This week’s featured higher ed member is Master’s student Amy Westmoreland.
Amy is interested in access and retention. As a multiracial female, she witnessed a lot of her peers not make it through the undergraduate experience and wants to make sure there are efforts to create an inclusive atmosphere that keeps these students in school. She saw a lot of things things that could be changed at her alma mater and would like to be a part of that change. This semester Amy is focused on getting her footing at Penn State. Though she hasn’t joined any groups yet, she plans to be out and about enjoying all that Penn State has to offer next semester.
Amy hails from Racine, Wisconsin (spoken in the true Wisconsin accent, though she thought everyone else had the accent). It’s located right next to Lake Michigan, in between the Milwaukee and the Illinois border. She loves it there—Kringle, cheese, snow, beer…what’s not to love? She moved to Madison, Wisconsin at age 18 and received degrees in English and Women’s Studies from UW-Madison. Amy lived and played in Madison until August of this year. She had the best apartment ever, located about a swank jazz club, and one block from the lake, a block from the capitol building, museums, theaters, farmer’s market. She got a good deal by working for the real estate section of the newspaper but still felt pretty important.
To sum up her journey to State College, Amy says she got lost. She graduated from UW-Madison in 2006 and got a full-time position at a newspaper. Trips to Italy and Australia and roadtrips around the U.S. (Texas, Washington D.C., Florida, Atlanta) helped get the traveling bug out of her. She loved working for a tutoring program and decided to talk to a few people that ran the program. They told her their degrees, and it turned out she needed a Master’s degree in Higher Education, so she set about doing it. Amy did all of her applying online (during work) and was accepted to Penn State and another institution. She chose Penn State because it is another Big Ten University, felt more like home, and has a great reputation.
At heart Amy considers herself a really old soul. She loves family and friends, but her parents are her best friends, and she loves introducing them to people because she finds them hilarious. Sometimes when she finishes a major paper or test, she likes to “reward” herself with reading a couple chapters from one of her favorite books (ex. East of Eden, One Hundred Years of Solitude). It’s one of her nerdy English major things, but it makes her incredibly happy. Amy also loves using her artistic talents – she doodles in sketchbooks, designs clothes, and does abstracts. She likes to do anything that makes her laugh, and that includes just sitting with a group of friends and trash talking. She swears like a pirate (degrees worse than a sailor), so she loves being around people that let her drop an F-bomb or two without being offended. At other times, she just enjoys being quiet and listening to others or just simply enjoying sights or sounds. Amy says she is easily entertained and has a vivid imagination that allows her to create her own fun – she’s like a kitten with a constant ball of yarn.
Featured member Amy Westmoreland with two of her best friends
