RSCO FEATURE AML CLUB Multicultural book exchange is a success

By Samantha Weber Editor in chief

On Monday, March 20, there was a cultural book exchange that was open to all students.

hurst, students most likely had a number of books that were about other cultures that could be used in this exchange.

quick form filled out to act as the checkout process.

Are you interested in solving large crime schemes? Then the Anti-Money Laundering Club (AML) might be the place for you!

The Anti-Money Laundering Club helps prepare students to work in specific fields such as risk management and other related fields.

President of the club, Josey Moorhead talked about her involvement, “I got interested in the AML club after taking the Foundations of Anti-Money Laundering course at Mercyhurst. Also, Dr. Leslie Guelcher continued my interest by offering other AML courses throughout my time at Mercyhurst.”

Leslie Guelcher, Ph.D., is the advisor for the club. She had an impressive career prior to coming to teach at Mercyhurst. She was part of the AML team at a leading bank in the country. “I never thought that I would have ended up doing that as my everyday job, but I absolutely fell in love with it.”

Guelcher is currently teaching a Foundations of AML course in which students are learning about the most common ways that money is laundered throughout the world. The class is also split up into groups and assigned a country that they have to analyze the money laundering capabilities of the country.

AML used to be a minor that was offered to students, but Guelcher and another professor split those courses and the other professor left. Guelcher said she wished they still offered the minor option but just cannot teach all the courses herself.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the club hosted an event where a Mercyhurst Alumni, Marina Boyle came to speak about her career in AML. The club had pizza as an incentive for more people to come and support Boyle.

Moorhead said, “My favorite part about the club is being able to spread knowledge about AML and explore the various career paths it can provide.” Money laundering has been around for thousands of years but has just adapted forms as the years have gone on. It is important to constantly be on the lookout for how the field is evolving.

Money laundering regulations really only started in the 1970s so it is still relatively new and prevention strategies are ever evolving.

Keep an eye out for other events hosted by this club as they host events pretty regularly throughout the semester.

The executive board consists of Moorhead, Rumeysa Tzurner, Orkhan Badirov, Brett Wilson and Scott Stewart. Most of the board is graduating after this semester, so if anyone is interested in keeping this amazing club alive they should reach out to Moorhead about their interest.

People were encouraged to bring a book, specifically one that is unique to a specific culture to exchange with other attendees. If one does not have a cultural book or is not willing to part with one, students were encouraged to bring book ideas as an alternative.

The book exchange took place in a very fitting location, the Multicultural Student Lounge. This was just remodeled over the past summer to be a more inclusive space for those on campus, specifically for minority groups.

There are clubs for about every language offered at Mercyhurst to try and provide more opportunities for the students to get immersed in the culture of the language they are studying and not just the language itself.

Thankfully, due to the wide variety of courses offered through the REACH curriculum here at Mercy -

Students were encouraged to use books that they already had, or if students did not have any to rent from the library as the books will be returned to the original owner in a few weeks anyway.

Truth Arnold, a junior anthropology major, was the coordinator of this event. They are very passionate about books and think that they should be a vital part of everyone’s life. Arnold opened up the event by talking about why they wanted to host a book exchange and basically talked about their love for books.

Jess Hubert was in attendance as well and she was the one who led the remodeling process of the multicultural lounge. As part of the remodeling, there is a new library that was added to the lounge. Students are more than welcome to check out a book from the multicultural lounge. In each book should be a QR code that can be scanned and the

Since March is Women’s History Month, there is a featured section on the side table and all the books are either written by women or about women.

In two weeks there will be another exchange, or technically re-exchange of the books one borrowed from someone else. This allows everyone the opportunity to discuss what they have read with someone who already has read the same book and talk about their opinions of it. At the event, Arnold said, “Ideally you guys will be able to talk about what you liked from the book, or if you hated it why you did not like it.”

Students brought books from all different cultures and all different genres to exchange.

Arnold also provided a pamphlet about how to get a library card at one’s local library. Another great online resource to use is called Libby where you can rent e-books to read just like one would at a library, but for online books.