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“Where alumni go to keep in
touch.”
Glenn Fuchs and Dan Magee decided to start this website for the alumni group to keep in touch and to reminisce about the good old days. |
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GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES.
MAY THEY RETURN HOME SAFELY!
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April 19,
2006
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TCNJ senior Jeff Zodda (Mercerville, NJ/Notre
Dame) won the 2006 NCAA Division III Indoor Championship in the 800
meter run to set a Tostrud Center Record in the process after posting
a time of 1:52.53 in the finals. Zodda is now a six-time All-American
in both indoor and outdoor track and field. Zodda said of his victory,
"It feels really good. It's been a long time coming. I'm a senior
and I've been in track for four years... I knew I'd have to run really
fast to get past the teams here. You always have to work for it. I just
did my best." TCNJ's senior Brittny Boyd (Hackettstown, NJ/Hackettstown)
picked up third place in the 400 meter run and broke TCNJ's school record
in the process after she recorded a time of 56.68 in the finals. In
the trials on Friday night, she set the Tostrud Center record, only
to have it broken in the finals by Rachel Andserson of Illinois Wesleyan
as she won the race in 56.35. Boyd is now an 18-time All-American in
track and field at TCNJ after also running on the Lions's second place
4 x 400 relay.
Alumni messages:
Hi Glen, |
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March 12,
2006
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March 4, 2006
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Thank you: Since the other's day update you've all been sending me great emails. My inboz has actually been clogged though not by your wonderful words of encouragement, but by "postmaster returned" emails for invalid email addresses. Here is a list of people who's email addresses I have are no longer valid. Any help in tracking them down would be appreciated. I have marked them as MIA on the roster page since we once knew their whereabouts. Jackie Hoover Ray and Krista MacAlaren (FOUND) Pat Leary Jason Faris Amy O'Donnel Tim Walsh (FOUND) Jason Henning (FOUND) Butch Oberlander Chris Ward Gary Springer Fred Benlein (FOUND) Jim Law Jeff Mastroly Jim Van Saders Ray and Janice Cendana BTW: There are some great recollections in the stories section by Kevin Smith. Click here. |
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March 1, 2006
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Metzie at Millrose Games: I attached a picture from the Millrose games. What an unbelievable experience. We first were able to warm up on the track before our race. The feeling I had when I went outonto the track and looked into the stands was amazing. It was almost like an out of body experience. It felt like a dream. I was totally overwelmed with joy. It made me think back to the five weeks I went through of no running while I was being diagnosed. I was so proud of where I was at that moment. Then running the actual race I can't even describe how unbelievable of a feeling it was! Thanks to everyone who was there watching. The feeling I had of running in Madison Square Garden and having so much support in the stands is a feeling that I will never forget. Thank you for sharing such a special day with me. Tom
It's a boy! Brian Thomas Magee Born: 11/2/2005 at 2:07 a.m. Height: 21 1/2 inches Weight: 8 lbs. 13 ounces AND John Driscoll McStravick Born: 9/22/05 Height: 20 inches Weight: 7 lbs. 15 ounces AND Mitchell Jacobs Born: 11/09/05 Height: 19 1/2 inches Weight: 7 lbs. 12 ounces The Hot College in New Jersey These Days By DEBRA NUSSBAUM, The New York Times EWING TOWNSHIP The brick Georgian-style buildings are surrounded by a sea of neatly manicured lawns. Inside, the small classes are filled with some of the best students New Jersey's high schools have to offer. The college has won a top ranking for northern schools from U.S. News & World Report, and Barron's has rated it "most competitive." All of this comes at a bargain price for the approximately 6,000 undergraduate students who have made the cut. The College of New Jersey - having shaken off its old name, Trenton State, and its mantle as a mediocre teacher's college - has arrived. "It's quite the hot school," said Sigus Vanni, a guidance counselor at Cherry Hill West High School and a former assistant dean at Swarthmore College. Indeed, the seventh-ranked student at Cherry Hill West plans to attend the College of New Jersey in the fall, Mr. Vanni said. But that is not