Wednesday, September 28, 2011La Roche College • 9000 Babcock Boulevard • Pittsburgh, PA 15237 • 412.847.2505 Vol. 16, Issue 1

This publication reflects the views, attitudes, interests, and tastes of the writers, editors and contributors to The Courier.It does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the administration, faculty and staff of La Roche College.

by shay badolato

Who was Magdalena Bold?see La Roche History, page 3

La Roche History Corner

Mold in BoldThe Courier office is

quarantined.On September 5,

2011, black mold was dis-covered in the corner of the walls, scattered on the car-pet, and underneath boxes and furniture in the La Roche College Courier of-fice in the Bold Residence Hall.

According to Christo-pher Willis, Director of Residence Life, the air-con-ditioning units are to blame for the mold.

“The two floor air-condi-tioning units sometime over the summer, had backed up, and so the water had spilled

The La Roche College Courier office is temporarily closed due to the sprouting of mold on the carpet and walls.

©Shay Badolato

see Mold in Bold, page 3

Paul McCarthy once said “You can judge a man’s true character by the

way he treats his fellow ani-mals.”

If the former member of The Beatles is correct, then there should be no need to question Lee Markowitz’s character.

Markowitz, a newly hired psychology professor at La Roche College, is a social scientist who is striving to better understand the rela-

By Kurt Hackimer

see Remembering, page 5

Animal friendly faculty joins La Roche

see Faculty, page 5

By Kurt Hackimer and shay badolato

This past summer, La Roche College lost two beloved staff members.

Over the past four months, Lance Shaeffer, La Roche’s assistant dean of ac-ademic affairs, and Donald Treser, director of counsel-ing and health services, both passed away.

Robert Lance Shaeffer, 62, of Valencia, Butler County, died suddenly on May 16, 2011.

“He always went above and beyond with every situ-ation, always ready to of-fer a helping hand,” Diana Forsythe, who worked in the same office as Shaeffer for seven years, said. “Lance was a teacher, a mentor and an advocate for students. He will be greatly missed.”

Shaeffer graduated from Drury University in Spring-field, MO, and earned his master’s degree from La Roche College.

Prior to being hired at La Roche College, Shaeffer was a businessman. He worked for the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce from 1981 to 1996, ascend-ing to the position of execu-tive director and CEO in 1994.

He came to La Roche in 1997. In his fourteen years at La Roche, Shaeffer dedicat-ed himself to teaching and mentoring students.

“He found a call for ser-vice at La Roche,” Forsythe said. “His transition from the corporate world to  aca-demia was where he found his niche and calling.”

When outside of the class-room, Shaeffer was an eager hobbyist. He dedicated the majority of his spare time towards rescuing Australian shepherds, beekeeping, and gardening.

Shaeffer was a devout Christian. He was an or-dained subdeacon at St. An-thony’s Antiochian Ortho-dox Church in Butler, PA.

Donald Treser, Jr., 51,

was with La Roche College for nine years. In his time, he implemented La Roche’s new insurance policy and oversaw all of the budgetary responsibilities.

However, Treser will be most fondly remembered for the relationships he built with the La Roche students.

“Don was so laid back, his work ethic was the same, and he related very well to a lot of students,” Lori Arend, who worked under Treser for six years, said.

“He would always listen to everything I said and try to help me to the best of his ability,” Autumn Hubert, one of the many La Roche students who sought Tres-er’s advice, said. “I feel like I found the one person I could talk to about anything and he wouldn’t think any less of me.”

Treser graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1999 with a master’s degree in social sciences. He was

tionship between humans and animals.

“When I was in grad school, I studied mainly anxiety and coping. Now, I am interested in an inter-disciplinary field, that in-volves many psychologists, on human/animal relations,” Markowitz said of his area of study. “That ranges from the ethics of our interactions with animals to the psy-chological principals that impact how we think about animals. Basically, how we think and relate to animals.”

The research will hope-

fully answer questions as to why people feel compelled to be animal rights activ-ists while some people feel the urge to hunt for sport, among other issues pertain-ing to mankind’s relation-ship to animals.

Markowitz, who has been vegan for two years, attri-butes his interest in animal relations to his love for his two dogs: a docile Jack Rus-sell terrier and a spaniel mix.

