70 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN | CLASS NOTES Spencer pointed out that it had been about 10 years since we moved into that room. Best wishes, you two! Speaking of Dravo House in 2013, I received an incredible life update from Deanna Kocher. Deanna was in the IDEAS program at Lehigh and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, product design and child development in addition to a minor in science and technology studies. She moved to Ithaca, N.Y., with Sam Fickel, and in 2019, she began a Ph.D. program at Cornell University studying child-robot collaboration. She earned her M.S. in mechanical engineering, which focused on how to build robots to collaboratively play games with young children. Later, an internship at Cornell evolved into a fulltime position as the assistant director of hardware programs. She currently works with the hardware entrepreneurship students and runs three hardware accelerators. The programs that she has helped create have been successful and were recently awarded a grant to expand. In addition, she recently started a new position as a visiting lecturer at Sibley School of Mechanical Engineering! In whatever spare time she has left, she hikes the Finger Lakes with her dog and continues to make furniture, a hobby and skill she started at Lehigh. Deanna’s major note for me was that she never expected to be on this route, but she is very excited about it. She introduced me to the podcast “Squiggly Careers,” which helped her forge this incredible path. She is happy to be contacted at drk225@ cornell.edu for anyone looking to connect. As a final note, recently, I was at a bar, the Portland Hunt & Alpine Club in Portland, Maine, and I heard a couple at the table behind me mention “Lehigh.” I had to lean over and ask if they were talking about the university or the river, and I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Roman Lao-Gosney ’12. He was a part of the men’s lacrosse team while at Lehigh. It is a lot of fun to run into other Lehigh alumni no matter where I go. Please get in touch with me about whatever you want to share with our classmates. We would love to hear from you! Email me at robert.j.hillman1@ gmail.com, or find me on social media. Or, go to alumni.lehigh. edu to connect with the alumni relations network! ’18 Megan Olivola, mcolivola@gmail. com ’19 Alexis Parsells, lex. parsells@gmail.com and Claudia Cohen, claudiacohen10@gmail.com Nancy Howe graduated with a B.A. in global studies and a minor in business. She immediately entered the workforce while living at home and commuting to New York City as a media buyer working in advertising. She enjoyed that and was considering moving to the city right before COVID-19 hit. Simultaneously, she was hit with a rare autoimmune lung condition that kept her in the hospital for over a month during the peak pandemic. Luckily, her family could visit and she unexpectedly remained calm during this near-death experience. She promised herself that when she got better, she would do something different. She knew she wanted to help people. With some guidance from family and closest friends came the idea for art therapy, concurrently while Nancy was already benefiting from working with an art therapist to help with her own GAD and OCD. Art therapy is not straight forward. Sometimes, it’s talking with the therapist while no art is made. Other times, there’s meditation and making metaphors to articulate experiences and feelings. Sometimes, art is an escape. Sometimes, Nancy feels it’s the opposite of an escape and is the medium in which she uses to dive deeper into ruminating thoughts. It all clicked. She loves art and creating, and she wants to help people. Nancy is now a proud graduate of the masters of art therapy program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The two-year program challenged her to learn how to actively listen to others, make them feel safe and, when ready, challenge them to help themselves. She interned at a high school with students with special needs and then did her second year in a psychiatric inpatient hospital unit with adults with schizophrenia. Nancy wrote her thesis at SVA about how she tries to use her own personality and humor when appropriate to build a rapport with clients. Throughout her life, she had too many therapists who just blankly asked, “How is this going?” She is aiming to be different, being so aware of how it’s going with the client that she doesn’t have to ask that question. She has been committed to staying present and engaged as a real person across from them. Art therapy allows individuals to create. It asks the therapist and client to consider both process and product, symbolism and spontaneity. The first thing Nancy did at her new job as a level I art therapist at a NYC Health and Hospital site was make bins for the patients in which to keep their artwork. Their work matters to her, and she shows that to them every session. Nancy feels that her global studies major at Lehigh prepared her for this role. Her studies involved exposure on how to hear and see people through their own experiences and realize our own biases. Her own experience with anxiety and OCD also helps her, even though it’s not easy and can stir feelings of “imposter syndrome.” Through a whirlwind of thoughts, fears or worries, artistic expression gets things out of us and into the world. That’s what she aims to do with her patients, all the while treating them with kindness for the humans they are. Nancy continues to learn, tackle new ideas and remain focused on her own self-help. If anyone wants to hear more about the field of art therapy or needs support, Nancy can be reached at nancyjhowe@gmail.com. ’20 Evan Choy egc320@alum. lehigh.edu I hope you all had a happy and healthy holiday season and are on a strong path toward your 2024 goals. One of mine is to start running more and possibly run the NYC Marathon, so I caught up with some classmates who are miles ahead (or miles away!). Kate Butscher just ran the 2023 Philadelphia Marathon! Kate was an accounting major and also on the rowing team. In looking back on her Lehigh experience, she vividly remembers junior year when the resident tiki moved into her off-campus house. Like another roommate, the tiki joined the house at every major event, dawning a new outfit. Nowadays, Kate is living with different roommates in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, where she works as a DAT senior associate at PwC. Still in touch with many college friends, Kate has been traveling the country, visiting the Lehigh network along the way. Similarly, Rebecca Markunas completed the 2023 NYC Marathon! After taking on the “see 10, do 10”
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