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Short-Form Feature Writing & Student-Success Communications

York College of Pennsylvania | Concept Campaign

Concept developed for proposed 2024–25 implementation. Names have been changed because the project did not reach the stage of obtaining publication permission from participants.

For 20 years, David drove to Baltimore five days a week to teach at a dedicated school for students with disabilities. Now retired from full-time teaching, he drives a different route—around the York College campus.

“I love meeting people who want to become teachers,” David says. As they chat on the shuttle, education students tell him what draws them to the profession. David tells them what kept him there for two decades. “If you feel called to teach,” he says, “then you’re all about helping people reach their potential.”

Sometimes, students riding the minibus share stories from their student teaching experiences. One woman told David about the child who brought his dead hamster to her show-and-tell lesson to talk about the funeral he was planning for it.

“We had a good laugh over that one,” David recalls. “Teachers learn to expect the unexpected.”

When future teachers worry that they aren't ready for their own classrooms, David reminds them that every teacher was once a beginner. When they return with stories about a lesson that finally worked or a student who surprised them, he celebrates with them.

David is also an accomplished guitarist. In his special-education classroom, he sometimes used rhythm and song to help students learn words, sequences, and routines. Now he plays for his own enjoyment and trades recordings of his performances with York College students who play instruments or study music production.

“They give me tips on how to make my videos better,” he says. In turn, David invites them to join the local jams where he plays with other musicians.

David has attended campus open mics and recitals to hear students perform. One student even played a guitar duet with him at a local church.

“I love meeting students who are excited about what they are learning,” David says, grinning. “I love to hear what they’re working on next.”

Former riders still send David photos of their lives after college—new jobs, new apartments, occasionally a wedding. And for every one who earns a degree and moves on, David makes a new “shuttle friend” when he returns from summer break and starts driving again.

Parked in the Grumbacher Sport and Fitness Center lot for his mid-morning break, David takes out an old guitar he keeps under the rearmost seat of the bus. A couple of students leaving the gym stop at the open bus door to listen. They sit on the steps as he breaks into a Bruce Springsteen song, on request. York College is friendly like that, David says. “Getting to know someone on this campus is easy. Just take a seat and say hello.”

Fortuna, a first-year business major, steps up to the counter at Spotty’s Cafe in the Willman Business Center.

“What do you want this fine morning?” asks Malik, the proprietor. He’s wearing his signature red apron, emblazoned with the bold diagonal black band, edged in white, of Trinidad and Tobago’s national flag—and a smile.

Fortuna orders an espresso frappuccino. Before she steps away, Malik asks another question.

“What are you doing here?”

Fortuna looks confused. “I’m getting coffee,” she says uncertainly. The students waiting behind her chuckle. They’ve heard this question before.

“I mean,” Malik says patiently, “what are you doing at college?” Fortuna hesitates. Malik persists. “What is your dream that makes you want to do something so difficult?”

Fortuna’s expression clears. “I want to be an accountant,” she says with more confidence.

Malik says her answer is good enough—for now. “Next time you come here, I want to know why accounting is your dream, okay?”

Malik opened Spotty’s in 2007, ten years after immigrating to the United States from the island of Trinidad. He worked two jobs while saving the money to open his own place. “What kept me going was my dream of building this business,” he says. Now he encourages students to develop their own visions of success.

“If you don’t know why college is worth it, you’ll just give up when the going gets tough.”

Malik frequently speaks in business and hospitality courses on campus. He counsels students to develop a specific dream and see themselves putting it into action.

Years earlier, Kaden had stood on Fortuna’s side of the counter, coffee in hand, when Malik asked him the same question. It threw him. He had enrolled in college because it was expected of him. He realized he had no idea what he wanted to do with his degree.

“I avoided Spotty’s after that,” he admits.

Nearly a year went by before Kaden, facing an early algebra exam and desperate to stay awake, returned for another coffee. There was Malik, as usual, with his apron and his question.

“I just said the first thing that came to my mind,” Kaden recalls. “I told him I wanted to start my own business.”

Malik didn’t hesitate. “You need to talk to me then. Come back when your class is over.”

That was Kaden’s sophomore year. Now he’s a fourth-year business major with a minor in entrepreneurship. He is also a part-time assistant manager at Spotty’s, where he is learning the ins and outs of running a successful cafe.

He’s not sure whether he wants to start a restaurant himself, but he does hope to build something that fills a need in the community.

“Malik built something that's his, and you can tell he loves being here,” Kaden says. “I just know I want to feel that way about it.”

It’s another busy morning at Spotty’s, and there’s a long line of students waiting for their caffeine. As he rings up his first customer, Kaden asks with a smile:

“What made you choose York College? Why are you here?”

On a sunny spring morning, Daisy walks the campus as she does most days, trailed by her faithful owner, Kelly, who lives near the college and regularly walks its creekside paths. Near the hammocks strung between trees along the water, Daisy spots a group of students relaxing after class. They smile and extend their hands, beckoning the golden retriever mix.