all. Of the 40 students who make up the top 10 percent of the class, about 5 are planning to go there. It is a school that Mr. Vanni encourages students to consider. "I will sell it because I do believe in their mission," he said. "It's talked about in the same breath as schools like Villanova." Paul Shelly, a spokesman for the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, agrees that the College of New Jersey is reaching its goal of enticing New Jersey's students to stay in the state by offering them a smaller and seemingly more exclusive college for the in-state price of about $8,200 - or about $17,000 a year with housing and meals included. For out-of-state students, the price is about $4,000 more."They achieved their mission," Mr. Shelly said. "They are viewed as a destination. They are a great value." Just how good is the College of New Jersey considered? Well, it is one of only seven public colleges among Barron's list of 70 schools described as "most competitive" - keeping company with such institutions as Brown, Columbia, William & Mary, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Vassar, the University of Chicago and University of Virginia. Princeton, for instance, is the only other school in New Jersey in this category. And in the 2005 college edition of U.S. News & World Report, of the 83 schools in the northern region that offer undergraduate and master's degrees but few if any doctoral degrees, the College of New Jersey is rated fifth behind Villanova, Providence College, Fairfield University in Connecticut and Loyola College in Maryland. By comparison, Rowan University and Rutgers-Camden are tied for 34th place, and Rider University is tied for 36th with Regis College in Massachusetts. Indeed, the school's own statistics show that it has been attracting a better caliber of student over the last several years. In 1999, for instance, the school received applications from 5,755 students, out of which 1,209 students enrolled, and including those who applied through special programs for the disadvantaged, the average College Board score was 1,205, and the average student was in the top 15 percent of his or her class. For the 2004 freshman class, of the 6,485 students who applied, 1,231 enrolled; their average College Board score was 1,308 and the average class rank was the top 10 percent."I was looking for a smaller school," said James Van Strander, a 19-year-old sophomore who graduated from Morris Hills High School in the top 10 percent of his class and scored 1,500 on his College Boards. "I was hearing a lot of good things about the academics here." Mr. Van Strander, from Rockaway, was accepted at the University of Maryland, but a scholarship to The College of New Jersey was a deciding factor. Alida Liberman, a 19-year-old freshman from Lincoln Park, was accepted at Franklin & Marshall College and the College of William & Mary, but ultimately chose the College of New Jersey. "The more I found out the more I realized it was a good school," Ms. Liberman said. "The classes were small. You really get a lot of personal attention." In fact, many of her classes this year have been smaller than those in her high school - with 17 students in a literature course, 11 in philosophy and 15 in Spanish. Administrators say that 90 percent of all classes have no more than 30 students. 'Campus From a Movie' As odd as it might sound, some students said the sheer appearance of school seemed to attract them and their parents. "T. C. N. J. is a campus where I felt comfortable," Ms. Liberman said. "It looks like a college campus from a movie."For students accepted by private colleges in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, the relatively modest cost of an education at the College of New Jersey is sometimes the deal-maker. "We are so similar to those institutions," said Lisa Angeloni, the dean of admissions. "Parents are really looking at the cost." Whatever the reason, the effort to lure attractive students is working. Ms. Angeloni said that 7,290 students applied this year for admission in the fall, an increase of 13 percent over last year. "I believe there is an economic issue to it," said Dr. R. Barbara Gitenstein, president of the College of New Jersey since 1999 after arriving from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she was provost. "They are looking at the smart alternative. It's being a smart consumer. Price does matter, but they are looking for value." The transition from Trenton State to the College of New Jersey did not happen overnight. While the name was changed in 1996, the die was cast 20 years earlier. "It's been an incredible transformation in the past 25 years," said