Onward State: What made you want to be Overall Chairperson for THON 2010?

Caitlin Zankowski: Well, I didn’t know until after THON 2009. At that point I was exhausted and didn’t know that I could give any more. After talking with a few people, including my parents, I realized that I wasn’t ready to leave Penn State without giving more to THON. I knew that THON 2010 would be better because of me, so when I started filling out my application it was pretty clear what was about to happen with my vision for the future and that’s kind of what sealed the deal.

OS: What does the overall chair do specifically? Before and during THON weekend.

CZ: First and foremost, I’m the protector of THON, which is an interesting way of looking at it.  All matters of keeping THON innocent and also in a good place starts with me. I’m the Overall Chair of the Overall committee, so the CEO, the CFO, however you want to talk about it, the COO I guess you could say too. Also, the pacesetter, the tone-setter, it all starts with me. But in terms of what I actually do? [Laughs] I’m the punching bag and sounding board for all ideas and relationships that are happening. So anything from the overall committee to captains to committee members to orgs, it all comes back to me. But tangibly, I only have one project that I had this year, which was the Summary of Fundraising Activities, and that’s like the only thing that has my name on it, so to speak. Not much [Laughs].

So when I came to the overall committee four weeks before THON, one of my bullet points for the meeting was “where do you need me THON weekend” because I didn’t have many tasks. I had to be at a few pre-THON press conferences and stuff like that. But I mean I was the host for one of the variety shows for the kids and I talked to a lot of the families and I went to see the Four Diamonds Board. But by and large the biggest thing I had to do was read the total, and that’s about it.

OS: Who besides you knows the total before it goes up?

CZ: In the Finance Room it’s myself, the finance overall and her two assistant treasurers, and Barry Bram [THON's advisor]. So there’s five of us total, and we all hit the enter key together to see the total pop up, which is pretty cool.

OS: What was the interview process like for the Overall Chair?

CZ: Well the application was six questions, it was pretty intense. My application ended up being about twenty pages. And then the interview was Mike Hacke (THON 2009 Overall), Sarah Firestone (Director of Development and Alumni Relations for the Four Diamonds Fund), and Barry Bram and then every member of the 2009 Overall Committee that wasn’t applying [to be Overall Chair]. So there was about, 13 people interviewing me, which was pretty scary, and it’s about an hour long. They asked a lot of crazy things. It’s interesting because I worked with them all year, so they knew a lot about me, like who I was as a person, so there was a lot of, not situational questions, but “how would you have handled this differently”, “why did you act this way”, “you wrote this in your application, why did you write that”, and I had to critically analyze Mike Hacke, and say things about him that were very honest, but critical. I don’t remember most of the interview, which is kind of rough [Laughs].

OS: THON has seen tremendous growth over the last decade, what do you attribute that to?

CZ: A few things. The culture at Penn State, I mean, Hacke and I joke that it’s a boulder and it’s gonna keep rolling. You better get out of the way, because you can’t stop it. But I think that the diversity of the organizations involved and the diversity of our volunteers, there’s no normal path to being involved in THON, and there’s no normal path to being Overall Chair. We give everyone a shot and I think that’s a part of it. But also the personal connection involved in THON. There are so many families and so many students that have personal connections to the families and that keeps it going.

OS: The Public Relations committee has created quite a stir this semester with getting THON’s message out to the general public, celebrities specifically. There have been concerns voiced over celebrity involvement in THON, how do you feel about it?

CZ: Something we talked about as an Overall Committee even before all this stuff happened with Twitter and the blogs was that we never want THON to not be about the kids and the students. Do we like celebrity endorsement? Absolutely. But in a sense to draw awareness and attention to what we’re doing, not to give them credit or put their name on something that’s not theirs. So it’s a fine line and the tweeting was great. The good thing that came out of all that was the traffic to our website. Social media has played a huge part this year in what we’ve done, in terms of traffic to the website and webcast, and I don’t know if it’s correlated to donations, but one could probably draw that if they wanted to.

