Unique Destinations

By Valentine Brkich ’97

Some students come to college knowing exactly what they want to study and what career they want to build. Others come with less direction, hoping to find their calling through a process of trial and self discovery.

At Westminster College, we welcome both types of learners, and we support them by providing a liberal arts education. We believe that this type of education—one that focuses on the humanities, arts and sciences—helps our students develop key skills like critical thinking and communication, which are valuable tools in whatever career path is chosen.

Maybe one of the best traits of a liberal arts education is that it can lead you to places you imagined—or never imagined. The following five alumni discuss their Westminster experiences and how they arrived at their unique destinations.

Christopher Latta:

Legislative Budget & Finance Committee

Growing up in New Wilmington, you might say that Chris Latta ’95 was destined to attend Westminster. His mom, dad, brother, sister, an uncle on his mom’s side, and an aunt on his dad’s side all attended the school. His dad also worked at Westminster.

“I’m a townie that turned into a Titan,” says Latta. “I guess you could say that Titan blue courses through my veins.”

Today Latta serves as the deputy executive director of the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee in Harrisburg, Pa. This bicameral and bipartisan committee of the General Assembly conducts performance audits and other research assigned by members of the House and Senate.

During his time at Westminster, Latta majored in history and political science, minoring in secondary education. His plan was to teach high school social studies, and he even completed his student teaching experience.

But Latta had always enjoyed reading politics and had a bit of a political bug. As a student, he served as president of the Student Government Association and was a student member of the Westminster College Board of Trustees. At the time, Pennsylvania State Sen. Gib Armstrong ’65 was serving as a trustee.

“I would arrive early to the Board meetings and switch the name plates so I could sit next to Sen. Armstrong and chat him up at the meetings,” he says. “I believe they call that networking nowadays.”

During his senior year, Latta completed an internship in Washington, D.C., for a U.S. Congressman and really enjoyed the experience. Before he graduated, the Congressman offered him a job on his reelection campaign, and Latta took it.

After the campaign, Latta landed a job in Harrisburg with the Pennsylvania Senate, where he started out as the executive director of the Labor and Industry Committee. Then, after a stint in the Governor’s Office of Administration, he returned to the Senate as chief of staff to the Banking and Insurance Committee. From there he was appointed to chief of staff to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“All of those experiences prepared me for the job I have now,” he says.

Latta says the value of the liberal arts can be summed up in one word: connections. And not just the networking type.

“Sure, those are helpful,” he says, “but I’m talking about the connections between the arts, sciences and humanities. If you study those three, you’ve been trained. Possibly well trained. But life is not lived and careers are not advanced in a vacuum. It requires connections between the three. If you have all three, you’ve begun an education. And personally, I’d rather be educated than trained.”

For Latta, Westminster’s style of education is about connecting the dots between arts, humanities and sciences.

“Westminster excels in this type of education because she demands it of her students,” he says. “You cannot get through any major at Westminster without studying the arts, the sciences and the humanities.”

“I owe all of that to my professors at Westminster,” he adds. “They didn’t just help me get a job or career—they helped me get a mission.” S

Steve Keener:

Little League Baseball & Softball

When Steve Keener ’80 chose to attend Westminster College, his goals were to play basketball for the Titans and major in English in preparation for a career in radio broadcasting.

“I was a part time DJ in high school,” says Keener, “and I thought this was what I’d like to pursue professionally at the time. That changed as I learned more about the broadcast media industry.” A recipient of a partial scholarship, he ended up playing point guard and lettering for the Titans. He also ended up doing some broadcast production work for the campus radio station.

It wasn’t long before Keener's adviser and friend, the late Dr.

William J. “Doc” McTaggart, convinced him to expand his major to include English with a writing concentration.

“Doc believed this would give me more opportunities, specifically beyond radio broadcasting,” says Keener. “And he was right.”

Today, Keener serves as president and CEO of Little League® Baseball and Softball based in Williamsport, Pa.

During his senior year, he took an internship in the public relations department of Little League International and was eventually offered a full-time position as assistant director of public relations. In that role he wrote and coordinated stories for a special issue of Woman’s Day magazine that was devoted to Little League Baseball.

