Compassion, Change and College: MC Senior Drema Drudge

Drema Drudge, a senior here at MC and a so-called "non-traditional student", is an exceptional woman.

After graduating from high school, Drema attended MC for a while. However, she and her husband Barry became aware of the dire need for foster parents. They decided to volunteer as foster parents on a short term basis, but ultimately committed themselves to the long-term care of emotionally handicapped children.

They initially adopted a girl who, had they not provided a home for her, would have likely been institutionalized. Then, a few years later, they adopted a boy. “So, that kind of interrupted things, as far as college was concerned,” Drema said.

The process of being foster parents provided them not only with challenges, but with opportunities for learning and growth. “The man from Allen County Child Protective Services said that she [their adopted daughter] was the third worst case he’d seen in 25 years,” Drema said.

She and Barry rose to the challenge, however. “She’s had a happy ending,” Barry said. “She’s now in college, married and doing very well. She is so intelligent.”Drema is currently homeschooling their son, who will enroll in the public high school next year. She homeschooled both of her children for part of their educations.

As their children grew up and came into themselves as more mature people, Drema was able to return to school. She returned to MC at the beginning of 2007’s fall semester, and will be graduating this spring with a major in English/writing.

During her time away from college, Drema and her family lived for five years in Nashville, TN. “We really loved the multicultural aspect of living there,” Barry said. “We saw so many perspectives on life through the ways the people there were conducting their lives. We realized, you know, that they were really wonderful people. Then, we came back here and, well, we love the people here, but we felt the difference, the lack of diversity.”

Also during this period, Drema wrote three unpublished novels; in her words, “two horrible, one not so bad.”

“Also I had built a bit of a freelance writing career in my ‘spare time’,” she continued, “though I have now shifted my focus to work primarily on my fiction."

And, she says, the pace has been just right. “It’s been good for me to have some distance between high school and college,” Dreema said. “I think a lot of the time if someone goes to college right out of high school, they tend to think of it on some level as an extension of their high school experience without realizing how important and meaningful college can be.”

Which is not to say that her return to college has been without frustrations. For one thing, although the age difference between herself and MC’s many traditional students is often unapparent, it nevertheless exists. “There are moments when I feel like everyone else,” she said. “And then there are moments when one of the other students will say something so… incredibly young.”

Furthermore, it has required that members of her family adapt to the growth in her life. Although this primarily affects her husband and son, of course, it also has resulted in changes in her relationships with the members of her extended family. “I’ve had family members who, as a result of all the growth that’s happened in me since I returned to college, have some extra difficulty relating to me,” Drema said. “You know, ‘Who are you? You’ve changed.’”

However, the benefits have far outweighed the frustrations. “It’s been so worthwhile,” she said. “I’ve learned almost as much from the students as I have from the professors—and I’ve had fabulous professors.”

“It’s funny how people who are necessary for your growth find you at the right time,” she continued. “There have been incidental comments by professors and students that have transformed my way of thinking towards people, towards my writing and towards my faith.”

Barry feels that there is a connection between this willingness to question herself and her beliefs and the benefits that she has gotten from her college experience. “I think that her growth in her writing and in her academics started when she began to allow herself to go anywhere with her writing, when she stopped saying, ‘No, I can’t go there,’” he said.

“We’ve been on a journey for many years of expanding our lives on so many levels, and Drema’s experiences in college have kind of rammed that up another level.”

Following her graduation this spring, Drema will be going on to graduate school at Spalding to pursue an MFA.

Outdoors in Indiana: The Hidden Wonders of Winter Hikes

These last few months, I’ve noticed that I always get the same response when I tell someone I’m on my way out to go for a hike.

“Isn’t it a bit cold for that now?”

The short answer is, no. The long answer is, there are wonders to be discovered while in the forest during the wintertime that are completely denied to people who only wander to the out-of-doors during the warmer times of the year.

Take, for instance, Saturday, March 8. Three of my friends—Brittany Carpenter, Ally O’Neill and Zachary VanWinkle—and I decided to take a short trip to Salamonie State Forest for a hike up to the top of Hanging Rock and a trek around the Three Falls Trail (see “Outdoors in Indiana” articles from September 21, 2007 and November 16, 2007).

Not all of my companions were equally enthusiastic about the venture. “When I was first asked if I wanted to go hiking, I was very unsure,” Zachary said. “I was mostly unsure of my friends’ sanity, because it was freezing and there was snow on the ground.”

But he was willing to be persuaded by the rest of us, and less than an hour later we were trekking across unbroken fields of snow, towards hills, rivers and waterfalls.

Now, I have been on the Three Falls Trail a plethora of times, but that day it was like discovering a previously unseen winter wonderland. The river flowed beneath a thin crust of ice; the ice was shimmery and traced with patterns of starbursts on top and the ripples of trickling water underneath.

About a mile into the trail, there is a steep drop-off down into a valley; I call it the “As You Wish” hill, my own tribute to The Princess Bride. Because we could see a frozen waterfall just a short distance beyond the bottom of the hill, we decided to slide down it and see what exploring there was to be done.

The journey down was an adventure unto itself. We swisssshed down swiftly: no sleds were required. “That slide is better than anything you will be able to find at the local park!”, Zachary exclaimed later.