OS: You mentioned committees, what was your level of interaction with the captains and committee members? Did you get to work with many of them or was it mostly members of the overall committee?

CZ: Depends. I got to work with the Overall Committee most closely, and with captains for certain things. There are certain captains that “owned” projects that I had input with or had to work with. But I guess that most of my interaction came in the office, not project-oriented. Committee members, very limited, and I kind of regret that a lot. I loved my committee member experience, and my little sister was a committee member this year for OPP, and the great things I hear about so many committees, it’s hard. There’s not enough time. Or no, there is enough time, I just wish I had spent more time with the committee members. It was awesome seeing them all THON weekend, and I tried to say thanks as much as possible, because that’s where I started.

OS: If you can, describe the experience of being on stage and revealing the total at the end of THON.

CZ: Oh my God. Well if you listen to the audio clip, you know it was pretty scary. I’ll back it up a little bit. When we found out what the total was, I was standing and Lauren Tucci, the Finance Overall, was sitting, and I was leaning over the chair with her, and I fell on the floor and I started sobbing like, right away. Barry picked me up and was  like, “it’ll be okay, congratulations.” So the instant reaction is overwhelming, joy, shock. I felt like I was going to throw up, it was crazy. And leading up to it, I couldn’t tell anyone, and also, family hour is so emotional and my friends that were dancing, it’s a really rough point in the weekend. So it was an emotional roller coaster for me.

But standing up on stage, I don’t know if I was nervous or excited, but I was freaked out, like so emotional that this was actually going to happen. I think I kind of blew the surprise, people knew that we were higher, because I was freaking out, you could hear me breathing. I don’t remember, after I said, “The total for THON 2010, Love Belongs Here, is…” I don’t remember saying the total, I just remember like jumping. Which is like a total bummer. I think it’s like adrenaline, and who even knows what else that involves. I remember looking at the paper and wanting to throw my clipboard.

OS: Where do you hope THON goes in the future?

CZ: I’ve been asked this a lot, because I always talk about vision. People ask, “how did you become Overall Chair?” And a lot of it has to do with my vision for the future. But THON is growing, I always say that THON needs to grow better, not bigger. We’re getting to the point where we’re at critical mass, like mass capacity, whatever you want to call it, and we’re a well-oiled machine. And a lot of our volunteers work really hard. So in the future, I hope that the organizations involved can continue to grow because that’s such a cool factor of THON, and the involvement they have with the families.

I hope that there’s a solution in the future of the volunteers that can’t participate. We’ve talked a lot about it the past two years, about how we deny close to 2,000 volunteers, which is like, insane. And a lot of that is the growth of new organizations involved, people who still want to be a part of it. But I’m sure that some overall committee in the future will figure out a great way to keep those people engaged. But also, not becoming too big, and that’s a challenge we’re going to have in the future and I think it’ll be interesting to see how that goes in the next couple of years. Because since we’ve moved into the Bryce Jordan Center there’s been exponential growth in terms of all numbers, monetary included. Which is crazy, and no one saw it coming, so who knows?

OS: So what are your plans for the rest of the semester?

CZ: So I pick the new Overall Chair March 21st, and I will spend every day after that with them, transitioning them. So it’s actually a pretty intense process. These three weeks I get, the two weeks after THON and Spring break, are pretty much my last days of vacation. Which is cool, I’m excited to get back into it, and I will never forget my transition process with Hacke. I’m like passing my torch, passing on my baby to somebody, which is kind of scary. I’m excited, a little sad, not really nervous, but it is nerve-wracking, I’m still learning, I called Hacke yesterday to ask him something. Then they pick the next Overall Committee, which I won’t be a part of, but that’s a good thing. It’s one of those things where it all starts, so it’ll be good.

OS: Bonus Question – So if you had to be any dinosaur which one would you be?

CZ: Haha, we asked this question to like every captain we interviewed, it was absurd. I think I would want to fly. Do pterodactyls fly? Yeah, I think I’d be a pterodactyl.