“It was a great experience,” says Keener. “Not only did I get to interview MLB players that played Little League, I also learned how to work with a team of professionals on a project for which we all shared the same vision.”

Keener believes the value of a liberal arts education is that it gives students the opportunity for a diverse educational foundation.

“Westminster does this very well,” he says. “Not only does it offer a variety of academic offerings, but there’s also a strong emphasis on your major field of study.”

Although his career isn’t exactly what he envisioned when he first chose to major in English, he says his studies in that area continue to benefit him in his day-to-day duties.

“Effective communication skills are essential to my current role,” he says. “My days are full of meetings, conversations and written interaction with a wide variety of professionals and volunteers. I need to be able to communicate effectively with skilled and highly motivated professionals, as well as with people who are giving their time to provide kids with the Little League experience.”

Looking back on his own life experiences, Keener says it’s important to expand your education beyond the specific areas of a major.

“While you might be an accounting star, you still need to communicate with others effectively. It’s all about becoming a more wellrounded person.” S

Ashley Patton:

CS Pathways @ CMU

When she chose to major in philosophy at Westminster, Ashley Williams Patton ’05 planned on using her degree to become a college professor. She actually started a Ph.D. program after graduating with that intention in mind. But life doesn’t always go as planned.

“I realized after the first year,” says Patton, “that while I enjoyed philosophy, I wanted to do something more hands on with my degree. I didn’t want to just think about why things are the way they are—I wanted to change them.”

Today she is the founding director of the CS (computer science) Pathways Program at Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) School of Computer Science.

Patton was working in a different role at CMU when a donor provided a gift to jump-start their programming in broadening participation in computer science. Because of her academic interest in equity and ethics, as well as her passion for educational fairness and access, she volunteered to lead the new project. Over the course of six years, she turned that project into a full-time office with six staff members, multiple programs and community partnerships across Pittsburgh.

A native of Washington, Pa., Patton says she and her dad visited just about every small liberal arts school in the tristate area when she was searching for a college.

“Many of them seemed the same,” she says. “A beautiful campus, a student-centered ethos, etc. Westminster had that too, but it also had that extra something special. It’s cliche to say, but I knew I wanted to attend there the moment I stepped foot on campus. The atmosphere is so welcoming, and I truly appreciated how much care the faculty and staff gave students to help them grow and thrive.”

She has many fond memories of big-topic conversations with her Westminster peers and professors. In particular, she recalls a field trip with Dr. Bryan Rennie, professor of religion emeritus, for Phi Sigma Tau, where they visited several museums in Pittsburgh, including the Warhol, Carnegie Art Museum and Mattress Factory to inform a discussion of aesthetics.

“It was the first time I’d really thought about the way perspective and emotion informs how we communicate,” she says, “both through art and in our day to day lives. That conversation still informs the way I approach working with others in a respectful and inquisitive manner.”

Patton believes a liberal arts education is one that teaches you how to think instead of telling you how to do something.

“Being able to think critically and deeply about how to solve a problem is vital in the modern workforce, especially in leadership roles,” says Patton, whose husband, Brad ’05, is also an alumnus. “The pace of societal advancement makes it impossible to accurately predict every skill you’ll need in your job. I think it’s so much more important to be able to approach new problems critically and creatively, which I definitely learned at Westminster.”

As for her current work in computer science, Patton finds it funny that she managed to become a working philosopher after all.

“There’s no blueprint for the work my team does as we actively try to shift entrenched systems. We have to figure it out day by day by looking at the whole problem and its root causes. That’s basically applied philosophy.” S

Jason Kalajainen:

Luminarts Cultural Foundation of Chicago

When Jason Kalajainen ’97 chose to major in political science at Westminster, he thought it would be an appropriate foundation for law school. He also decided to minor in art to activate and engage his creative side.

“One of the wonderful things about Westminster is the opportunity to take courses in a variety of departments,” he says. “Through this I discovered I really enjoyed many areas of study.”