Kelly has learned not to expect quick walks on campus with Daisy. “She knows when somebody needs her,” Kelly says. “And she has never met a stranger.”

Daisy is in her element, greeting old friends and making new ones while she gets scratches behind her ears. The students hug Daisy and take her picture. She might be the most photographed member of campus, other than the college president.

Meanwhile, outside the student union building, another kind of therapy is underway. Simon is slowly snaking his way over the bodies of two students lying side-by-side on the grass. They laugh nervously and snap selfies as the seven-foot-long boa constrictor poses obligingly, his scales gleaming in the sun.

Jesse, owner of Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary, fields questions from the crowd, his brightly painted animal transport van parked at the edge of the lawn. Students ask about Simon’s favorite food (frozen mice thawed for his meals), how much bigger he will grow (up to 10 feet), and where else he tours (an enthusiastic Cub Scout meeting the previous week).

Daisy and Simon may seem unlikely colleagues, but both are well-known on campus as ambassadors for animal rescue.

Kelly, who used to train border collies for dog agility competitions, adopted Daisy from a local shelter and trained her as a therapy dog. They visit rehabilitation hospitals to help patients recovering from severe head trauma. Daisy plays games of fetch and takes careful strolls with people regaining mobility in their limbs. She listens attentively to vocal commands from those recovering speech.

On campus, Daisy is best known for her broad smile and wagging tail. “Daisy is a professional de-stresser,” says Kelly. Besides being the center of attention at pop-up petting sessions, Daisy has visited nursing classes to demonstrate her rehabilitation skills, been the subject of a psychology paper on alleviating students’ anxiety, and starred in a communications presentation on animal shelters.

Simon the boa attracts an equally enthusiastic following. “You’d be surprised how many students tell me they had to leave a snake or a lizard back home,” says Jesse. “They miss them.” His rescued snakes, lizards, turtles, and crocodilians stand in for those missing friends, drawing students eager to hold and admire the animals.

As Agador, a 30-pound gopher tortoise, slowly mows the college lawn with his beak, students wait for their turn to wear a corn snake on their shoulders. Jesse works the crowd, a bearded dragon named Monte perched on his gloved hand, sharing how he turned his curiosity about frogs and snakes into a career in herpetology. “Students care deeply about reptile welfare,” Jesse observes. “I love watching them get their reptile fix.”

Daisy and Kelly amble back home, and Jesse loads Simon, Agador, and Monte into his customized van, The Super Green Turtle Machine. Rescued animals have come to the rescue, once again.

Olivia spent most of her first semester of college sitting in her residence hall room, talking to no one. A self-described introvert, she kept her door closed when she studied.

“It was just Kuromi and me in there most of the time,” she recalls.

Kuromi is Olivia’s favorite anime plushie—and has plenty of company. Olivia’s collection jostles for space on her bed, windowsill, and dresser. Anime is one of her two obsessions. The other is civil engineering, particularly how buildings and bridges withstand earthquakes. Olivia grew up in California, where earthquakes are both frequent and devastating.

One day, Olivia’s RA gave her some advice that changed her college experience in a way that was, well, seismic: leave the door open for an hour every evening.

“I was lonely, so I decided to try it,” she says.

The results were immediate. Students passing in the hallway spotted her plushies and stopped to talk. Olivia discovered several other otaku—serious anime fans—and one invited her to join the campus anime club.

“When I went to my first meeting,” she says, “I finally felt at home.”

At a club gathering, another student suggested something Olivia had never considered: going to Japan.

The idea seemed impossible. Olivia didn't speak Japanese. She had never traveled outside of the United States. And with a demanding engineering curriculum, she couldn't imagine how a trip halfway around the world could fit into her studies.

But the student encouraging her was an engineering major too. He told her about opportunities to study and work in Japan in English.

“And he bought anime merch over there you can't find in the United States,” Olivia adds.

That helped.

Still unsure, Olivia took the idea to her engineering professor, Renee Malone. Together they found a program where college students could study seismic design in Japan—learning firsthand how engineers design buildings and bridges to withstand powerful earthquakes.

Olivia spent eight weeks in Japan. Now she can't stop talking about it.

She returned with anime souvenirs she has traded at club merch swaps, but also with a new direction for her engineering studies. Her project on seismic bridge design recently won a prize at a campus undergraduate research colloquium.

This year Olivia is trying something else she once couldn't have imagined: she's an RA herself.

“In Japan, I had to talk to people I didn't know—people from all over the world,” she says. “When I came home, talking to new people didn't seem so hard anymore.”

Olivia still considers herself an introvert. Now she's an introvert who knows that sometimes making a connection requires doing one small uncomfortable thing first. And when she meets residents who remind her of herself as a first-year student, she knows what to tell them.

“Open your door,” Olivia says. “That's when things start to happen.”