It was great to sit down and talk with Caitlin about her experiences leading one of the most dominant aspects of the Penn State community. I had the pleasure of getting to work with her through my role as a THON Technology Captain, but never to discuss her experiences and thoughts on the organization. I could tell listening to her talk how much she cares about THON and its success. It definitely showed in the results this year.

Less than a week after the debauchery of State Patty’s Day ended with some of the highest crime rates in years, students are looking to create another drinking-centric holiday. Luis Ramos (Sophomore – Civil Engineering) and Gustavo Caldeira (Junior – Finance) cited on the Facebook group that they created the fact that Cinco de Mayo falls during finals week as another reason to create a fake holiday and get drunk. They’re asking students to “get your sombreros, mustaches, ponchos and margaritas ready, should be a good day no matter where you drink.” As of writing, the group has over 1000 members (and was growing rapidly).

You all know my opinion of State Patty’s Day (if you don’t you can read it here) so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I feel as though this is one of the stupider ideas I’ve heard. Frankly, I don’t see it taking off. Students already drink a decent amount during finals week (ie. Cinco de Mayo is in no way forgotten), coupled with the fact that April 17th (the proposed date for Cinco de State) completely removes the Cinco de Anything and should now be called Diecisiete de Abril, which makes absolutely no sense.

State Patty’s Day illustrated the disconnect between the students and the town, and the bar owners and fraternities recognized this and took action. Unfortunately this did little to stop torrents of people from visiting State College with the expressed purpose of getting drunk and trashing someone else’s town. Hopefully, people will realize that these psudo-holidays need to stop, lest our town suffer more as a result.

In the meantime, watch this appropriate Five Second Film.

Thompson gave a brief description of THON in front of the House of Representatives and congratulated the dancers, volunteers, and participants of the dance marathon. The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Kathleen Dahlkemper [D-PA3], Charles Dent [R-PA15], Jim Gerlach [R-PA6], Tim Holden [D-PA17], Tim Murphy [R-PA18], Joe Sestak [D-PA7], William Shuster [R-PA9], and Frank Wolf [R-VA10]. It just goes to show that supporting THON is truly bipartisan.

Here’s the video of his speech.

Full Text of the Resolution

Congratulating the Pennsylvania State University IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon (THON) on its continued success in support of the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.

Whereas the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, known as THON, is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world, with 700 dancers, more than 300 supporting organizations, and more than 15,000 volunteers involved in the annual event;

Whereas student volunteers at the Pennsylvania State University annually collect money and dance for 46 hours straight at the Bryce Jordan Center for THON, bringing energy and excitement to campus for a mission to conquer cancer, and bringing awareness to countless thousands more;

Whereas all THON activities support the mission of the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, which provides financial and emotional support to pediatric cancer patients and their families and also funds cancer research;

Whereas each year, THON is the single largest donor to the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, having raised nearly $68.9 million since 1977, when the two organizations first became affiliated;

Whereas in 2010, THON set a new fundraising record of over $7.83 million, even after the previous record of $7.5 million was set in 2009;

Whereas THON support has helped more than 2,000 families through the Four Diamonds Fund, is currently helping to build a new Pediatric Cancer Pavilion at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, and has helped suppport pediatric cancer research that has caused some pediatric cancer survival rates to increase to nearly 90 percent; and

Whereas THON has inspired similar events and organizations across the Nation, ranging from high schools to colleges and beyond, and continues to encourage students across the country to volunteer and stay involved in great charitable causes in their community: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

Editor-in-Chief Rossilynne Skena stated on her official blog that the authentication system is in place “to avoid the spam and hostility so often associated with anonymous comments.”

We want to congratulate the Daily Collegian on taking its next big step in the scary world of online media. I am surprised that it took them this long, though I suspect it had something to do with credibility worries. Good luck with keeping the commenters civil!

Only a few weeks after Pat Howley pledged to donate $1 for every follower that @AbolishCancer got on January 29th to THON, Miss Miller is choosing to do the same. Pat Howley (a junior at Penn State) wound up with a $1700 pledge to back up after the THON twitter account exploded with popularity. An outpouring of support from students, alumni, even IFC/PHC resulted in Pat’s pledge ballooning to over $6000 being donated to the philanthropy.