While Markowitz is ex-cited about his animal re-search, his expertise is not

up onto the floor,” Willis said.

Willis said that Massaro Restoration, a company that specializes in repairing wa-ter damaged properties, was brought in to assess and ren-ovate the Courier office.

“There was some mold on the carpets and on the walls, we ripped all the carpet out, ripped out three of the four walls, and redid some of the flooring, so all that was just redone. We ripped out ev-erything that was bad,” Wil-lis said.

Willis said that the college acted fast once the mold was discovered. They took the necessary steps to insuring

Remembering our La Roche family

www.larochecourier.com2

OpinionThe La Roche Courier < September 28, 2011

Editor-in-ChiefShay BadolatoKurt Hackimer

Contributing WritersNick MerolilloMike SlimanGerry O’Neil

AdvisorEd Stankowski

Men without hatsby Nick Merolillo

I’ve always been told that literature should do something for the person

reading it. That’s why it has survived all of these years.

But I never really under-stood what this meant be-cause I’ve always been un-der the impression that true meaning comes from the eyes of the beholder.

The teachers who were telling me these things tried their best; and to their cred-it, their lessons will always remain with me. However, 16th century poetry has lit-tle affect on an arrogant 21 year-old kid who cannot de-cide whether to text some-one or post a comment on his Facebook wall.

Maybe a comment would be better. It’s more informal.

Saying that times have changed has become cliché and knowing that Word-sworth’s lyrical ballads and preface was a turning point

in English literature is far more than trivial. But c’mon, that world and the world I live in are two completely different planets.

This is not an article about bashing the past, nor is it an article about the future. This article is about the problems with the present. The prob-lems concern change, and how generations cope with it.

A mentor once told me that without history we cannot fully grasp the un-derstanding on our own culture. In today’s society, changes are being enforced and shown through men ev-erywhere from television to H&M. Hair gel and the ever controversial swag has swept the nation. And it leaves me questioning why.

Iron City beer, smash mouth football, and Sid-ney Crosby will always give people hope. But will they be watching the games in a faded yellow cardigan sweat-

er that delicately softens the eyes? Or will it be in a Je-rome Bettis XXL black jer-sey with nacho cheese sauce perfectly stained into the let-tering?

A short 20 years ago, the steel mill meant every-thing to the City of Cham-pions and it still does; that hasn’t changed. What have changed are the attitudes of a generation that grew up not having the option to work in the mill.

I thought I knew what adversity was. I thought I was a tough kid following in the footsteps of a brother who was WPIAL player of the year. But that does not compare to being 17 years old, and stuck in a steel mill with grumpy grizzled men, greased and prepared to make your life a living hell.

Fashion will always be controversial, but instead of boys going to work to be-come men, we go to college to better our lives. In turn,

different situations occur, like texting.

I cannot say that I am not guilty of this crime, because I am. But I can say that it pisses me off that it happens.

We all sit in rooms to-gether, that will not change, and we all have cell phones with unlimited text messag-ing. I want to know when it became cool to sit in these rooms and text other people, in the same room, without saying one word to anyone in the room.

We all need communica-tion, that’s a given. But what type of communication is the best?

For thousands of years, humans have had a leg up on our greatest competition be-cause the last time I checked, animals are not sitting down writing letters to each other from across the world.

Has it gone too far when a couple of Guidos’ from Jer-sey Shore gel their hair on primetime television, just

to show the world how to work out, do their laundry, and tan? It’s wonderful to witness “The Situation” buy a new cool tee shirt, pick up chicks, and work out, but let’s be realistic.

I’m an Italian-American and if my grandpa saw me acting like these characters he would come back to life, lock me in his basement and throw pool balls at me until I couldn’t walk anymore. And he would do it with pride because he knew it would teach me a lesson.

Nothing productive ever happened when groups of people were happy.

They’re angry, and with good reason.

Why should I wear hair gel and take part in casual conversations about fash-ion? Why shouldn’t I gradu-ate from college and work in a steel mill? I think it begs the larger question.

What are we going to do about it?

