Category Archives: Issue

Fall 2016, Feature 4, Scholarship Spotlight

American Dream Scholarships: Sponsored by BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois

American Dream Conference Roosevelt University

In September 2016, Roosevelt University hosted its inaugural American Dream Reconsidered Conference. In celebration of the event and to assist Roosevelt students, BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, a title sponsor of the conference, generously established the American Dream Scholarship program to support six Roosevelt University freshmen.

Each of these scholars is the first in their family to attend college. All of them view the American Dream as an inherent promise of opportunity for their own personal goals and for the nation’s success. The following provides insights as to why each chose Roosevelt and what the American Dream means to them.

Kwesi Ayekumi

Heller College of Business, Accounting

Kwesi Ayekumi was born and raised in Chicago and attended Lake View High School on the North Side of the city. He came to Roosevelt to study accounting and participate on the cross country and track teams. “I have a passion to develop my mathematical skills to be the very best they can be … and eventually integrate my accounting and business knowledge,” he said. Roosevelt stood out to him because of “the welcoming atmosphere that allowed me to be myself and grow as a person.” Ayekumi describes the American Dream as “the success and happiness of one’s life. It could be a monetary value or volunteer work.” Ayekumi would like to fulfill his parents’ dream of building an orphanage that will “do more than just meet standards.”

Michael Germain

Chicago College of Performing Arts, Musical Theatre

Michael Germain, a resident of Cincinnati, is in the Musical Theatre program of the Chicago College of Performing Arts. “Musical theatre makes me happy and I never get tired of doing it,” he said. Germain came to Roosevelt because of the “amazing” reputation of the program and “for being a great training program for young performers.” His view of the American Dream is “working for what you want in life, putting in the time and effort and not taking the easy way out.”

Halie Reyes

College of Education, Elementary Education

Halie Reyes is from Des Plaines, Ill. and attended Maine West High School. Her goal is to be a teacher. “I was inspired by so many teachers in my life and I want to have the same influence,” she said. Roosevelt appealed to her because “it has a strong focus on social justice. It allows me to stay involved with service and have a healthy environment.” The American Dream for Reyes “is the drive to achieve more without folding due to obstacles.” She refuses to allow financial issues to be a barrier to her success. “I am motivated to keep moving forward,” she said.

Briana Reynolds

College of Arts and Sciences, Psychology

Briana Reynolds attended George Westinghouse College Prep in Chicago. She wants to study psychology because she is interested in helping other people. “I chose Roosevelt because I like its social justice mission especially with all the social justice issues going on in the world today,” she said. For Reynolds, “the American Dream means having freedom, equality and opportunities to achieve success in America.”

Alan Romero

Heller College of Business, Accounting

Alan Romero grew up in Bolingbrook, Ill. and attended Plainfield East High School. He chose Roosevelt University because of its location and the opportunity to play soccer. He will study Accounting because he “took an accounting class my senior year of high school and found it really interesting. Math has always been my favorite subject,” he said. Romero’s view of the American Dream has elements of personal responsibility: “The American Dream, to me, means to strive for success so I can give back to my family.”

Alexandra Ward

Evelyn T. Stone College of Professional Studies, Criminal Justice

Alexandra Ward is from Burbank, Ill. and attended Reavis High School. She chose Roosevelt because of its location and because she heard a lot of positive things about the quality of its education. She’d like to become a lawyer and will study Criminal Justice. “I love looking into the finer details of things and finding things no one else can spot,” she said. “I love arguing as well, which will really help in my journey to become a lawyer.” Education is central to Ward’s view of the American Dream. “The American Dream is getting an education and wanting to better yourself.”

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Athletics, Fall 2016, Feature 4, Feature Stories

A Family Affair: The Lakers Sibling Rivalry

Maria Narcisi

Maria Narcisi

While some families get to see their Laker student-athlete excel in different sports, other families have more than one student-athlete donning the Green and White. In fact, there are five sets of siblings currently competing for Laker teams, either on the same squad or in different sports.

Senior swingman Damian Zalewski of the men’s basketball team gave his family a preview of what life was like to be a Roosevelt student-athlete. When it came time for Damian’s younger sister, Emily, to choose a university and pursue a collegiate tennis career, her decision was much more informed thanks to her older brother’s first-hand experience on campus.

Damian Zalewski

Damian Zalewski

“I encouraged my sister to make her own decision on where she wanted to receive her education, but I told my family and Emily that Roosevelt is a great college and I have enjoyed my time here,” Damian recalled. “I think it made her lean toward Roosevelt a little bit more.”

Senior Andrea Munoz actually started out at Calumet College of St. Joseph and played on the Crimson Wave women’s soccer team. When it came time for her younger sister, Monica, to make a college choice, Andrea also made the decision to join her sister at Roosevelt and reunite a soccer tandem that has played together since Monica was four.

Andrea and Monica Munoz

Andrea and Monica Munoz

“It was more like we made the decision together to attend school and play soccer here,” Monica, now a sophomore, said of their choice to play at Roosevelt. “She would transfer in as a junior and I would be an incoming freshman. It was like we were starting a new chapter together.”

Matt Marrera first became knowledgeable about Roosevelt as a sophomore in high school, when his older brother, Mike, was taking his official campus visit to Roosevelt during his senior year at Hinsdale South. Matt said he “instantly fell in love with the campus.” After Mike joined the Roosevelt baseball team and became one of the Lakers’ top pitchers, it was an easy decision for Matt to continue his baseball career at Roosevelt.

“Aside from the campus, and being able to live in such a beautiful city, the biggest and most special reason I came here to study and play ball was to step on the same baseball field at a collegiate level with my older brother Mike,” said Matt Marrera, now a sophomore infielder on coach Steve Marchi’s baseball team. “My older brother is not only a great pitcher, but he’s also my mentor, my inspiration and my best friend.”