Following graduation Kalajainen attended graduate school at Vanderbilt University and majored in higher education and non-profit administration. Soon after he found himself heading regional arts councils in Michigan before becoming executive director of Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists Residency.

Then, after many years leading organizations that support artists and the creative community through programming, in 2013 he had the opportunity to become the executive director of the Luminarts Cultural Foundation in Chicago. In this role he supports visual artists, writers and musicians through significant financial awards, spending a good deal of his time writing, presenting, facilitating meetings and navigating interpersonal situations.

“I don’t necessarily use the specific skills I gained from being a political science major,” he says, “but I use the tools I began to develop throughout my education at Westminster. I think my time there really served as the foundation for the development of those abilities.”

Kalajainen says Westminster encouraged him to find his strengths and passions both in the classroom and within the campus community and run with them, while providing resources that nurtured them along the way. He sees a liberal arts education as one that provides students with the opportunity to be both focused on their primary interest, while simultaneously dipping into new areas and discovering interests they didn’t know they had or that even existed.

While he feels the classroom experience was certainly important, he says Westminster provided a great stage to rehearse on.

During his time at Westminster, he had the opportunity to be the student representative on the Board of Trustees, serve on a Presidential Search Committee and be president of the Student Government Association. He says that all of these experiences, the people he met and the skills they engaged, opened his eyes to career paths he didn’t know existed beforehand.

“There is so much to learn and discover,” he says, “and it’s hard to imagine that an incoming first-year student has even begun to scratch the surface of that intellectual and cultural iceberg.” S

Ted Mansell:

National Severe Storms Laboratory

After growing up in New Wilmington, Ted Mansell ’91 started out looking at schools other than Westminster because he didn’t necessarily want to stay close to home.

“Part of it was the feeling of being in the shadow of my hometown and wanting a little separation,” he says. “New Wilmington is pretty small, after all, and I already knew some of the professors. One lived next door, and I knew others because I was friends with their kids or delivered their newspapers.”

But every now and then Mansell would bump into Bob Latta '63 from the admissions office, who would cajole him about submitting an application.

“His persistence paid off,” he says. “I finally got over my hometown phobia and sent it in. As it turned out, the familiarity I was so worried about turned out to be a positive. The student-faculty ratio was attractive, too. Most of my classes in physics and philosophy were small, which helped motivate me to come to class prepared.”

He ended up majoring in philosophy and physics and now works as a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma.

When he was first admitted to Westminster, he was undecided between physics and chemistry, or maybe even biology. One of the reasons he decided on physics was the idea that it was fundamental to the sciences and could take him in many directions.

“I was really interested in going for an advanced degree,” he says. “I also had some vague thoughts about getting into academia. Physics seemed like the right choice.”

One of Mansell's favorite courses in physics dealt with acoustics, so he focused his initial graduate school options on that. This led him to Northern Illinois University (NIU) and a master’s degree that focused on the acoustics of musical instruments, handbells in particular. While at NIU, he did an independent study in fluid mechanics that got him interested in pursuing a Ph.D.

At this same time, a couple of University of Oklahoma faculty members were looking for a graduate student to work on some new computer modeling of clouds and electrification to better understand lightning.

“I didn’t know much about the subject,” says Mansell, “but that didn’t stop me from jumping into something new.”

Ever since, he’s been developing sophisticated computer code to model the processes in storms for generating hail, lightning and even tornadoes.

“Sometimes I even get outside to chase thunderstorms,” he says.

In his current role with the NOAA lab, Mansell says he still uses the skills he learned at Westminster on a daily basis.

“My studies in physics taught me problem solving,” he says, “which definitely comes in handy in my line of work. Research, after all, has an endless supply of problems!”

Mansell credits his liberal arts education from Westminster for much of his career success.

“It’s more than being well-educated and well-rounded,” he says. “Exposure to other points of view and perspectives in an open and non-confrontational setting provides an opportunity for growth. That is definitely needed as much as ever. My second major was philosophy, which if nothing else taught me that there are many ways to think about ethics and society. And in my opinion, we shouldn’t be constrained by tradition.” S