Writing
Web Content and Press Releases
Freelance Clients
Workwell Industries
Employee Spotlight: Meet Mary
Press Release: Workwell Open for Business
CHOGnews
Tagged: More Articles
Follow-Up: Online Services Foster Hope, Connection, and Unity
Overcoming Zoom Fatigue
Kingdom-Minded in Muncie: Mary and Cornelius Dollison
Throughout my AmeriCorps year, I had the opportunity to blog for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. One of my posts was re-published on FamVin.org, an international network of St. Vincent de Paul societies and other organizations.
It's Called Perspective (re-published on FamVin.org)
Workwell Industries
Employee Spotlight: Meet Mary
Press Release: Workwell Open for Business
CHOGnews
Tagged: More Articles
Follow-Up: Online Services Foster Hope, Connection, and Unity
Overcoming Zoom Fatigue
Kingdom-Minded in Muncie: Mary and Cornelius Dollison
Throughout my AmeriCorps year, I had the opportunity to blog for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. One of my posts was re-published on FamVin.org, an international network of St. Vincent de Paul societies and other organizations.
It's Called Perspective (re-published on FamVin.org)
E-blasts
My experience at St. Vincent de Paul included researching best practices for email marketing as well as drafting and designing e-blasts using Constant Contact. These targeted emails went out to specific segments of our audience and resulted in open rates and click-throughs exceeding national non-profit averages. Here is one example:
Convergent Journalism
I wrote these articles for the Indiana Wesleyan University student news publication, The Sojourn, during my convergent journalism practicum in Spring 2014. Through this experience, I made progress as an interviewer, writer, and team member. I developed skills in using AP Style, writing on deadline, working with editors, collaborating with photographers, and pitching news-worthy story ideas at weekly budget meetings.
The LLC Sustainability house. Photo credit: The Sojourn
Sustainable living for IWU students
The Sojourn|Front Page, Local Stories, News, On Campus | February 28, 2014 | By: Rachel Eldridge
Tucked between the male townhouses and the bustling intersection of East 38th and South Nebraska Streets is a small white cottage that “bursts” the metaphorical IWU bubble.
Autumn Joy Davis (jr), Sydni Hadden (sr) and Megan Ruvolo (sr) are residents of the house, along with house mentor Kayla Johnson (alumna ‘12). Together, they form the 2013-2014 IWU Sustainability Living and Learning Community (LLC).
In many ways, Davis, Hadden, and Ruvolo are typical IWU students, rushing to and from classes, chapel, jobs and study sessions. Yet other activities, like composting their kitchen scraps in a repurposed ice-cream container under the sink, are in stark contrast to other students’ “typical” habits of throwing away waste. Composting is just one way they intentionally practice sustainability and creation care as part of the LLC.
The housemates explained they also aim to reduce their consumption by eating fresh foods, bringing their own mugs to McConn and hanging their laundry up to dry on a maze of clotheslines in the home’s basement. During the growing season, they even help maintain the IWU Alliance Gardens.
But don’t think the LLC members are legalistic or judgmental about their eco-friendly practices.
“Really, we suck at this, but we’re trying,” Ruvolo joked. “Sometimes I forget to bring the reusable bags to the grocery. But there’s always next time.”
The housemates describe themselves as a support group for learning what it means to live sustainably. They agree that the LLC experience has helped them become more mindful about their responsibility to care for God’s creation.
“It’s about taking small steps to live sustainably,” said Johnson, explaining how that morning she used a sock instead of paper towels to clean her mirror. There is also an academic side of the LLC, primarily facilitated by biology professor Dr. Grace Miller.
Once a month, Miller joins the group for a “house dinner” to lead discussion on sustainability theories and international research, such as February’s topic of sustainable apparel. She also provides guidance for the Alliance Garden program and oversees the summer garden internships.
Hadden interned at Alliance Garden this past summer and lived at the house while working. She had the option to continue living in the LLC this past fall, but initially declined so she and her roommates could fulfill their goal of being Carmin Hall “lifers.”
Passionate about Carmin and creation care, Hadden spent the fall semester and the previous three years living sustainably from her dorm room. Recycling, turning out the lights, and unplugging chargers were all fairly easy for her to do in a small space, but composting and preparing all of her own organic meals without using genetically modified ingredients was harder.
