Tshana (Guiswite) Jamara ‘09
October 14th, 2009
Tshana (Guiswite) Jamara ‘09 - Broadcasting major from Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania
As a broadcasting major with an emphasis in production, Tshana Jamara ‘09 took full advantage of her Philadelphia campus experience by landing an internship at the local ABC television affiliate, WPVI-TV, Channel 6.
Working with the production staff, Jamara contributed to interviews, served as associate producer to several news magazine segments, and worked on annual television specials such as The Philadelphia Flower Show, the Philadelphia Car Show, and Best in Class. She also wrote several stories for local shows produced by the station and performed voice‐overs for commercials. Read the rest of this entry »
Chris Book ’78 views his years at Messiah College as the formative years that confirmed God’s call to a life of Christian service. Now executive director of 
Each year at Commencement, the Alumni Merit Award is presented to a graduating senior for outstanding representation of the college’s ideals of intellect, character and Christian faith. In May 2007, the faculty chose Laura Beechy, a Nutrition and Dietetics major – and College Honors Program participant – from Sugarcreek, OH.
If anyone had mentioned to me during nursing school that in five years I would be working part-time to develop a curriculum for nurse HIV training in South Africa, I would have thought, “That’s about right.” If they had suggested I would be living in Southern California and working at a small community Emergency Department, I would have raised an eyebrow. But if I had been told that I would be doing both of these things at the same time, five years after finishing nursing school, I’m pretty sure I would have laughed out loud. 
Dan Stone, recognizing his love for the sciences, entered Messiah as a biology major, but he was not sure that it was something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “I wanted to do something I was passionate about,” he explains, so he channeled his lifelong love of sports along with a significant life experience to find the major that was right for him. He elaborates, “I was diagnosed at age thirteen with Type I diabetes, and since I was an athlete it had a huge impact. I experienced firsthand the connection between exercise and diabetes control, and I became passionate about how exercise affects our quality of life.” Dan realized that he wanted to make a career out of “helping people improve their quality of life through exercise,” so he declared a major in Sport and Exercise Science [Now, our Health and Exercise Science major]. 
It was important to Chip that he pursue some kind of physical activity as a student, so he got involved with intramural sports. Chip wanted his college experience to be richly interactive as well as physically active, so he also became a member of the 
The national housing crisis has been in the news lately but housing problems are not new to Appalachia (pop. 20 million)—one of the poorest, most isolated regions of the United States. Yet, as the economic downturn deepens and the number of troubled families continues to rise, there are those who plan to not only meet the need, but to double their efforts. Becca Knight ‘03 is among them. 
Malia’s process of choosing a major reflects the difficulty many first-year students experience as they search anxiously through course catalogs and take inventory of interests and hobbies. How is it possible to channel your interests into a career path that you love while juggling the new concerns, commitments, and relationships of the first-year college experience? Malia struggled with this question at Messiah as she entered her first year armed with a mental checklist of qualifications for her future career: she wanted to work with people; she liked math and English in high school; English teachers spend too much time grading papers; and she lacked the patience for elementary school children. High school math seemed to be the logical choice, so she settled on a math education major. “After two weeks of Calculus III, I said ‘no way’,” Malia explains. “I knew I could do it, but there was no way I would want to work with numbers all day. I wanted to be a teacher so I could work with people, not numbers. So I dropped out of calculus and I was undeclared.” With help from the Career Center, Malia reassessed her interests and passions, enabling her to declare a family studies major by her second year. 
I have always been a “student” of human behavior and psychology, even reading psychology books in high school before it was regularly offered as a course in high school. In college I started as “Pre-Med” but soon discovered psychology was my stronger interest - even after getting a C+ in Intro to Psychology. I went to a Marriage & Family Counseling Ph.D. program at Kansas State University and did an internship counseling adolescents and families in Kansas City, MO. I liked the challenges and was offered a job at the Institute I was working at when I finished my Ph.D. but Missouri did not license Marriage and Family Therapists at that time, so I switched graduate programs to get a degree in psychology (which the state did license). In my Psychology program I got a teaching assistantship and “the rest is history.” I discovered I loved college teaching and working with college students. I have never looked back to counseling. 
“I believe that Messiah’s mission statement guides people into service oriented careers,” and he serves others through his knowledge of art. He also believes that his liberal arts education provided him with a balance of abilities and experience that not only advanced his vocation but also helped shape the person he is today.