Summer at Franklin Carisa

Do you ever wonder about the secret, elusive lives of your residence hall’s RA? Tune in to the final episode of the Summer at Franklin Podcast! This hour, we will get some insights into what the RA (Resident Assistant) life looks like at Franklin University. This summer, both Saeeda Bano and Pearl Kasirye became RAs for the first time. Tune in to find out more about what they really do, how (and when) they can help you, as well as what some of the misconceptions of being an RA are.

Skip to:
03:23 Learning beyond academics at Franklin
05:18 How the responsibilities of an RA changed during the pandemic
16:05 On Franklin’s safety measures
21:57 Don’t call the emergency number to get an RA to kill a moth for you in the middle of the night!

Please let us know what you thought of the series by submitting this survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSclNv6sbcoInnFffy1EB3k8aNYKXi1xyvGUDoTdaeSVGG_5wA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Although represented by a smaller department (Visual Communication Arts and Art History and Visual Culture), Franklin boasts a vibrant community of artists and aesthetes. Especially during the lockdowns, many found refuge and reassurance in expressing themselves artistically. Consequently, some student leaders found the opportunity to create, and others to document these creative outputs. Tune in today to learn more about how seniors Taku Suda and Heaven Howard delved into and encouraged this spirit of artistic expression, and how sophomore Saeeda Bano was inspired by shows of resilience and creativity worldwide, resulting in her need to archive this turbulent, yet fruitful moment in history.

During the regular academic year, students have a wealth of resources available to help them succeed. One of these is the language tutors at the Writing and Learning Center (WLC). These tutors hold regular, weekly tutoring sessions with groups of students from the various language classes, tutoring students up to the 300 level. During the summer, however, these sorts of resources are cut down, as there are also not too many students taking language classes. Yet, this summer, a couple students decided to change that, with Vasco Aguglia offering tutoring to interested students taking Italian classes and Rim Maslouh supporting students taking French classes. Anushka Bagde, on the other hand, held group tutoring and study sessions to help motivate students of any subject. Listen to today’s episode to learn more about how the project went for Rim!

Throughout the regular academic year, the Tone Athletic Center (Franklin’s gym) hosts a wide variety of activities and sporting events, ranging from Yoga, Pilates, and dance classes and the basketball and volleyball games our newly formed teams play, and even organize weekend skiing trips. During the recent lockdowns, however, this space and the activities they normally organize were among the first things to go away. To help ease us out of this situation and help cope with the effects, Maddie Espinoza and Natasha Braase came up with a solution: yoga; and Grace Kotnik: hiking. In this episode, we will learn more about how their projects came together and what they are doing to help heal and reconstruct a sense of community at our school through exercise and mindfulness.

Skip to:
02:15 Psychology and Environmental Science majors and why study at Franklin
15:08 How Maddie and Tascha came to work together
16:27 Meditating at McDonald’s
19:23 Misconceptions about yoga
20:56 Role of Tarot in wellness
27:29 Why every Franklin student should hike

Welcome to the five-episode “Summer at Franklin” podcast, where you will learn more about the projects that students are organizing during the summer of 2020. Please stay tuned, especially if you are a new student, so you can see what is happening on campus and get a sense of the Franklin culture. This summer, we are learning more about what projects students are leading on campus. For today’s episode, however, we learn a bit about the hosts of this podcast, Curtis Joseph “Joe” Tally-Foos and Carisa Villela.