In This Section:
Amelia Arnold is a CA who makes a difference - Amelia Arnold ’07 (PHR)
Pushing the boundaries - Kevin Tyler ’07 (ENG)

Helping other students adjust to their college experience

Amelia Arnold ’07 (PHR) assists 37 first-year female pharmacy students living on the same floor in a Towers residence hall.

Photo by Peter Morenus

An important part of being a community assistant (CA) in a residence hall is to make a big place seem small and the overwhelming first days of college more manageable.

Amelia Arnold ’07 (PHR), a CA in Towers residence hall, is one of the best at making her fellow students feel secure as they go through the rigors of their first year.

She received the 2006 Jackie Seide Outstanding Community Assistant Award, named for the retired associate director of residential life who spent more than 30 years helping to assist UConn residence hall students.

There are 37 women on Arnold’s floor, one of two Pre-Pharmacy First Year Learning Communities, where academic anxiety and homesickness are common freshman issues.

In a demanding program such as pharmacy, UConn’s First Year Experience program helps students to adjust to all aspects of their college experience by sharing most of the experience as a group.

Community assistants work under the guidance of an adult hall director.

“A student who was on the verge of tears came to talk to me because she thought she would fail biology,” recalls Arnold.

“I gave her some tips which helped her to feel more confidence in herself. She did much better than she thought she would on the final. That’s what it’s all about — you make a difference in someone’s life.”

“One of the things about Amelia that makes her stand out is that she’s really approachable, compassionate and intuitive,” says Chuck Sundquist, Towers residence hall director.

“She’s good at understanding other people’s perspective, not just in her residents but staff members as well.”

Arnold, who came to UConn from Mexico, Maine, a small mill town, says she chose UConn because wanted to attend a large university with an excellent pharmacy program.

She found that within UConn, the pharmacy program provides a close-knit family community. “You have all the programs and advantages of a big school, but you still get to know everyone’s name,” she says.

“I help my residents to make connections,” Arnold says.

“I don’t have all the answers, but I promise I will find the answer by putting them in touch with the right person.”

“Amelia exemplifies what we want in a pharmacist. She shows you can do more than just study. You can be involved in the pharmacy school itself and still be a CA,” says Lauren Schlesselman ’94 (PHR), assistant clinical professor in pharmacy.

“She just has a great personality. She always has a smile on her face. She’s completely energetic.”

In addition to her duties as a CA, Arnold is active in the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists and serves as secretary in Phi Lamda Sigma, treasurer in the National Community Pharmacist’s Association, and co-advisor for the Towers Area Council.

— Alix Boyle

Kevin Tyler uses engineering to help others

Kevin Tyler ’07 (ENG) is an honors student working on a research project to develop a toy to assist speech development in autistic children.

Photo by Lanny Nagler

Professors in UConn’s School of Engineering recognize something special is happening when Kevin Tyler ’07 (ENG) sits in their classroom.

The electrical engineering major’s work is superior, he also demonstrates a penchant for anticipating complexities the class has not yet broached.

“He’s an exceptional student,” says Monty Escabi, assistant professor of computer and electrical engineering.

“He can see the next question. He pushes the boundaries of where the class is going.”

Tyler, an honors student with a minor in mathematics, seeks and engages mentors who can advance his formal education and broaden his skills, as is the case with the research project he is working on as a University Scholar.

He is assisting in the development of a new interactive toy designed to encourage speech development in autistic children, many of whom do not develop an ability to speak.

His interest in autism originates with his older sister, who is autistic.

Tyler wanted to combine autism research with applied engineering, a path that led him to find a research and toy project at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn., where he was able to get credit for his work at UConn.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers, including speech language pathologists and engineers, have been among Tyler’s many mentors as he has delved into the science behind autism, speech and hearing and the programming and hardware design challenges of the project.

In a related project, Tyler received a UConn Summer Undergraduate Research Fund grant to participate in the Yale team’s efforts to research what kinds of speech autistic children find interesting.

Tyler developed some software that tests listening preferences — along the way broadening his programming skills and clinical experiences with the toy’s “target audience.”

Escabi says that Tyler is not intimidated easily by such wide-ranging endeavors.

“He sees the big picture, which is rare for an undergraduate,” says the professor, who also serves as Tyler’s primary project advisor.

Even with his busy schedule, Tyler recently wrote a software program to help his mother systematically coordinate the scheduling of his sister’s multiple therapists and caregivers, a task that had been a logistical nightmare.

Tyler relishes such real-world challenges that serve a purpose while also teaching him something new.

“The more skills I have, the more I can powerfully contribute to what I’m interested in,” says Tyler, who says he will likely work for a year after graduation before enrolling in graduate school.

“I’m investing time in my education now, and later I can be instrumental in getting some serious work done for the causes I’m interested in helping.”

— Leslie Virostek