Appreciating path paved by parents

KELLIE BELMONTE STAFF WRITER KRB722@CABRINI EDU

There are a few certain people in everyone’s life that have made a significant impact. These people have always been considered our heros or the people we looked up to and wanted to strive to be like. The person I always claimed to be this was my father and it’s easy to see why.

My father grew up poor and spent his whole life working hard, trying to make money so he could support his family. He didn’t go to college, but he selftaught himself everything. He hit the jackpot when he was offered a job as the President and CEO of a major hotel chain. He took that job and became one of the most important people in the hotel industry. He made millions of dollars and gave his family the lifestyle that he never had. He did great things for charity and has always been very well-liked. I love my father more than anything and I know he loves me. However, through all the years and all that time, there was someone even more dear to me and I haven’t realized until now who the real hero in my life is. My mother also grew up poor in a big family. She didn’t finish college but ended up working along side my father, which is how they met. They went on to get married. My mother quit working once me and my brother were born and she became the real caretaker of the house. Everyday she cleaned for my family. However, housewives probably wouldn’t be considered to be someone you look up to, right? I have realized that that is so completely untrue.

My mother is my hero. My mother was the one who drove me to my gymnastics practices everyday for years. My mother has always been there to listen to me when I needed to talk about friends, boyfriends and just life in general. She was always my shoulder to cry on.

She helped me shop for a prom dress and helped me apply my makeup to make sure I was the most beautiful girl there. My mother was the one who helped me pick out a college, took me to buy all my college supplies and helped to decorate my room when I got there. She’s always cleaning up after me, making sure I have money and making sure I’m happy.

I have never once really appreciated it. I want to apologize to her now and let her know how much I love her and how wonderful I think she is. Mom, you’re my real hero. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it until now. I love you. Before you make rash decisions about who you want to look up to, think about the people who have really been there for you and who really helped you to become the person you are today.

It may be the most unobvious person, but realize that they are there. And make sure to tell them, so they never forget how great and wonderful they are.

ACT101 provides learning experience Inappropriate sign shocks student

SHATOYA HOWARD GUEST WRITER GIFTEDPRINCESS86@AOL COM

Anna Quindlen once said “If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.” This is one of the many lessons that Ms. Gwendolyn Atkinson-Miller, director of Act 101, general studies, and A.I.R.E. programs tells her college success class, A.I.R.E and ACT101 students everyday. She stresses the point that success depends on self not anyone else and to be successful you need to depend on yourself before anyone else.

The purpose of the ACT101 program is to provide higher education to students whose cultural, economic, and educational disadvantages impair their initial ability to pursue successful college careers. Once these students get into a specific college they are offered various supportive services and more quality time with their academic counselors in order to fulfill their lifelong goals.

Many ACT101 students have become shining stars here at Cabrini. Ms. Miller chose twelve of these shining stars to attend “The K. Leroy Irvis” 2004 ACT101 Student Leadership Conference in Lancaster, Pa. During the past three years, the director has taken 24 students to this conference.

This conference contained 72 colleges from all over Pennsylvania.

This conference was designed to give seminars on what defines and maintains a good leader. The three things this conference stressed was the ability to adapt to change, the ability to have a solid foundation, and the ability to set goals for your future. Each workshop whether it was on stress or spirituality stressed these values.

I attended three workshops during this overnight conference. In the first workshop I attended by Laura Scappaticci she spoke about how unhealthy relationships with your significant other, friends, or co-workers can affect your job performance or hinder you from attaining an aspiration. This was important to leadership because who you surround yourself with is not only how you are perceived but if the relationships you develop are damaging to you in any form they can limit not only your future but the “here and now.”

In the second workshop I went to Elbert Saddler, Ph.D. presented a lecture about how one wants to be remembered. This session emphasized how plans to acquire future dreams and goals in a creative world would produce clarity and the purpose of one's life. Aperson cannot be a leader if they do not first set goals for themselves and know where and what they want to accomplish.

The third and final workshop I attended by Fred Chamberlain was a very interactive session that concentrated on looking at how we view confrontation, how that observation sways the ones we have, and how to prepare for and communicate in confrontations that will better guarantee good results. When you are in a leadership position in which you oversee people confrontations will always arise and in order to keep a peaceful and enjoyable work environment it's important to know how to resolve these situations positively.

Overall this conference was a very influential experience for me. It gave me more confidence in obtaining and reaching my lifelong dreams and goals. It showed me first hand that there are opportunities out there that I need to take advantage of that my parents and grandparents never had.

This experience will follow me throughout my life and I will never forget it. I hope by reading this article more ACT101 students will want to attend next year's conference and just be aware of how much support they have no only at Cabrini but at other institutions as well.

As a member of the Cabrini College community I would like to express my distress at the recent postings occurring around campus. Posters, advertising a dance, are giving innuendos of inappropriate material. This is college and it is my understanding of the mission that we as students are supposed to be learning the core values. What about the many tours that are occurring on campus? What is CAPBoard saying to them with these vulgar signs? It is most certainly not the vision of our greatest value, community. I am just as shocked that the office of student activities approved these signs. The theater was turned down last semester for advertising that had characterizations of the main roles. “Asex addict, a horny friend and three women,” is a little bit racy, but so was the show as a milestone in Cabrini theater productions. Perhaps some more thought should be put into what gets approved or not. If the core values are to be upheld at this school, we must first have it reinforced by our administration. I hope that students in the future think twice for putting something so crude on a sign to be seen by both the community and visitors.

Chris Friel