Dr. Gitenstein, who gives much of the credit to her predecessor, Dr. Harold Eickhoff, who was president from 1980 to 1998. When the college opened 150 years ago, it was called the Trenton Normal School. And from 1929 to 1937 it was called New Jersey State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton. The phrase "teachers college" was not removed from the title until 1958, when the school became simply Trenton State College. And while about 30 percent of the students receive teaching certificates upon graduation these days, that is often in conjunction with another major; the largest concentration of majors at the college are now English, biology, business administration, psychology, communication studies and criminology and justice studies. But Dr. Eickhoff's big changes began taking shape well before the decision to rename the school. In the 1970's - when many colleges and universities began opening their doors to students with lower grades and test scores - Dr. Eickhoff and his administration chose to become more competitive. The college reduced the number acceptances, and although it does not have a cutoff for College Board scores and class rank, in the last 15 years it has been recruiting the top students around the state by inviting them to apply and offering scholarships. At the same time, it was also considered necessary for the college to transform itself into a primarily residential campus made up of full-time students rather than a hodgepodge of full- and part-time students, with some living on campus and others elsewhere.And while the trustees have determined that up to 10 percent of its student body can be made up of out-of-state applicants - usually from Pennsylvania and New York - according to Dr. Stephen Briggs, the provost, the college has limited that to 5 percent because of the number of qualified applicants from New Jersey. To be sure, part of the reason the College of New Jersey has tried to raise its game is to retain high school graduates who would otherwise have chosen to continue their education in a neighboring state or beyond. This year, while more than 90,000 pupils will graduate from the state's public and private high schools, about 19,000 of them will choose to attend college outside New Jersey. And that is not only because the out-of-state schools are more alluring. There are simply not enough places in New Jersey's colleges and universities. The state ranks 45th in the nation for the number of available slots in colleges when compared with the overall population. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac for 2003-4, the state - with more than 8.5 million residents - has 142,336 students enrolled in four-year public colleges.Mr. Shelly, of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities - which includes schools like the College of New Jersey, Montclair State, Rowan, Ramapo, Paterson and Stockton - said the association's nine members receive about 44,000 applications each year from high school seniors in the state and have only 10,000 seats to fill each fall. As a result, the College of New Jersey - like many of the other state colleges - is turning away many qualified students."I think we are kind of hot at the moment, and that's good news, bad news," Dr. Briggs said. "We can't get bigger and do what we are doing."To Dr. Briggs, the college's greatest changes these day center around campus housing and the ability to recruit a talented faculty. He estimates that 40 to 50 percent of the 350 faculty members had been hired in the last 12 to 15 years. Among the professors who have joined the faculty in the last three years, he said, include Dr. John Allison, a chemistry professor from Michigan State University who did his post-doctoral work at Stanford University; Jayne Zanglein, a business professor from the Texas Tech University School of Law who was provost of the National Labor College in Silver Springs, Md., and is an expert on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act; and Derek Peterson, a history professor on leave from Cambridge University who teaches colonial and pre-colonial African history. As for campus housing, Dr. Briggs said the college had increased the number of beds to 3,577 from 2,170 in the early 1980's. Moreover, he said that in the fall 95 percent of all freshman and 85 percent of all sophomores would live on campus. Still, campus housing is not always the answer, said Bill Indek, the guidance program director at Glen Ridge High School - who says he has high regard for Rutgers as well as the College of New Jersey. "If you could move T. C. N. J. to Pennsylvania," Mr. Indek said, "you'd get even more students."But these