'Rip the Band-Aid off': Slam poet opens dialogue about mental health, connects with Northwest students

I wrote this article for the Northwest Missourian in December 2019,  originally posted here. 

Award-winning poet Patrick Roche planned to be a teacher until he stumbled upon slam poetry. Now he can be found performing on college campuses to influence the impressionable minds of students in a positive way.

Students Activities Council invited students to interact with Roche at 7 p.m. Dec. 2 in the J.W. Jones Student Union Living Room. 

Roche writes many poems about his experiences with mental illness, poor body image, shame and other personal struggles and often performs on college campuses because he knows students are under a lot of stress and can be easily overwhelmed. He said educational environments are the best places to discuss these topics with students.

“Academic communities are extremely supportive and welcome, but they also have so much desire and possibility for progress and change,” Roche said. “The same communities are so well equipped for moving forward and shifting the conversation and shifting social change around a whole range of issues.”

SAC Director of Special Events Programming sophomore Britney Poage wanted to have Roche on campus the week before finals to remind students it’s normal to be stressed, and it’s OK to talk about it. 

She chose to host the performance in the living room to create a more personal, intimate setting so attendees would feel more comfortable listening to taboo topics. 

“I definitely think (mental health) needs to be talked about a little more,” Poage said. “I hope students gain either ways to cope or ways to deal with anxiety or stress or just have fun. It might seem overwhelming, but this can be, whether it’s just an hour here, a place where they can unleash that and know that they’re not alone.”

Some of Roche’s poems addressed shame. He talked about how students statistically don’t seek help for their mental health issues because they feel ashamed. One goal he has for his work is to start a dialogue about taboo topics and discuss them openly, which he said is one of the most effective ways to combat that shame.

“If I can help spark that (conversation) and rip that band-aid off by presenting some of these issues through my experiences, my work and my performance, then I feel like I’ve done my job and I’ve contributed and hopefully helped kickstart some positive change in how some people understand and discuss some of these issues,” Roche said. 

Roche encouraged the audience members to embrace vulnerability and be honest with themselves and with people around them, whether it be through their writing or everyday conversations, because it allows them to have a better understanding of themselves. 

“When there’s a lack of vulnerability, there’s often a lack of genuine human emotion and connection there,” Roche said. “It’s a challenge I pose to everyone just because it leads to a lot of personal growth, and it strengthens all of your relationships, and it creates genuine human connection where otherwise there might be something holding you back because you’re not being truthful about how you’re feeling or who you are.”

Roche seeks to make connections with his audience when he shares his work. One of the things he likes most about performing spoken word is how interactive it is. He encouraged students to talk to him after his performance.

“I really like to make this full-circle. I mentioned that I really like to use my work as a way of starting conversations, and that only becomes a complete two way street when I’m able to talk to everyone after. I really feel like I gained a lot from all of my interactions,” Roche said.

Freshman Hunter Gerriets spoke to Roche afterward to thank him for his performance. He said it’s important to show poets that he was listening and cares about the art they shared. Gerriets is a slam poet and likes to see live poetry to find techniques to incorporate into his own poetry.

“I definitely enjoyed his personality, the way he interacted with the audience and how he was just not afraid to be himself, and you got a connection there,” Gerriets said. “I think he really pulled you in with his poems and the poems spoke for themselves.”

Northwest undergraduate earns prestigious scholarship 

​Junior Natalie Coté, or Nat as some people know her, received the 2019 Robert C. Bohlmann, CEM, Scholarship for Service in Emergency Management after nearly 30 hours of work gathering at least 12 different documents for her application. The scholarship is awarded to four students studying emergency and disaster management worldwide. Coté was the only undergraduate to receive it this year. 

Read More

Gen Z brings new dynamic to workforce
​
The diversity of ideas, personalities and beliefs people have continues to grow as millennials solidify their adulthood and a new generation is introduced. 
The generation after millennials, Generation Z, is entering the work force as students born in the late 1990s are finishing college.  

Read More

Visiting Writers Series welcomes contest winners
​
Northwest Missouri State University’s Department of Language, Literature and Writing has brought award-winning authors and poets to campus through the Visiting Writers Series for more than 15 years. Two writers who visited Fall 2018 were Frank Montesonti and C.D. DyVanc.