Her midyear switch to the LLC has allowed Hadden to continue her sustainable practices and maintain her dietary convictions without the financial requirement of purchasing an unused meal-plan. While LLC participants have the option of purchasing full, partial, or no meal-plans, the current three students have chosen to prepare all of their own food.
“I finally feel grown up,” Davis said, laughing. For her, the LLC house is “more realistic” than a dorm. Here, she and her housemates experience a sort of transitional living, an “off-campus feel with on-campus status.” The participants take responsibility for general home upkeep and maintenance, although they have the reassurance of what Johnson describes as essentially “paying for IWU to be a great landlord.”
With a location right in between the IWU campus and its Marion neighbors, the LLC sustainability house is all about support and community. As residential students, the participants still engage with on-campus friends and activities, but they also are intentionally getting in touch with their non-student community, the environment and the world.
The Sojourn|Front Page, Local Stories, News, On Campus | February 28, 2014 | By: Rachel Eldridge
Tucked between the male townhouses and the bustling intersection of East 38th and South Nebraska Streets is a small white cottage that “bursts” the metaphorical IWU bubble.
Autumn Joy Davis (jr), Sydni Hadden (sr) and Megan Ruvolo (sr) are residents of the house, along with house mentor Kayla Johnson (alumna ‘12). Together, they form the 2013-2014 IWU Sustainability Living and Learning Community (LLC).
In many ways, Davis, Hadden, and Ruvolo are typical IWU students, rushing to and from classes, chapel, jobs and study sessions. Yet other activities, like composting their kitchen scraps in a repurposed ice-cream container under the sink, are in stark contrast to other students’ “typical” habits of throwing away waste. Composting is just one way they intentionally practice sustainability and creation care as part of the LLC.
The housemates explained they also aim to reduce their consumption by eating fresh foods, bringing their own mugs to McConn and hanging their laundry up to dry on a maze of clotheslines in the home’s basement. During the growing season, they even help maintain the IWU Alliance Gardens.
But don’t think the LLC members are legalistic or judgmental about their eco-friendly practices.
“Really, we suck at this, but we’re trying,” Ruvolo joked. “Sometimes I forget to bring the reusable bags to the grocery. But there’s always next time.”
The housemates describe themselves as a support group for learning what it means to live sustainably. They agree that the LLC experience has helped them become more mindful about their responsibility to care for God’s creation.
“It’s about taking small steps to live sustainably,” said Johnson, explaining how that morning she used a sock instead of paper towels to clean her mirror. There is also an academic side of the LLC, primarily facilitated by biology professor Dr. Grace Miller.
Once a month, Miller joins the group for a “house dinner” to lead discussion on sustainability theories and international research, such as February’s topic of sustainable apparel. She also provides guidance for the Alliance Garden program and oversees the summer garden internships.
Hadden interned at Alliance Garden this past summer and lived at the house while working. She had the option to continue living in the LLC this past fall, but initially declined so she and her roommates could fulfill their goal of being Carmin Hall “lifers.”
Passionate about Carmin and creation care, Hadden spent the fall semester and the previous three years living sustainably from her dorm room. Recycling, turning out the lights, and unplugging chargers were all fairly easy for her to do in a small space, but composting and preparing all of her own organic meals without using genetically modified ingredients was harder.
Her midyear switch to the LLC has allowed Hadden to continue her sustainable practices and maintain her dietary convictions without the financial requirement of purchasing an unused meal-plan. While LLC participants have the option of purchasing full, partial, or no meal-plans, the current three students have chosen to prepare all of their own food.
“I finally feel grown up,” Davis said, laughing. For her, the LLC house is “more realistic” than a dorm. Here, she and her housemates experience a sort of transitional living, an “off-campus feel with on-campus status.” The participants take responsibility for general home upkeep and maintenance, although they have the reassurance of what Johnson describes as essentially “paying for IWU to be a great landlord.”
With a location right in between the IWU campus and its Marion neighbors, the LLC sustainability house is all about support and community. As residential students, the participants still engage with on-campus friends and activities, but they also are intentionally getting in touch with their non-student community, the environment and the world.
Entries lined the mallway during the first annual McConn Art Competition. Photo credit: The Sojourn
McConn hosts student art competition
The Sojourn | Features | February 20, 2014 | By: Rachel Eldridge
The IWU community enjoyed homemade artwork along with their coffee, thanks to the first annual McConn Art Competition Feb. 7.