days, the College of New Jersey seems to be winning more often. Nicole Kukawski, a 21-year-old junior from Palmyra chose the college over Villanova, Loyola and the University of Delaware after graduating from Bishop Eustace Preparatory School in Pennsauken. You Need to Apply'Ms. Kukawski had not applied to the College of New Jersey until two days before the application was due, and admitted that her parents had persuaded her. "My parents said it's such a great school, you need to apply," she said.Ultimately, she said, she based her decision on academics as well as cost. "It was the best deal for the academics and the price," she said. "Now, I can't imagine myself anywhere else."While trying to make up her mind, she said she sat in on a literature class with Dr. David Blake and was impressed with his teaching as well as with the students. These days, Ms. Kukawski finds herself in the spotlight because of her discovery of an interview done in February 1888 with Walt Whitman at his home in Camden. In it, Whitman gave advice on schools and learning, saying there was no royal road to learning and that students should go out and write and have experiences. In this month's issue of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, there is an article by her about the interview, and in the fall she plans to discuss it at a symposium on campus. So while the prestigious Ivy League schools have a little more tradition, she said, "that's no reason to discount this school.""I'm constantly amazed at the people I go to school with and how the majority of them are Ivy League people," she said. "I don't feel like I go to a state school. Some people still don't know that this is not called Trenton State anymore. This school deserves to be on the map." Message from Metzie from a while ago: To my friends and Family, It is that time of year again for my blood test and check up. I had a good day today. I wasn't sure what to expect since I developed bronchitis two weeks ago and am just starting to recover from that. My white blood cells went down from 22.0 to 18.4(normal is 3.3-10.5). That is the second lowest it has been since my diagnosis which was 12/99. My lymphocyte count dropped from 17.6 to 14.4(normal is 1.2-3.0). 13.3 is the lowest it has been. So that is very good news. She did find several swollen lymph nodes but that was probably because of my body fighting the bronchitis. We will see if they are still there when I go back in April. She also said if I can't get rid of the bronchitis or if I get infected with something else that she wants to put me on gamma gobulin by IV. Gamma Gobulin can lessen the likelihood of illness. That was the first of the good news that I recieved on Thursday. Later Thursday night I recieved a phone call informing me that the 40 and over relay team I am on (I am lucky enough to be on with three fast runners) qualified for the 4x4 relay at Millrose. So I will be running in Madison Square Garden! The Millrose games will be held on Friday night February 3rd. Anyone who would like to go let me know. We may have a big group going to the run. So that is the good news that I have. I ran 59.7 in the relay and I also ran a 4:53.22 mile at West Point this past weekend. My goal is to break4:50 for the mile this year! Thanks again to everyone for there continuedlove and support. Your support carries me tremendously! Happy New Year! Love always, Tom An Inspiring Metzie Article MIA List: Dan Avondoglio Susan Baka Lorelei Boggs Tim Brennan Linda Burriesci Carrington Colleen Casey Mike Cavallo Stormin' Norman Coyle Frank Dariano Joe DeLuise Chris Fagan Brian Falkowski Frank Ferrara Coach Fitz Pat Gallagher Tony Genovese Michelle Gindreaux Mark Grey Kim Hageman Sylvester Harriet Jon Harris Hanna Herman Dave Hoch Tracey Hosler Sandy Humphrey Judy Hunt Willie Jackson Chris Kalwinsky Tim Kamisky Trisha Kenney Jim Kingsley Gail Kupcha Herb Lorenz Mark Macauley Jennifer Maczka Patsy Marino Marlon Matthews Mike McGourty Brendan McKeon AnnMarie McLaughlin Tom Mozloom (FOUND) Michelle Nichol Steve Ondrejack Sue (Piekarz) Rodrigez John Richardson Janice Reilly Marc Rossi Alan Skilowitz Coach Smitty (in progress of being contacted, he currently lives in Brazil, South America) Steve Strange Karen Tangora Ken Topolewski (in progress of being contacted) Karen Vance Eddie Vizzola Greg "Groundhog" Weinert Dave Ytreboe Virginia Zaleski (in progress of being contacted) Tall, Slow Andy from '86 XC |
Please send all news, contact information, etc
to either Glenn Fuchs or Dan
Magee.
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Trenton State College or The College of New Jersey.
© 2001 TSC/TCNJ Cross Country & Track and Field Alumni