Gina Narcisi

Gina Narcisi

The Narcisi sisters, both now juniors, have excelled for Roosevelt in different athletic settings. Gina Narcisi is consistently one of head coach Aaron King’s top two cross country runners and a distance standout during track season, while her twin sister, Maria, has overcome injury to emerge as starting goalkeeper for women’s soccer coach Roland Hahn. Maria even became the program’s first-ever CCAC Player of the Week, thanks to her stonewall play between the posts.

“My sister wasn’t originally attending Roosevelt, but she made a last-minute switch and I’m glad she did because we’ve only gotten closer,” Gina Narcisi said. “Teammates become family, but it’s always nice to have someone around who actually is.”

Gina’s cross country and track teammates, Jessica and Jackie Fuller, not only have each other to lean on, but their father, Jeff, who is Roosevelt’s carpenter foreman.

Jessica and Jackie Fuller

Many of the sibling duos say that competing for the same school, whether on the same team or not, has brought them closer together. “Ever since my sister and I were little, we would always talk about how we dreamed of going to college together to play soccer on the same team,” Monica Munoz said. “Now I’m playing college ball with my big sister. It’s nice to know it worked out the way it did.”

“I was always used to being on the field, course, or track with my twin, and I miss calling her a teammate,” Gina Narcisi said. “Since we play different sports, now we’ve learned to be each other’s biggest fans.”

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Brooke Lee
Athletics, Fall 2016, Feature 4, Feature Stories

Double Duty: Roosevelt’s Multiple Sport Athletes

Brooke Lee

There was a time when competing at a high level in multiple sports was the norm. Jim Thorpe played almost everything, Bo Jackson knew football and baseball and Deion Sanders competed in prime time on the gridiron and the diamond.

Today specialization rules the day, as young athletes are often interested or steered toward committing to just one sport. However, in Roosevelt Athletics, there is a culture that embraces, rather than shuns, multi-sport student-athletes.

Seven student-athletes are competing in more than one sport, not counting cross country runners who also run track.

Brooke Lee

The women’s volleyball team features three two-sport student-athletes. Brooke Lee, a junior and first team All-Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference outside hitter, shifts to the softball diamond in the spring. Sophomore Chelsey Crippen goes from middle blocker in volleyball to a presence on the basketball team, while newcomer Amy Kinney, who excelled in both volleyball and basketball in high school and community college, also plans to play both sports as a Laker.

Chelsey Crippen

Chelsey Crippen

“I was always more competitive in volleyball, and softball was just a way to have fun,” said Lee, who also is busy with biology studies and a packed schedule of campus organization commitments. “I live for the competitive energy, fire and excitement that I get playing volleyball. On the other hand, softball is amazing. I joined the team halfway through my freshman year and love it. Softball balances out the hectic atmosphere of volleyball.”

Both Lee and Crippen initially came to Roosevelt to solely play volleyball. In Crippen’s case, after her rookie season, the 6-foot 2-inch native of Sherrard, Ill., pursued an opportunity to join the women’s basketball team and gave head coach Keisha Newell’s squad valuable minutes in the frontcourt. She even scored a career-high 22 points off the bench in a road game at Olivet Nazarene.

“I find two-sport athletes display a great deal of appreciation for their sports. Because they are not specialized in one sport year round, there is less room for burnout.”
Keisha Newell, Roosevelt Women’s Basketball Coach

While there are certainly perks to staying so active by playing two sports in college, Crippen admits there are challenges to juggling such a jam-packed schedule. “Balancing academics, practices, games and social life is not easy,” said Crippen, who has played both sports since she was 7 years old. “Since I take 18 credit hours a semester, it is hard to do everything. I think it helps that most of my friends are on either the basketball or volleyball team, making it easier to stay focused since we have the same schedules.”

In addition to Crippen and Kinney, Newell’s squad also has a third two-sport student-athlete in junior Elie Donovan. A hustling three-point specialist on the basketball court, Donovan is now using that same hustle in a longer capacity as a cross country runner for the Lakers.

Elie Donovan

Elie Donovan

“Right now I would say running is my favorite sport,” Donovan admitted. “Basketball has always been something I enjoy and I love watching the NBA, but I like running because it pushes me to give everything I have.”

A couple of other two-sport athletes are joining Lee this spring on the softball team. Freshman runner Brianna McCormick and rookie basketball center Taylor Sterkowitz will compete in softball, while also participating in their respective track and basketball seasons, which run simultaneously at times.

“I like the fast-paced life of being a two-sport athlete,” said McCormick, a Fenwick High School graduate who is a pitcher when she is not running. “I’m never bored and there’s rarely a time when I don’t have some sort of workout, open gym, or practice to go to. It keeps me on my feet, and I like that.”

“I love knowing that I am going to be playing two completely different types of games because they are different atmospheres,” said Sterkowitz, who was a decorated athlete at Oak Forest High School.

Newell said she loves two-sport athletes because their skills are transferable. “They often display a high level of toughness and competitiveness,” Newell observed. “I find two-sport athletes also display a great deal of appreciation for their sports. Because they are not specialized in one sport year round, there is less room for burnout.”

All of the two-sport Lakers agreed that having strong bonds with teammates on each of their two squads has helped them manage the tough task of training and competing for more than one sport at the college level. They also concurred that their athletic friendships have made the transition from one season to the next much more enjoyable.

“There’s a feeling of satisfaction knowing I can squeeze everything in and maintain my grades, performance and sanity,” said Lee. “Being on two teams has surrounded me with the support system of two amazing groups of girls and coaches. At the end of the day, it’s all worth it.”

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