If you have never climbed underneath a frozen waterfall, you should strongly consider doing so. Although the icy and snow underneath our gloves was cold, our cheeks were warm and our breath danced with our giggles whenever we slipped.

The sound of water dripping was audible underneath the heavy solidity of the ice; it was so profound it is difficult to not wax poetic about the movement found within stability. I’ll leave it at this: when it comes to waterfalls, direct experience is really the way to go.

So-called “bad” weather provides us with an opportunity to see familiar things in a new way. Although the comfort level may not have been equal to that of a mellow stroll in June, the discoveries, challenges and new perspectives that are offered by hiking in snowy, rainy, or icy conditions far outweigh the difficulty.

The hike even affected Brittany’s perspective on Indiana and the area surrounding Manchester College. “Until my hike at Three Falls Trail, I had thought that Indiana was generally kind of ugly,” she said. “The frozen waterfalls were some of the most gorgeous sights I’d seen in quite some time, and there was absolutely nobody around. It was very refreshing to experience such peace and beauty only minutes from Manchester’s campus.”

Of course, spring has now officially started and melting has begun. However, it is hardly unheard of for there to be an early spring frost. If this does occur, I will humbly recommend that you consider breaking out your hiking boots and a good pair of gloves and seeing what you can discover.

After all, the world is right outside the door…. Let’s go!

Indiana Collegiate Press Association Award

Yesterday, my journalism professor Dr. Katharine Ings informed the Oak Leaves staff that five of its writers have won writing awards from the Indiana Collegiate Press Association.

I am one of those five students. The other students from Manchester College who received awards are Adam King, Matt Penner, Jessie Hickerson, and Alina BigJohny.

We do not yet know which or how many awards we may have won, since several of us had multiple articles submitted.

The award ceremony will be at the Indiana Collegiate Press Association's conference in Terre Haute, IN on March 29.

Decision Regarding $50 Raise in Student Activity Fee To Be Delayed until Spring of 2009

The Student Budget Board held a forum last Friday to discuss a potential $50 increase in the student activity fee.

Although no long-term decision has been made, it has been decided that the SGA’s vote on the matter will be delayed until the spring semester of 2009.

Sophomore Jason Elliott, the president of the SBB, had a lot to say about the context for the proposed change. “We originally thought about raising the student activity fee because the requests from clubs were $10,000 above what we are allowed to give, which is about $25,000 per semester,” he said.

“The result was a decrease in every student organization’s budget by 30 percent,” Elliott continued. “The organizations were quite irate.”

The proposed raised fee is an effort to avoid having to encounter this problem during upcoming semesters.

Students were not silent about this semester’s budget cuts. “SBB should be comprised of a member of each organization, or at least someone that is knowledgeable about what each of the clubs need,” said senior Heidi Gonyea. “When I have to put $100 of my own money into an organization [Alpha Psi] each year, there is a problem.”

First-year student Zachary VanWinkle agreed: “I am not opposed to an increase in the student activities fee, but I would like to be ensured that the money they currently have is being used efficiently and wisely.”

Goynea cloncluded, “The school may eventually be getting an extra $50 from each student for student activities, but I doubt some organizations will see even a penny of that increase."

Although SBB believes that unnecessary requests and budget padding is a significant contributor to the original problem, it is not ignoring student concerns about the unfair distribution of funds.

Starting this semester, the president and treasurer of each club can have an opportunity to sit with the SBB and go over the club’s budget in order to have a chance to justify their need for each item and to communicate the club’s budgetary priorities.

“We hope that this will prevent ill-directed and unnecessary anger towards SBB, because people will have had a chance to meet with us,” Elliott said. “If we could have eliminated the problem of budget padding, then this problem wouldn’t have arisen, at least not to this degree.”

Another concern arises from the ease with which students can create their own clubs, which results in an abundance of organizations requesting funding. “I'm the President for AAA,” said junior Jahan Monirian. “I understand the need to raise the activity fee, but it would be nice if there was a set number of clubs or some way to filter out clubs which aren't bringing much to the table.”

Other students have focused on the benefits of club participation, asserting that they far outweigh the costs involved in raising the fee. “I am president of two clubs, and quasi-active in about three others,” said junior Russell Holl. “I definitely care about them. I think clubs are a great outlet.”

Sophomore Brittany Carpenter agreed. “I think clubs are a very important part of a school, especially one as small and homogenous as Manchester,” Carpenter said. “Although it is getting more and more important to keep costs low at our school, clubs increase opportunity and awareness on a campus in many different ways, and it is difficult to put a price on that.”

One unresolved issue that was brought up during the forum involved the disparity with which the raised fee will affect some students, particularly international students and students from lower socio-economic classes.

Although student opinions regarding the matter are diverse and strongly held, attendance at the forum was low. “There were only about 10 students there, so either people didn’t know about it or didn’t care,” Elliott said. “This, of course, is also a big issue.”

“One student, Katie McCann, said to me that she felt honored to have even been asked her opinion about it,” Elliott said. “It is not usually the case that students are asked for their feedback in tuition and room and board rate changes, but we gave them a chance to speak their opinion about this fee.”

(This article appeared in the March 7 edition of The Oak Leaves)