. You set a 25-minute timer and work, then take a five-minute break. There are lots of free apps for iPhone and Android that will mark the times for you or, if you’re a Google Chrome user, there’s a handy extension. The benefit of the extension: It literally locks you out of the websites that you use as a distraction until the time limit is up.

4. Get out of your comfort zone. If you continuously find yourself distracted while working in your bedroom, it’s time to move! Take your laptop and textbooks to the kitchen or to the library. A change of scenery makes a huge difference in productivity. You’re more likely to finish your work quickly if you know you only have a set period of time before the library closes and if you have something waiting for you at home.

5. Set a goal. Sometimes, tricking yourself into a deal is the best way to get things finished quickly. Maybe if you finish a paper, you can take a break and watch a movie or catch up on a TV show. Or, after you make note cards for that big anatomy exam, you can go get coffee with your friends. Rewarding yourself when you get things done trains your brain to work quickly so it can receive a reward and all of the endorphins that come with it.

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It’s a chilly Tuesday night, one of those unsurprising Erie evenings when the weather doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with the average person’s wishes. Luckily, I’m indoors, where the room is warm and the walls are bright. Bright green, in fact, with the edges of the room seemingly pushed back with shelves full of books, photos, and trophies, all surrounding seven souls solely focused on the task at hand: rehearsal for “[title of show],” Dramashop’s final show of its current season.

Now, if you’ve ever read a Reader before, you may already be familiar with the not-for-profit contemporary theater company called Dramashop, as we at the Reader have covered a fair number of the troupe’s productions since the minds behind the Drama founded theshop back in May 2011. The scene was in trouble, no one was running the show, and the public was losing out on some great alternative theater.

Fast forward to now – a room full of 85.7 percent acting-types and 14.3 percent me is engaged in rehearsing the theater company’s very first musical. The four actors take their positions while the director and his assistant focus on the quartet. And then it begins.

“I’m sorry, are we in this scene now?”

The words part from Rebecca Coleman’s lips and I quickly glance up from my notepad. It’s kind of an anticlimactic beginning for my inside look into the process of getting “[title of show]” ready for when its Schuster Theatre run starts May 23. While I wait for the scene to start over, the other actors continue running through lines like nothing out of the ordinary happened. Suddenly, I realize that Rebecca wasn’t the one that got lost – I was.

You see, “[title of show]” isn’t your prototypical song-and-dance kind of musical – it’s a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical. Where I had thought Rebecca had simply forgotten her place in the script, she was merely acting as her character Heidi, and I was being treated to an inside look at how the inside of a show’s humble beginnings – almost a sort of rehearsal “Inception.”

“It’s very much a musical about the process of doing theater, and we’re a company that’s all about focusing on the process,” Dramashop Artistic Director Zach Flock explains to me after the rehearsal. “There are lines in the show that when I hear them or say them, I just think that it’s true to how we as a company function. It almost kind of feels like ‘Dramashop the musical’ at times.”

It doesn’t take long to figure out that Flock and the rest of the Dramashop crew are big fans of the process behind theater. Hell, you don’t even have to talk to them to figure that one out, given that the phrase “theater in process” is emblazoned next to the logo on their website and is the main focus of their “About” section on the official Dramashop Facebook page.

“Collectively, we’re all a group of actors,” says Bryan Rall, sharp-dressed and bespectacled president of the theater company. “One of the things that we collectively enjoy the most is the discovery in a character and the process of actually working through a script, and that’s in large part why we came up with Dramashop – because we really like the nitty-gritty process of it. It’s not just the product, the process of it is really fulfilling.”

Of course, just because people like something doesn’t always mean that they end up acting on their passion, which is why my bacon-scented fragrances for him and her haven’t graced this plane of existence quite yet. For a nonprofit performing company that dabbles in thought-provoking modern theater to get off the ground in our fair city of Erie, well that would take some dedicated individuals and a lot of hard work.

Enter Zach, Bryan, Jess Ciccone, and Dom Del Greco, the quartet at the core of Erie’s contemporary-theater scene. As much as some naysayers may decry The Gem City as a victim of brain drain, these four creative cats consciously came to Northwest Pa. from the homes of Harmony, Pa., Poland, Ohio, and other locales not named Erie to attend Gannon, Mercyhurst, and Edinboro universities.