Today’s the day to help THON by way of Andrea Miller. For every follower that @AbolishCancer gets today, Miss Miller has pledged to donate $1. According to Abolish Cancer’s website, Miss Miller is a recent Penn State grad who decided to participate in the pledge program because she feels that “no child should ever have to experience cancer.” Miss Miller has pledged to sponsor up to 200 followers, but here’s to hoping that she’s able to receive a few matching donations, a la Mr. Howley.

Not this weekend...

This evening Caitlin Zankowski, THON Overall Chair, emailed all Organizations’ THON Chairs notifying them of some significant changes to the canning procedures for this weekend. Because of the snow, all canning must be done in front of stores and other businesses. Organizations can not be on the corners at intersections or on the sides of roads. Any organization found violating these procedures will not have their canning total be credited to their organization, in addition, violators will see their pass lists revoked for the entirety of THON weekend. In the event of serious breaches of procedure organizations could have their total canning amounts uncredited, their dancers removed or their entire fundraising total uncredited.

THON is clearly taking this issue very seriously. There will undoubtedly be some grumbling from Organizations, but if you think about it for half a second, you’ll realize that this is for the safety of the canners. Try to imagine what might happen if a canner got hit by a car while in an intersection. I personally don’t even want to begin to think about what could happen to THON if that would occur. So please while you’re out canning this weekend, stay safe and follow the rules, they’re there for your safety.

Here is the original email that was sent out:

THON Organizations,

As the day has progressed, there have been more concerns expressed by people both internal and external to the University about the safety of students canning this weekend. Because of the extreme weather conditions, ALL STREET AND CORNER SOLICITATION IS PROHIBITED THIS WEEKEND. Any organization canning this weekend MUST be canning at a store front location. Any organization found violating this will lose all of their organization’s canning weekend #4 total and all of your organization passes for THON Weekend without question. In addition to this, you could also be subject to (based on the severity of the incident):

• Loss of all canning weekend totals
• Loss of organization dancers
• Loss of entire organization total for THON 2010

We are taking such serious measures to ensure your safety this weekend because your safety and the future of canning ultimately will affect THON and the kids this year and years to come. Please know that no amount of money is worth is your safety. If you have any questions about registering trips, or need further clarification, please email Lauren Kay at rules.regulations@thon.org or call the THON office at 814-865-0510.

As an alternative to this, we encourage you to do door to door solicitation with pledgebooks or our new solicitation cards! You can pick these up at materials distribution or the THON office before you leave for your trips this weekend. Please be safe and have fun this weekend. We dance in 8 For The Kids!

FTK,
Caitlin

Full Disclosure: I am a THON Technology Captain, but do not have any input in canning procedure. The words written here are my views, and may not reflect the official stance of THON as an organization.

[Photo Credit: Jessie Zimmerman via Penn State Live]

First off, stop complaining on Facebook, I’m tired of my feed being filled with people moaning that they have to get up and go to class, as if they haven’t been doing that since age 5. It’s State College, it snows, buy some boots and deal with it. Secondly, posting angry profanity-laced messages on Penn State’s Facebook page isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. While moderately unfair that several of the commonwealth campuses got their classes canceled, complaining on Facebook isn’t going to change anything. It’s immature, unnecessary, and inappropriate.

That being said, the way that the University handled those posts was also inappropriate at times. While they reserve the right to moderate their page (as they absolutely should), I feel as though they went a little too far in regards to responding to their criticisms. The University needs to understand that while the “Official News Source” of Penn State is Penn State Live, their Facebook page still provides Penn Staters valuable information regarding their University. As someone who has studied how organizations utilize social media, I’ve seen this issue come up before.

Organizations typically have very well thought out and comprehensive plans for disseminating information, but those plans end up going out the window as soon as social media is added to the equation. It’s very easy to ignore criticisms of an organization when they’re being randomly posted on the Internet or written about in the media, but as soon as something to this effect appears on the organization’s own pages (be it their website, Twitter, or Facebook), the issue becomes much more real. Somebody interested in that organization can have their opinion swayed upon viewing criticisms of the organization on their own site.