“This article is about the problems with

the present. The problems concern change, and how generations cope

with it.”

www.larochecourier.com 3

Who was Magdalena Bold?La Roche College history corner

When we hear the word history, some envi-sion the soporific teaching of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Others picture

inscrutable manuscripts; and exotic ruins where intrepid explorers brave booby-trapped pyramids, cannibalistic cults, and the well-lit file cabinets of the Wright Library. Wait. What? Yes, we have history at La Roche: the story of our community, and the backdrop for the identities we build. Each month the History Corner will present some inter-esting finds from the La Roche Archives.

Brandishing my trusty Occam’s Razor, I cut away the detritus of years; meeting minutes hoary with age, and grants from our corporate overlords gone by, to see—a roach? Yes, it’s Monsieur La Roach, a cartoon mascot from the 1960s who lived at the foot of the flagpole in front of the Wright Library. Much of the car-toon cockroach’s humor, whose adventures were incorporated into a comic strip, consisted of inside-jokes that make little sense today; ex-cept for commentary about rising book prices.

Monsieur La Roach spent a good part of his strip time attempting, and failing, to not get run over crossing Babcock Blvd. In the late 1970s, he re-appeared as Pierre La Roche; an apparent reference to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ star player at the time, Pierre Larouche.

Speaking of names, the Magdalen Chapel is not simply named in honor of the celebrated dis-ciple in the New Testament. Magdalena Mauer Bold was born in Germany in 1887 and came to America when she was three years old.

Unfortunately, her father did not survive an illness during the Atlantic crossing, and her mother had three young children to support. The Mauers settled in Millvale, and Magdalena attended the all-German St. Anthon’s School. (During World War I, America became paranoid about instruction in foreign languages, particu-larly German, and foreign language schools were outlawed. These laws were later over-turned, but the assault on mixed identity had a

by Gerry O’Neil lasting impact). Still, according to her son, Wal-ter Bold, “She learned her prayers in German, and she died saying them in German.”

However, Magdalena could not remain in school long; at age eleven she left to help sup-port her family by working as kitchen help in Squirrel Hill during an era when many people hired servants. At age 17, while working at a Bold’s Bakery, which directories from the 1920s list at 829 Industry Street in the Allentown sec-tion of Pittsburgh, she married a bakery worker name August Bold.

Together they built the business that expand-ed to become the Bold Baking Co., which was incorporated in 1927 for $350,000. Walter and Delores Bold, with the Richard B. Fischer Fam-ily, raised $880,000 for the chapel and entry-way, in the late 1980s and, on May 5th, 1990, the chapel was opened.

The Magdalen Chapel was intended to be the physical and symbolic focal point of the college that memorialized a faithful and hard-working immigrant who died in 1971. According to President Sister Margaret Huber, who presided over the chapel’s groundbreaking ceremony, the chapel’s name is a symbol of the spirit of reconciliation and love portrayed in the gospel stories.

As the weather here grows colder, you can be grateful that the dress code has changed a bit since the 1960s, when students (presumably female) complained of outbreak of “frostbitten kneecaps.”

Apparently, slacks were permitted, if worn under skirts, when it was colder than 25° F, but this didn’t look very good. In December of 1968, the policy was modified to permit the wearing of slacks when temperatures dropped below 25° F. So, if you are sporting jeans and a shirt from your favorite band, Gothic Undertaker, be sure to thank those that have gone before you, fighting for the right.

My introductory texts aside, please make an appointment if you wish to use the La Roche Archives, and leave the machete at home. The funny hat remains an option though. See you next month!

The Magdalena Chapel and Peace Garden located on the La Roche College campus near the Palumbo Science Center building.

©Shay Badolato

Summertime flashback by shay badolato

The Fall 2011 school year has begun and stu-dents from La Roche College are eager to share how they spent their summer vacation.

Whether you spent time laying on a golden beach under the glistening glow of the Mexican sun, or you enjoyed your nights at PNC Park along the Allegheny River, gazing over the city of Pitts-burgh, one thing was for certain: it was summer time.

Soraya Orelien, a freshman from New York, said she went to Virginia Beach for her senior trip.

Orelien said that one of her favorite moments during the trip was when she went to Bush Gar-dens, being there allowed her to challenge herself.

“I’m really afraid of roller coasters and the height of them, but I was like ‘OH NO,’ I’m going to ride every coaster, even if it kills me. And sure enough that’s exactly what I did,” she said.

