2019

Spotlight on Muhlenberg

The College’s students, faculty, staff, programs and alumni received expansive media coverage in 2019.

By: Kristine Yahna Todaro  Thursday, December 19, 2019 11:20 AM

This year brought a great deal of positive news coverage for Muhlenberg College’s people and programs. Here are some highlights:

• A recent New York Times article, Where 4-Year Schools Find a Pool of Applicants: 2-Year Schools, featured three Muhlenberg transfer students and the College’s recruitment strategies. The piece focused on four-year institutions that are enrolling more top community college transfer students—and on the strengths and insights those students bring to campus.

• Research and a new book by Kathleen Bachynski, assistant professor of public health, were featured in the New York Times in Football Is Here to Stay: Despite the concussion controversy, things are looking up and the Philadelphia Inquirer in 5 questions: Are the health risks of youth football being addressed?

• Professor Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, was quoted extensively in a Washington Post article (which was picked up by eight additional news outlets including the San Francisco Chronicle) about a Pennsylvania community’s sharp divisions over the presidential impeachment.

• Jacqueline Antonovich, assistant professor of history, was interviewed by the Washington Post for The National Archives has billions of handwritten documents. With cursive skills declining, how will we read them? Antonovich was cited for her use of #twitterstorians (historians active on Twitter) to crowdsource historical work with her students. The piece was picked up by 35 additional newspapers across the country and in Canada.

• NPR’s All Things Considered, WIRED and Syfywire highlighted the work of English Professor Francesca Coppa, a co-founder of the fanfiction site Archive of Our Own which won a coveted Hugo Award. The site is a community for artists, a fan-built social network and a female-designed and -led software project.

• USA Today featured alumnus Sam Calagione ’92 in How Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione became Delaware’s king of beer.

• Muhlenberg’s reputation for transparency and honest conversation regarding admissions and financial aid received national visibility in March. Consumer Reports applauded the College’s invitation for students to submit an appeal if they think a bigger aid package is warranted based on their family’s financial situation. The same month, New York Times Money columnist Ron Lieber tweeted about the College’s long-standing commitment to transparency in the admissions process. 

• A four-year tick research project undertaken by Biology Professor Marten Edwards and his ‘tick team’ of brave students was featured in the Morning Call, Philadelphia Inquirer and in a lengthy interview on NPR’s Radio Times on WHYY.

• Muhlenberg’s ‘Career Services To Go’ program, which brings career help to alumni of all ages, was featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer article The push is on at college career centers: They work with students earlier and alumni decades later. Executive Director of Career Services Tom Dowd and his team headed to eight major U.S. cities last summer, bringing free career advising expertise to alumni.

• The Baltimore Sun interviewed alumna Jackie Copeland ’69, the new executive director of the Reginald Lewis Museum. She described her appointment as “the capstone of my career because it brings together my passion for the community and my passion for art and history.”

• Psychology Professor Jeffrey Rudski explains why coming-of-age stories, like The Goonies, can carry a high degree of emotional relevance to people in an article in The Telegraph (UK), ‘1,200 people a day were standing outside my home’ - how a cult 80s movie spoiled my suburban idyll. 

• The research of Professor Daniel Klem and Peter Saenger of the Acopian Center for Ornithology was featured in multiple news outlets including Newsweek, Death from Above: Lawmaker Envisions Bird-Safe Buildings in New York City and PBS NatureNow, Bird, Brained - When Birds and Buildings Collide.

• The Telegraph (UK) interviewed John Sullivan, professor of media & communication, for  How Spotify’s plan to steal Apple’s podcasting crown could ignite a new era of ‘podcast wars’, an article that focused on his study of transformation in the podcasting industry.

• Failure Fest at Muhlenberg College a Success, a new student-run event that uses humor to talk about personal failures and promote resiliency, was featured on local TV station WFMZ.

• A spring survey of Pennsylvania Democrats about the 2020 elections as well as the presidential candidacy announcement by Pennsylvania native Joe Biden highlighted the work of Professor Chris Borick and the Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion. National visibility included two articles in the New York Times, In Pennsylvania, Joe Biden Finds Support Where He Most Needs It and In Scranton, College Students Give High Marks to Biden’s First Campaign Speech plus coverage by CNBC, Bloomberg News and the Associated Press.

• This month, members of Muhlenberg’s most-winning football team were featured in their hometown newspapers. Articles included Former Penn Charter quarterback Michael Hnatkowsky leads Muhlenberg College to NCAA Division III semifinals in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Brothers Max and Spencer Kirin hoping to spark Muhlenberg football in first final four in the Baltimore Sun.

Learn more: Full list of Muhlenberg media coverage

About Muhlenberg College
Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg is a highly selective, private liberal arts college offering baccalaureate and graduate programs. With an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students, Muhlenberg College is dedicated to shaping creative, compassionate, collaborative leaders through rigorous academic programs in the arts, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences; selected preprofessional programs, including accounting, business, education and public health; and progressive workforce-focused post-baccalaureate certificates and master’s degrees. Located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, approximately 90 miles west of New York City, Muhlenberg is a member of the Centennial Conference, competing in 23 varsity sports. Muhlenberg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.