Penn State is obviously trying to avoid negative criticism in this instance (as one would expect them to). They felt that they needed to respond to these criticisms. Perhaps they did, but becoming engaged in a “flame war” of sorts was the wrong way to go about it. They fell into a trap that a lot of organizations fall into when it comes to social media. The Daily Collegian recognized this trap when they started expanding their Twitter presence and instituted the policy that (I’m told) only allows four of their editors access to their Twitter account and all tweets must be approved by at least one other editor. THON has a similar system in place in regards to their social media pages. Perhaps it’s time that the University institute a similar plan.

Even though my first class on Wednesday is at 2:30, I hope for all the poor souls that have 8AM’s that Dan is right. Either way, I love snow, so the more the merrier in my mind. For more information on the snowstorm and all campus weather follow Campus Weather Service on twitter @PSUWeather.

[Photo Credit: Andy Colwell via Penn State Live]

What made you decide to become Hotdoggers?

Mary Kate: I wanted to become a Hotdogger because of the reputation that the program has. It’s a great public relations and media experience. Plus I get to travel the country and get a salary while doing it.

John: I grew up loving the Weinermobile, I’ve had a special affection for it all my life. Like MK, I was also drawn to the adventure and travel opportunities. We’re basically professional tourists.

Is it difficult to drive the Weinermobile?

John: It’s a piece of cake. We’re trained by the Madison (WI) Police Department at Hot Dog High. We start off driving a minivan with blacked-out windows, to simulate the experience of driving the Weinermobile, on a cone course at the police facility, and then we move up to the real thing before heading out across America.

MK: I think it feels like driving a large SUV, but with everyone smiling and waving at you.

You mentioned “Hot Dog High.” What does that entail?

MK: It’s a two-week training program where you learn everything that you might need to know while out with the Weinermobile. We work on crisis training, media training, driving lessons. We also do a lot of team building, none of us knew each other before starting the program.

It might sound like a silly question, but would you recommend it?

MK: YES! People always say to savor your time in college because it’s the best 4 years of your life, but this past year might top college.

If this sounds like something that might be up your alley, Mary Kate and John will be holding an information session, along with a representative from Kraft Foods (who own Oscar Meyer) on Thursday Feb. 11th at 6:30 in 112 Thomas Building. Dress is business casual and they ask that you bring a cover letter and resume. Interviews will be held the following day. If you’re selected as a finalist, you will be flown out to Madison, WI in March for final round interviews, when they’ll make their decision.

The Centre Daily Times published this editorial calling the holiday a “drunk-fest” and an unnecessary burden on the State College emergency services. Last year there were “79 summary criminal arrests, 14 DUI arrests, 21 alcohol overdoses, 31 loud-noise citations and several cases of vandalism… At times, local ambulances were so busy transporting drunks that no medical personnel were available for an actual emergency in the Centre Region.” This is simply unacceptable. The weekend produced “311 calls to State College police, more than the volume of the previous year’s homecoming or night football weekend.” (author’s emphasis)

The CDT and I are not the only ones calling for the death of this holiday. Linebacker-U, a prominent Penn State sports blog, wrote in a post on January 16th telling students that “the only thing you’re doing by continuing to prop up this fake, two-bit, holiday whose original purpose has been completely distorted, is creating an unnecessary burden on local law enforcement and taxpayers.” There is also a Facebook group that has been created called “End the ‘State Patty’s Day’ Tradition,” which, as of press time, had over 700 members. This obviously pales in comparison to the “official” State Patty’s Day Facebook group (with over 8,000 members), but it does go to show that I’m not the only one who thinks this “holiday” is horrifically stupid.

[Pic]

I was able to get a hold of Elyse Adams, PR Overall, who gave me some information about how Khloe helped out THON. ”It’s extremely exciting to have the support of someone like Khloe. She is helping us spread awareness about THON and pediatric cancer,” Adams wrote in an email. She elaborated by saying that, “on Friday, January 29th,  @THON gained 1001 followers on Twitter between the hours of 1:29 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. (plus a few hundred more on Saturday)! Our makeshift video to thank Khloe received more than 6,000 hits in one day. And our YouTube channel received more than 5,000 hits.”