Soraya said that she also rode a “dare devil ride” that was her most memorable moment at Bush Gardens, because it felt like she was flying.

She explained, “You and two other people were strapped up in this band from head to toe and you were lifted 150-feet from the ground. And as soon as you pulled the orange cord, you flew across the park.”

“Man when I say I almost peed my pants, I al-most peed my pants,” Orelien said.

While Soraya took advantage of several daring adventures at the beach, Jennifer Reilly, a senior from New Jersey, said she enjoyed her trip to Long

Island Beach because of the relaxation time she had with her family.

Reilly said, “Even though I deeply love the beach, the reason my vacation was fun was be-cause I was able to spend a week with my family. The three of us didn’t really get to see each other too much during the summer as my mom and I both worked and my brother was at camp. It was nice to be able to relax with them for a week with-out everyone being so busy.”

Besides her trip to Long Beach Island, she also traveled back to Pittsburgh.

“I drove up to Pittsburgh with my best friend this summer to celebrate my friend’s birthday. It was a very interesting trip as my best friend had never been to Pittsburgh so it was exciting to show her around the city,” Reilly said.

Some enjoy the hustle and bustle or the relax-ation and free time that summer allows for. Both Orelien and Riley express what summer truly means to them.

Reilly said, “Sitting in the sun all day and being out all night is the definition of summer in my eyes. Summer to me means going to the beach or out on the boat, getting a tan and spending the majority of your time with your family and friends. Sum-mer means there are bon fires and parties every weekend, and everyone is happy just to sit and be around each other.”

“You live for the moments you will remember later on and for the people who you wont forget,” Orelien said. “Just be yourself and have fun doing things you thought you couldn’t.”

that the rest of building was not affected. “There was never a threat to outside that room,

it was all contained to that room,” Willis said.There are certain procedures to follow once

mold is removed from the room said La Roche College Biology professor Dr. Gail Rowe.

“Routine cleaning with an appropriate anti-fungal cleaning product like bleach or some other household cleaner, along with removing excessive moisture from the air can prevent it from growing back, Rowe said.”

The Courier office is almost restored and they are just waiting on the new carpet said Willis.

Even though the Courier office is on the verge of being splattered with a fresh coat of paint, deco-rated with furniture, paved with clean carpet, and equipped with new technology, the old office will be missed. The staff lost their stylish floral high back chair, archives of previous issues of the Cou-rier, a John Wayne clock that gave the room per-sonality and flare, and other items that cannot be replaced.

Mold in Bold continued from page 1

4

SportsThe La Roche Courier < September 28, 2011

by Mike Sliman

Field of dreamsThe athletic director at La

Roche College has an inter-esting history that some peo-

ple may not know about.Jim Tinkey played professional

baseball as a pitcher in the minor leagues for five years.

He was drafted by the Califor-nia Angels as a junior in college.

Most kids that play baseball al-ways dream of being a professional baseball player, and Tinkey was no different.

“Somebody asks you when you’re 14 years old, what are you going to do when you grow up? I’m going to play professional baseball,” Tinkey said.

In high school, he said that he wasn’t really a standout player. Tin-key didn’t make the varsity team until his junior year and didn’t play regularly until his senior year.

Tinkey said it was not until his senior year in high school that he really began to improve.

“I got better physically, and as a pitcher I got better from my senior year in high school when I was 17 until I was 21,” the La Roche AD said. “Those four years I took huge steps.”

Tinkey described himself as a control pitcher. His average fast-ball was 90 or 91 mph, and he oc-casionally reached 92 or 93 mph.

“I wasn’t one of those guys that was just effortless and could throw it 95 mph,” Tinkey said.

After graduating from high school, he attended Youngstown State University. Tinkey chose not to play baseball there until his junior year. However, he did play baseball in summer leagues at Youngstown. His friends from summer leagues were on the Youngstown State baseball team, and they talked him into playing his junior year.

Every year Youngstown has a state tournament that has teams

compete from all over the state of Ohio. Tinkey said he played in this tournament the year after graduat-ing from high school, and he was named the MVP of the tourna-ment.

Tinkey said, “It was the first time that I really shined and got noticed.” As a 20 year old, he start-ed to get tryouts from teams like the Indians and Pirates.