The contest prompted students of all majors to submit original coffee-themed art to be displayed at McConn.
Submitted works spanned a range of media, from photography to pencil to espresso. First place winner Jessi Rodman (sr) used pen and ink to draw a McConn cup brandished with the image of a bear.
Marissa Witchger (sr) and Brynn Stewart (sr) tied for second place with paired photos of ceramic McConn mugs surrounded by coffee beans. Amanda Reller (sr) explored the coffee bean itself, repeating the shape in an achromatic abstract painting which took third place.
Winners received McConn gift cards and Nalgene water bottles, but participants, judges and McConn staff agreed the real reward was the art itself.
For Reller, a graphic design major, the competition offered a chance to try new techniques.
“I haven’t done a lot of painting, but I really love it, and that’s why I chose to do painting instead of graphic design,” Reller said. “It’s a medium I’d love to get better at, so I figured this would be a fun time to explore it more and just have fun.”
Another participant, illustration major Cortez Neumann (jr), also took a few risks in his artistic process.
“The contest theme was coffee, so I figured, what’s better to paint it with than actual coffee?” Neumann said as he dipped his brush into a glass of double-dark fresh brew.
Neumann perched at a McConn table for an hour and a half before the competition deadline, painting a flavorful interpretation of a steaming coffee cup.
“For me, the contest is not about whether I win or lose. It’s about showing our campus what we do,” Neumann said. “It’s cool our art can be in McConn, not just in the hallway of Beard or in the 1920 Gallery.”
McConn Marketing Manager Jake Smith (jr) organized the competition with that purpose in mind.
“I love showcasing and demonstrating the talents of the students on campus,” Smith said.
Smith hopes to display as many of this year’s entries as possible, because “all of them are fantastic, not just the three winners” and said he would like to see the event become a campus tradition.
Will Carpenter, associate professor of art, judged the entries along with art instructor Carl Rudy.
“I think the greatest benefit will be to McConn,” Carpenter said. “Other organizations on campus could improve their spaces if they acquired or at least displayed high quality student artwork.”
The Sojourn | Features | February 20, 2014 | By: Rachel Eldridge
The IWU community enjoyed homemade artwork along with their coffee, thanks to the first annual McConn Art Competition Feb. 7.
The contest prompted students of all majors to submit original coffee-themed art to be displayed at McConn.
Submitted works spanned a range of media, from photography to pencil to espresso. First place winner Jessi Rodman (sr) used pen and ink to draw a McConn cup brandished with the image of a bear.
Marissa Witchger (sr) and Brynn Stewart (sr) tied for second place with paired photos of ceramic McConn mugs surrounded by coffee beans. Amanda Reller (sr) explored the coffee bean itself, repeating the shape in an achromatic abstract painting which took third place.
Winners received McConn gift cards and Nalgene water bottles, but participants, judges and McConn staff agreed the real reward was the art itself.
For Reller, a graphic design major, the competition offered a chance to try new techniques.
“I haven’t done a lot of painting, but I really love it, and that’s why I chose to do painting instead of graphic design,” Reller said. “It’s a medium I’d love to get better at, so I figured this would be a fun time to explore it more and just have fun.”
Another participant, illustration major Cortez Neumann (jr), also took a few risks in his artistic process.
“The contest theme was coffee, so I figured, what’s better to paint it with than actual coffee?” Neumann said as he dipped his brush into a glass of double-dark fresh brew.
Neumann perched at a McConn table for an hour and a half before the competition deadline, painting a flavorful interpretation of a steaming coffee cup.
“For me, the contest is not about whether I win or lose. It’s about showing our campus what we do,” Neumann said. “It’s cool our art can be in McConn, not just in the hallway of Beard or in the 1920 Gallery.”
McConn Marketing Manager Jake Smith (jr) organized the competition with that purpose in mind.
“I love showcasing and demonstrating the talents of the students on campus,” Smith said.
Smith hopes to display as many of this year’s entries as possible, because “all of them are fantastic, not just the three winners” and said he would like to see the event become a campus tradition.
Will Carpenter, associate professor of art, judged the entries along with art instructor Carl Rudy.
“I think the greatest benefit will be to McConn,” Carpenter said. “Other organizations on campus could improve their spaces if they acquired or at least displayed high quality student artwork.”