Read More

Northwest undergraduate earns prestigious scholarship while maintaining scholarly successes

I wrote this article for the Northwest Missourian in September 2019,  originally posted here. 

Cheers resonated from her apartment as she hurried downstairs — fingers fumbling through her contacts to call her mom with tears threatening to well up — after she opened an email titled, “Congratulations.”
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Junior Natalie Coté, or Nat as some people know her, received the 2019 Robert C. Bohlmann, CEM, Scholarship for Service in Emergency Management after nearly 30 hours of work gathering at least 12 different documents for her application. The scholarship is awarded to four students studying emergency and disaster management worldwide. Coté was the only undergraduate to receive it this year. 

“I work all year around to try to afford not only college but also the life I want to have after,” Coté said. “The vast majority of that (scholarship money) is going straight to another account for grad school, so I can pursue that dream too. It’s a big honor.”

Coté’s EDM adviser John Carr was proud she earned such a prestigious and competitive scholarship. He didn’t know the exact number of applicants for the international scholarship, but he said in the United States alone, there are around 60,000-70,000 EDM-based majors that would be able to apply.

“She’s incredibly deserving,” Carr said. “Natalie is in the top 1% as far as the capacity of EDM students in general, comparing her to other graduates at other programs across the nation.”

Something that helped Coté stand out from other applicants was the emergency plan she’d created for the Lawrence Public Library in her hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. It combined her EDM major with her minor in public history and museum studies by designing ways to conserve the library’s documents and artifacts in the event of an emergency. 

“It’s, first of all, amazing that someone who’s an undergraduate did that kind of work for a place like Lawrence,” Coté’s public history adviser Elyssa Ford said. “It was also this unique way to bring together the two areas that she studies and is interested in.”

Coté personally reached out to the Lawrence Public Library to set up the internship to fulfill an EDM requirement in December 2018. She presented her own resources, subject matter and expertise. She was happy the library liked her ideas. The plan ended up being a 50-page document she finished in July.

“They’re a collection institution … so that was an opportunity for me to meet that intersection of writing an emergency plan but doing it for a library,” Coté said. “Obviously you want to protect the people, but you have to take into consideration books and various artifacts. They didn’t have anything previously. It gave me an opportunity to start from scratch and create something for them that could be useful for the future.”

Coté is in the process of applying for a grant from the University to bring people from a restoration company in to talk to students in both EDM and public history. 

“That’s something that she came up with, entirely on her own, that she wanted to do and bring in purposefully to bring those groups together,” Ford said.

To fulfill another EDM requirement, Coté participated in the Missouri Hope exercise last year. There, she learned she isn’t completely comfortable out on the field.

“It cued me into the fact that I’m more of a behind-the-scenes planning kind of person than I am a tactical person, which I’ve never necessarily would have known if I hadn’t done that exercise,” Coté said, her fingers drumming on the table. 

She still wanted to be involved, so she applied for a couple of staff positions for Missouri Hope over the summer. She was hired as the administration finance officer and then the deputy plans officer of logistics. She’ll be focused on analyzing how much the exercise is worth and making sure all participants have the needed materials when the event takes place Oct. 4-6. 

“This is an upcoming role for Natalie,” Carr said. “She is certainly an advanced student and advanced member of our staff. The goal of this is to get her familiar with the functions so she can be in charge in the future years. Our hope is for the next year, Natalie can step into the full planning role.”

When she was working on her internship with the Lawrence Public Library, Coté was simultaneously completing an internship with the University Archives to move forward with her public history minor. Doing so early in her time at college helped her solidify her career goals.

“I’ve always loved museums,” Coté said, her head bobbing side to side slightly as she bounced in her seat. “You have this preservation, conservation of cultural heritage and stuff, which is something I’ve developed a passion for since I’ve been here. I’ve learned I can mold the two things I’ve been studying into a future career path.”

Coté applied to work on campus as a museum attendant, an opportunity only open to public history minors. Ford thought she was a strong candidate for the position because she’d already completed some of her coursework and internships. 

There are six different exhibit spaces across campus: the Geoscience and Life Sciences Museums in the Garrett-Strong Science Building, the Agriculture Museum in the Valk Center, the Computing Museum in the B. D. Owens Library, the Broadcasting Museum in Wells Hall and the Art Gallery in the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building.