He was a walk-on at Youngstown State his junior year, and he can remember reading an article that was an outlook for his baseball team’s season. The article

said that Tinkey would get some playing time during the year.

“It listed all these No. 1 pitch-ers, and I wasn’t even on the depth chart at the time,” Tinkey said. During spring break, the team played in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Tinkey played in his first game as a member of the team on this trip. He pitched six innings,

gave up one hit and zero runs. After this performance, the coach put him into the starting rotation.

“The rest of that year I had three one-hitters. I’d get 13, 14 strikeouts a game,” Tinkey said. “All of a sud-den I was his man.”

Halfway through the season, scouts began to call to see when he would be pitching.

The former baseball player said the turning point in his career was when his team played against Ak-ron. Tinkey had a friend named Mike Birkbeck that played at Ak-ron who also was a pitcher. Birk-

beck was drafted the previous year by the Indians, but he chose not to sign to come back for his senior year. He constantly had scouts fol-lowing him.

The two of them faced each oth-er in this game, and Tinkey won the matchup. He shutout Akron al-lowing, one hit and striking out 14. At this point, scouts really started

to take notice of Tinkey.“From that point on, I pitched

three or four games after that. Every game I pitched, there were three or four scouts sitting behind home plate with radar guns watch-ing me,” Tinkey said.

After the season was over, Tin-key played in a college summer league. The day before the baseball draft, someone from the Angels organization asked him if he was playing in the game that night. The coach put him in for one inning, and Tinkey struck out three bat-ters he faced on nine pitches.

After the game, the scout from the Angels asked Tinkey, “If we draft you tomorrow, are you go-ing to sign?” Tinkey said he would sign and was drafted by the Angels the next day at the age of 21.

He found out before his baseball game the next night that he was drafted and would not be able to

Jim Tinkey remembers his playing days as a professional baseball player.© Mike Sliman

Pitch problemsby Nick Merolillo

see Field of dreams, page 5

The La Roche College athletic field needs your help.

According to head soccer Coach David Day, the process has begun, but there is still work that needs to be done.

“If we invest in our athletic pro-grams, the benefits will only be better for our school,” Day said.

There are roughly 205 student athletes in a school that according to the La Roche web site holds a total enrollment of approximately 1,707 students.

When considering male and female soccer teams, and a newly

acquired Lacrosse team, the field cannot withstand all of the action.

With better facilities for the students, logic says that positive things will come.

La Roche College Women’s Soc-cer player Bethanie Moreschi said that it’s a liability because there is potential to lose critical games be-cause of the field. “It just doesn’t

make sense anymore,” she added, “the ball hits the ground and you don’t know where it’s going to go.”

Injuries are already a major con-cern when considering the types of sports that are being played on the field. Stop and go action becomes outrageously difficult when the

see Problems,page 5

“It was the first time

that I really shined and

got noticed.”

5

hired by La Roche College in 2002.During his time at La Roche, Tres-

er developed a reputation for being a genuinely kind-hearted individual. He was known to hang around cam-pus with the students, most likely playing pool in CC Square.

“He was genuinely concerned about me and my wellbeing,” Arend said. “He always said if I was un-happy he needed to fix it because he never wanted me to leave.”

When Treser was not helping peo-ple at La Roche, he was most likely busy counseling recovering addicts Treser & Associates Psychological and Addiction Counseling Services, a private practice owned and oper-ated by Treser and his wife, Gigi.

Treser & Associates’ primary goals were to provide support for youths effected by drugs and reduce the number of drug-related deaths of persons under the age of 25 in Al-legheny County.

Treser also was the guitarist and frontman for The Iron City Slickers, a country band based out of Pitts-burgh. He also enjoyed riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle and spending time with his five children.

A memorial service for Don Tres-er will be held on Thursday October 13, 2011 at 4:00 PM in the Magdalen Chapel.

Also, a team of students will take on La Roche College faculty mem-bers in the first annual Don Treser Classic softball game. This will take place on Friday September 30, 2011 at 4:00 PM on the softball field.

Remembering

Faculty

play in the game that night. Tinkey said, “It was the weirdest feeling in the world. I can’t play because I got drafted by the Angels.”

Tinkey went to Cal-State Fuller-ton the next week for a three-week minicamp for all of the Angels draft picks. Then he began his profession-al career in rookie ball with the Sa-lem Angels.