Zack Gable, a Technology Captain who works on THON.org, said that Friday “was this highest number of hits since the site went up besides THON last year.” The site received almost 3,500 visitors on Friday, with the average visitor viewing 4 different pages.

This is great news for THON, getting the organization’s message out to as many people as possible will help in raising funds to fight pediatric cancer.

Full Disclosure: I am a Technology Captain for THON, but am not involved in the development of THON.org.

Featuring an almost certainly unscripted section with Dunham’s opening act Guitar Guy, the show slowed down a bit, but Dunham was able to incorporate that into later parts of his show, with great success. Dunham stated during his encore, after discovering that the audience knew all of the punchlines to his jokes with Bubba J., that the show was “one of the weirder shows we’ve ever done.” Weird in a good way.

Dunham’s style has been criticized for being too politically incorrect, but still had the BJC filled and the crowd in hysterics. Dunham appears to enjoy performing here and the BJC seems to like having him. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes another appearance here in the upcoming years. My recommendation: If he comes back, go see it, you won’t be disappointed.

Check out pictures after the break.

Based on the opening dance and their talent performances, three Captain pairs were chosen as finalists. The Captains from the Hospitality, OPPerations and Family Relations committees were named as the final three pairs. Steve Dodge and Jeannine Bradbury (OPPerations) were chosen as runners-up, and Jony Rommel and Dave Belliveau (Family Relations) were crowned Mr. and Mrs. THON 2010.

The contestants were judged by a panel consisting of Evan Royster, starting running back for the Nittany Lions; Lou “the mic guy” Defazio from the cheerleading squad; Justin Ross, Blue Band President; and Homecoming King and Queen, Greg Tallman and Cri Cri Henry. Overall Chair Caitlin Zankowski and THON Advisor Barry Bram hosted the event. The pageant also featured performances by the Overall Committee and a speech by a former Four Diamonds child turned Penn State nursing student and Morale committee member.

Do executive officers of organizations deserve the amount of money that they receive every year?

On Wednesday, the Collegian reported that Penn State President Graham Spanier was ranked 6th nationally among public university presidents in terms of annual base salary for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. In total pay compensation Spanier ranks 18th among the same group.

My question to the Onward State community is whether his $590,000 salary is too much?

According to the University’s annual Right to Know report for 2007-2008, Spanier’s total compensation doesn’t even crack the top 5 at Penn State.

Those honors go to, in decreasing order, Joe Paterno (Head Football Coach – $1,037,322), Robert Harbaugh (Chair of the Neurosurgery Dept at the Hershey Medical Center – $789,492), Alan Brechbill (Executive Director of the Hershey Medical Center – $666,448), Ed DeChellis (Head Basketball Coach – $642,366), and Peter Dillon (Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Hershey Medical Center).

It is important to note that the Right to Know report lists both Spanier’s total compensation and salary as the same, while many other employees at the top of the pay scale have compensation in the form of bonuses and expenses in addition to the outright salary. This same statistic holds true when comparing Spanier’s salary to that of other university presidents, University spokesperson Annemarie Mountz attributes that to the fact that Spanier “does not receive many of the benefits included in extra incentive packages offered at other universities,” such as housing allowances or car allowances. Spanier lives in a University-owned house (built using private funds) and drives a car owned by the University.

Spanier isn’t being paid too much– he runs one of the largest universities in the country, which also happens to consistently rank among the best in academics, athletics, and sheer popularity. He was awarded the Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence by TIAA-CREF for his commitment and contributions to higher education and society in February. He recently declined a raise opportunity citing that he didn’t believe it was fair to accept a raise when there was a salary freeze on faculty positions. He’s been a positive force for this university for 15 years and has guided us through some difficult financial times while still managing to expand the school’s reach into new areas of research and learning opportunities.

What do you think? Go ahead, tell me why I’m wrong.