Coté spends two hours in each exhibit per week — briskly typing on her school laptop with her leg shaking beneath the small desk in a different museum each day. She works in two spaces on Tuesday. She meets with Ford each week to update her on her progress and discuss the projects to pursue next. 

“I have yet to find something I don’t want to do,” Coté said. “There’s so many different things. I might be building a dinosaur. I might completely reorganize the computer exhibit. For the art gallery, I can make promotional flyers and use social media. There’s never a boring day. It’s a lot of detail-oriented stuff, but that’s exactly the world I’d like to inhabit.” 

When Coté isn’t working on her coursework, she’s often focused on her work for the Speaking Bearcats speech and debate team. She was a three-time state champion, three-time national qualifier in high school, so she knew she was good at it. She sought scholarship opportunities for competing as soon as she found out Northwest had a forensics team. 

“It is a nice thing to be compensated for what ends up being hundreds of hours over the course of the semester,” Coté said. “That’s kind of my respite from school because if I don’t want to do homework, I’ll do that, because it makes me happy.”

As she walks across campus from class to class, she whispers quickly to herself, occasionally glancing at her phone and ensuring she’s on track, to utilize every spare second in her day toward mastering her speeches. 

This year, she is competing in five different speech events which total up to 50 minutes of content she must have memorized and ready to compete when she goes to her first tournament Oct. 19. Throughout the season, she’ll need to rewrite, revise and rememorize the speeches over and over again.

She writes whenever she can and enjoys it, so she established a writing minor this semester. 

Coté spends any other free time at the library working on assignments. With no classes on Thursdays, she spends about 15 hours there starting at 8 a.m. She’ll often be working ahead for the week to come because it’s a habit she needs to have during the speech and debate competition season. 

“One of the things that is a little bit tricky about doing speech and debate is … there’s not really an opportunity to do homework at tournaments,” Coté said. “It never happens. You tell yourself you’re gonna do homework at night, but after 10 hours or so of competition, that’s a no go. So I’ve learned over the last couple years that it’s important to stay rigorous and get stuff done a week or two early so I’m not floundering when tournaments come around.”

Coté also likes to keep her school life separate from her home life. She reserves the time at home to relax and spend time with her roommates. Thus, her days at the University can get pretty hectic when trying to get everything done before she heads back to her apartment. 

“I try to remember to pack lunches so I don’t forget to eat,” Coté said, the words “Hot Pocket”’ scrawled across her hand in black pen, reminding her not to forget her lunch from the staff lounge after her shift in the Geoscience Museum. “Whenever I get the chance to hole myself in the library for a couple hours and complete assignments, I try to do that.”

Coté is also a student in the honors program, which Ford became director of last spring. She said Coté is the perfect example of an honors student. 

“I don’t think it is possible for someone to be more prepared than she is,” Ford said. “This is my ninth year at Northwest and I taught at a number of different places before I came here. She is definitely the most prepared student that I’ve ever had. It’s impressive that she’s able to keep track of everything that she has to do.”

Carr expressed similar thoughts about her work ethic. As her primary adviser, he focuses on helping her pursue any and all endeavors she wants. He’s seen her accelerate past the things she learns in class, so he guides her when she goes beyond what was discussed in her courses. 

“She definitely keeps me on my toes … so she can get the absolute most out of those classes,” Carr said. “She’s doing work as a junior in college that some folks take 10-15 years to get up to that level of mastery. Natalie is already ready for those full-time jobs, and she isn’t even done with college yet."

Gen Z brings new dynamic to the workforce

I wrote this enterprise story for a class final in April 2019.  It has been edited and improved after being graded. 

The diversity of ideas, personalities and beliefs people have continues to grow as millennials solidify their adulthood and a new generation is introduced. The generation after millennials, Generation Z, is entering the work force as students born in the late 1990s are finishing college.  

According to Pew Research Center, the oldest of Gen Z were born in 1997. Millennials were born from 1981-1996 as Generation Y. Pew Research Center named the new generation Gen Z because it appeared in online searches more than other generation terms like iGeneration and post-millennials.  

Various websites define the generations with different years. Generations may not be universal because people have different perceptions of each generation. Gen Z doesn’t have a concrete cut-off yet because its members are still young.  
Gen Zer and junior Megan Bua thinks defining generations is an interesting concept, but she thinks the cut-off for a certain generation should be a range of years rather than a specific one. 