The other teams that he played for within the Angels organization were the Class A Peoia Chiefs in Illinois, the High-Class A Redwood Pioneers in California, and the Class AA Mid-land Angels in Texas.

After playing at the AA level, he got an AAA contract from the Ed-monton Trappers in February before the season started. He received a let-ter saying that he was released two weeks later.

He played for the San Jose Bees instead. They were an independent team that did not belong to an or-ganization, but competed against other minor league teams. If a player does well on an independent team, an MLB organization can buy their contract.

Tinkey said the San Diego Padres tried to buy his contract at the end of the season, but the San Jose owner was asking for too much money. The Padres chose not the sign Tinkey.

The season with the San Jose Bees was the last season of professional baseball in Tinkey’s five-year career.

The former pitcher played against a lot of well known played in the minor leagues. Two notable players were Jose Canseco and Mark McG-wire. Tinkey said, “Mark McGwire was 0 for 7 against me. He hit three of the biggest fly balls I’ve ever seen in my entire life off of me, but he never got a hit off of me.”

Joe Maddon, the current manager for the Tampa Bay Rays, was Tinkey’s coach for three years in the minors. Tinkey has a lot of friends that he used to play with who are currently scouts or coaches in baseball. He is a good friend of the Cincinnati Reds’ pitching coach, Bryan Price.

After Tinkey finished his profes-sional baseball career, he got a job at La Roche College in 1987 as an admissions counselor and baseball coach. In 1997, Tinkey was named the athletic director and he resigned as the baseball coach.

La Roche’s golf team began in 1996 and their coach resigned after the first season. Tinkey took over the golf team in 1997. He is currently the golf coach and athletic director at La Roche.

Field of dreams

surface is soft and muddy. In turn, this creates an even greater chance that teams could be hurt.

Even more so, recruitment be-comes difficult for coaches because why would a player from neighbor-ing High Schools such as North Al-legheny, Pine Richland, and Hamp-ton (all who have artificial turf) want to come to a school that cannot keep a field green.

A turf field has been speculated throughout campus as a possible 2013 solution.

“We just need to do it,” Day said as he was talking about the advantages a turf field would have to the school, “and we are excited for the future, but like most things in life we need money.”

If any readers know of anyone who would like to donate money, feel free to contact the Athletic De-partment at 412-536-1001.

Interested in writing, layout, or photography?

The La Roche Courier needs writers for news articles, feature stories, sports coverage, and entertainment. Photographers, illustrators, and page designers are

always wanted.

If you are interested in joining our staff, please contact our editors: Shay.Badolato@stu.laroche.edu

andKurt.Hackimer@stu.laroche.edu

limited to studying our four-legged friends.

Markowitz aims to promote a greater understanding of serious is-sues in the human world through the lens of social science.

“Human behavior is much more complicated than most people real-ize and we have much less insight into how we think, feel, and behave and the factors that lead to those be-haviors than we realize,” Markowitz said. “It’s probably a lot harder to put ourselves in other people’s shoes than we think.”

As an undergrad at Hamilton College in New York, Markowitz studied to be a psychologist rather than a teacher.

It wasn’t until he was a graduate student at the University of Water-loo that Markowitz realized teaching was the more rewarding career path.

“I like seeing students excited about psychology,” Markowitz said. “Teaching is an opportunity to share social sciences and psychology with people; to share what I love most.”

Markowitz looks to challenge his students by asking them to improve their critical thinking skills.

“I would like to increase [stu-dents’] awareness of the contribu-tions social science makes to all of the major issues of our time; rang-ing from understanding terrorism, understanding poverty, understand-ing heated issues such as abortion and animal rights,” Markowitz said. “The media doesn’t cover the contri-butions made by social scientists on any of these issues.”

Ideally, Markowitz’s students will leave his classroom with a better understanding of what causes the world’s major problems and how these problems can be solved.

“Whether it’s understanding why someone is poor or why someone becomes a terrorist, it’s really hard, without looking at the social sci-ences, to understand those problems and what we must do to eliminate them,” Markowitz said. “We often miss all of the environmental factors that could be changed or improved.”

continued from page 1

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The La Roche College soccer field and its current muddy state.

© Nick Merolillo

Problemscontinued from page 4