After meeting through various shows at Gannon and the Erie Playhouse, the quartet became friends outside the theater, although the stage was never far from their minds. Eventually, the group saw that the prospect of creating a contemporary theater company wasn’t all that unrealistic after they successfully ran “The Book of Liz,” an Amy and David Sedaris-written play, for Gannon’s Fringe Festival back in 2010.

“I think that was the first manifestation of what Dramashop was going to be, because I know [Zack] and I had discussions even before of starting a theater company,” Rall says.

“Honestly, there were lots of conversations over drinks or just hanging out,” Zach agrees. “This is something we all love.”

You can find the rest of this article here at eriereader.com or check out more about Dramashop at dramashop.org

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As the couple begins to grow closer, Augustus, or “Gus”, confesses that he wants to use his Genie Wish – a fabricated spoof of the Make-A-Wish foundation – to fly with Hazel to Amsterdam so she will be able to meet the author of “An Imperial Affliction.” Hazel, realizing that she is a “time bomb waiting to set off,” wants to distance herself from Gus in fear of the pain she will cause him when she inevitably dies.  However, after she recovers from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia, she agrees to go on the trip with Augustus. While the two are in Amsterdam, they drink champagne at a five-star restaurant, meet Hazel’s favorite author, Peter van Houten, and visit the Anne Frank House.  Everything is going smoothly until suddenly things take a change for the worse.

While I won’t spoil the rest of the plot, I will say that this is a wonderful, bittersweet, perfect novel.  Green’s use of imagery, especially when describing Amsterdam and the cuisine at the restaurant, is breathtaking. You can practically see the flower petals dusting the streets of Amsterdam and taste the crisp bubbles of champagne. Green also utilizes thoughtful, poignant quotes that will stick with the reader for a long time. One of my favorite quotes occurs when Hazel and Gus are on the plane to Amsterdam. While Gus is reading to Hazel, she gently nods off, and thinks, “I fell in love the way you fall asleep – slowly, and then all at once.” The ending of the novel had me sobbing, rolling around the floor of my room and immediately handing the book to my best friend, saying “Read this. You will cry. It will become your favorite book.”

In short, this novel is a must-read. The character development is superb, and the story will stay with you for a long time. If you don’t mind having your heart ripped out of your chest and trampled, I would highly encourage reading this book. Through the course of the novel, Hazel states, “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” This is how I feel about “The Fault in Our Stars.” In my opinion, it is nothing short of exceptional.

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Business Policy is designed to touch upon a variety of skills we have gained thus far as business students and apply them to a real world scenario. The rest of the class and I sat there at the end of the presentation waiting for someone to give us instructions and guidance on how to proceed, but this never happened. We had to take it upon ourselves to figure out how to handle this task. I volunteered to serve as the group leader for the project as long as others were willing to help me. Five other students stepped up to the challenge and we split the class into five groups that would each work on a different part of the project.

We were responsible for planning and holding a fundraiser, five public speaking engagements, creating a unique program, applying for two grants and creating a database for the foundation.  It was an enjoyable experience to not only come up with ideas for each of these tasks but also to see them be implemented. Through two different fundraisers, the class was able to raise over three hundred dollars. We applied for two grants, reached out to nearly 70 people to spread the mission of the Twilight Wish Foundation and developed the database. We also created a cookbook with recipes from local seniors that The Twilight Wish Foundation now can use as a unique program for years to come.

The final requirement of the project is to present our progress and results with the Board of Directors for the Twilight Wish Foundation.  On April 30 at 5 p.m., our group gave a presentation explaining what goals were achieved and what progress was made to support the foundation as it expands its outreach.

As my senior year and career here at Gannon comes to a close, I have enjoyed the opportunity to assist a local non-profit organization spread its mission and ability to assist those in need. It was a unique opportunity to apply all of the skills and abilities I have gathered and refined during my time at Gannon and prepare my fellow classmates and me for life and our careers after graduation.

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