“There’s no real cut-off,” Bua said. “There are different places that define the year differently which is why I think of it more like a gradient. You have older millennials that would almost identify with the generation before them; then you have the strong millennials right there in the center. Then they kind of fade into Gen Z. I would not necessarily put an end year (that says) ‘this is where one starts and one stops’.” 

Each generation comes with a set of shared characteristics that further separates them from the previous generation. Common characteristics of Gen Z are being cynical, private, entrepreneurial and technology-reliant, according to Growing Leaders. 

Graduate student and millennial Bailey Weese is wary of stereotyping people with the generation to which they belong. 

“I think I see the point (in characterizing generations), but I think it’s important to also allow for nuance,” Weese said. “With any sort of category, you run the risk or putting people in boxes. There’s always outliers… So I think it’s dangerous to categorize people and not leave any room for an in-between or gray area.” 

University archivist and Northwest alumna Jessica Vest is a millennial. She didn’t know whether or not she identified with the characteristics of Gen Y. 

“What is the millennial definition?” Vest said. “I actually abhor that sort of thing.” 

Vest doesn’t see much of a difference between the two generations other than the higher level of tech-savviness Gen Z students have.  

Junior and Gen Zer Kati Steinman has similar sentiments about the generations; she thinks the attitudinal differences between millennials and Gen Zers is simply due to the age difference. She doesn’t correct people when they call her a millennial because she was born two years after the cut-off, and she doesn’t think it matters.  

“Personally, I don’t see a difference between the generations,” Steinman said. “I feel like we’ve grown up similarly… We’re at different developmental periods in our lives. There’s not much of a difference between our generations except the fact of where we are right now. In the future, we’re just going to be the same as millennials. They’re too close to define (differently).” 

With the majority of seniors being 22 years old, millennials are the minority in the student population. However, many staff members are millennials, Assistant Director of Career Services Hannah Christian said.  

 “We were talking (recently), and with the exception of one person, all of us full-time staff fall into that early ‘80s frame of reference,” Christian said.  

Conversations about generational differences are common in the Career Services office. Christian sees technology as the biggest influence on a generation’s characteristics and behavior; Gen Zers grew with technology while millennials had to adapt to it as adults.  

Vest agrees that technology is the main difference between the generations.  

“There’s more reliance on not face-to-face communication,” Vest said. “The library, for example, has chat staff so you can either chat with the library staff on your laptop or through texting. That never existed when I was a student... We have professors who say technology can make you more reliant on it with things like spell check and autocorrect. You don’t really need to know how to spell something if you can just type some semblance of it into Google. That technology piece, as new things emerge, it can make you—I don’t want to say lazier—but you don’t use those muscles and brain power as much.” 

Bua said Northwest utilizes technology to minimize the differences between the generations.  

“Northwest lends itself to bridge the gap because everyone has an equal playing field, as far as technology goes,” Bua said. “We are a very technologically focused campus which I think helps bridge the gap between the two generations we have right now in college.” 

Weese doesn’t like how dependent people are on technology. She works in the B.D. Owens Library office where there’ll be times when she’ll be sitting next to someone, and they will communicate via email rather than talking to each other.  

“It’s just so digital, and I don’t like it,” Weese said. “I miss that face-to-face communication, and I think it causes so many conflicts because there’s not that face-to-face (mentality of) ‘let’s solve this together’…I’m not sure how productive that (technological) communication is. It’s certainly increased the amount of people we can communicate with because I can talk to someone in another country on Instagram, but I’m not sure I’d count that as real quality communication. It’s kind of surface level to me. I don’t know that it’s possible to have genuine communication with technology.” 

Christian is concerned about how Gen Z’s reliance on technology is going to affect their future in the work force.  

“Working in a university and working very close with those Generation Z students, we have a better understanding of how they communicate, and we tend to adapt to their styles of communication,” Christian said. “I think a Gen Z student going out into the world is going to find it a little bit harsher because the world is not going to adapt to them. They’re going to have to adapt to what’s happening in the world… I think it’s tempting for Gen Z to stop when they see no answers or (job) openings. They can rely on the digital tools too heavily. What Gen Z lacks is the initiative and the knowledge to say, ‘hey just because this is closed, it doesn’t mean there’s no opportunity’.” 

Although Weese doesn’t like how much Gen Z relies on technology, she believes having unlimited access to the internet makes the new generation more accepting.  

“They are so accepting of all of these other types of people,” Weese said. “They’re more liberal and less conservative with their beliefs and the ways they look. You can just really tell with their appearance, creativity and self-expression how much that’s changed. That’s what I really love about the new generations; they’re more outwardly expressive because I think that’s okay now. Those stereotypes are getting broken down a little bit.” 

Visiting Writers Series brings chapbook contest winners to Northwest

I wrote this article for a class final in December 2018.  It has been edited and improved after being graded. ​

​​MARYVILLE, Mo.—Northwest Missouri State University’s Department of Language, Literature and Writing has brought award-winning authors and poets to campus through the Visiting Writers Series for more than 15 years. Two writers who visited this semester were Frank Montesonti and C.D. DyVanc.

Montesonti and DyVanc were co-winners of Northwest’s 2017 GreenTower Press Midwest Chapbook Contest. Prizes for winning the contest included publication of their chapbook—a collection of 25-40 poems revolving around a theme—and invitations to read their work on campus.

Director of the Visiting Writers Series Daniel Biegelson explained sharing the writers’ work through publication and readings is important to show the value of literature at Northwest.

“I think being invited to read anywhere is a rewarding and beautiful thing,” Biegelson said. “What we’re saying when we publish it is essentially that this is something others should read and there should be a space for this in the universe. This is something we value so much that we particularly want to share it with our community here.”

The contest winners weren’t the only writers who visited Northwest. Peter Mishler, author of “Fludde”, read his poetry with Montesonti in September at the first reading of the semester. Diana Joseph, a short story author and a creative nonfiction writer, read her work with DyVanc in November.

Some writers come to campus after expressing their interest to the Visiting Writers Series committee. The committee members also invite writers they admire.

Biegelson keeps track of writers who are visiting colleges nearby to see if he should invite someone already traveling to the Midwest to Northwest.

“We also keep in mind writers who we think appeal to our student body and have interesting things and insights to share with our audiences,” Biegelson said. “I think going to a reading and being in that common space is an incredibly powerful thing because it’s about coming together as a community. It’s a way for readers and the people in the audience to step outside of themselves and inhabit and understand the meaning of different experiences they wouldn’t normally have.”

The events were held in the J.W. Jones Student Union Living Room. Chairs were brought from surrounding rooms to accommodate the students present.

DyVanc, a Northwest alumnus, was surprised by the number of students because fewer people attended readings when he was a student.

“I was ecstatic about the turnout,” DyVanc said. “That’s very heartening that this is something that has grown to a level that it has. It’s nice for people to be able to experience this sort of thing.”

DyVanc said he is proud to read his work at his alma mater because it shows students what they can accomplish with their education.

“This is something that wouldn’t be a fun or accessible thing for all students,” DyVanc said. “I think we all need to push our boundaries a little bit because we won’t know if we enjoy something unless we actually experience it.”

DyVanc’s chapbook “rhi(n.)oceros” is a collection of poems that he wrote during October Poetry Writing Month 2016. He wrote the poems to cope with the death of a friend.

“The book goes through my process of grief and the idea that good things leave us,” DyVanc said. “When they go, we have to remember the good parts of when they were here.”

Montesonti’s chapbook “Arts Grant” contains a variety of humorous art proposals he wants the Los Angeles Regional Arts and Festivals Council to consider. He wrote the poems because he always had ideas for art projects, but he wasn’t a visual artist who could physically create them.

“I enjoy sharing my work,” Montesonti said. “Funny poems have decent reception.”

Biegelson described Montesonti’s work as surreal and existential yet timely.  

“Sometimes it’s that resonance that can be powerful and helpful to sort of jar us out of our ruts and routines and get us to see things in a different light,” Biegelson said.

The Visiting Writers Series continues next semester with three writers: author Jennifer Latham Feb. 20 and poets Gary Jackson and Sean Thomas Dougherty April 10.
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“Each writer brings their own specific vision of the world,” Biegelson said. “No matter who the writer is, I just hope that people come and experience and listen. In that act of attention and act of listening, we get to experience something beyond ourselves.”