By Hannah Schwartz ’28
Nine Grove City College faculty, students, and staff members were recently recognized as Outstanding First-Year Student Advocates.
The award highlights “the people around the college that are deeply impacting our freshman students,” said Eric Fehr, assistant dean of Student Life & Learning. “The whole point is to recognize those who don't even realize the impacts that they're having on people. For them to feel, not necessarily a sense of accomplishment or pride in themselves, a recognition that students see image bearers of God doing the work that they've been called to do,” Fehr said.
This year’s faculty honorees are: Dr. Jarrett Chapman ’04, professor of Education; Dr. Josiah Hall, professor of Biblical & Theological Studies; and Dr. Shane Brower, professor of Physics.
The staff honorees are: Deb Cochran, aka “Deli Deb,” Parkhurst staff; Hanna Kincer, resident director of Harker Hall; and Patricia “PJ” Daugherty, custodian.
The student honorees are: junior Caden Schipani, Student Government and Orientation Board; junior Jessica Li, Imago Dei, and MuKappa; and Kathryna Hoyman ‘26, Orientation Board.
First-year students often struggle to adjust to a heavy workload, but professors like Hall, Chapman, and Brower provide a consistent source of guidance and genuine care.
“The goal is not to remove these challenges but to provide students with enough structure and support that they can grow through them,” Hall said.
The vital piece is giving students the opportunity to grow, while providing guidance, structure, and encouragement. Chapmen provides this guidance with kindness, encouraging students to take hold of the opportunities that the college offers, fostering their academic, campus, and spiritual lives.
Freshmen who nominated Brower spoke to his enthusiasm and genuine care, with one student saying, “He is always willing to go above and beyond when it comes to teaching. Outside of class, he wants to get to know each of his students individually, and that’s what makes him a great person and one of my favorite faculty at Grove City.”
Extending a welcoming hand is the first step in serving first-year students well. “Never at any point did she feel like a stranger,” said one student who Kincer greeted with a smile. “She was always open and welcoming.”
Behind the scenes, the custodial staff not only keep the buildings clean, but they shine a light on students in everyday moments. Those who nominated Patricia “PJ” Daugherty share how she is “so sweet and always takes the time to talk to students and is just a source of joy for the hall.”
At meals, which can be intimidating for first-year students, “Deli Deb” Cochran offers a loving smile and words of encouragement to students in the sandwich line. As a grandmother of college-age kids, she said, “It’s easy for me to make them feel seen and loved.”
Hearing encouragement and God’s truth from peers makes all the difference. When entering a new place, many first-year students struggle with reconciling their identity with their environment.
Li believes that what students need most is “a safe place, a place they can come back to after any kind of day...where they are fully accepted for who they are, someone wonderfully made in the image of God.”
Hoyman said that it is vital for our community to foster “genuine support and enthusiasm” for one another, “so that through love, we may help dispel the lies that anyone's identity is rooted in how they perform academically or are perceived, or that their justification is anything but the blood of Christ over the doorframes of their lives.”
“It's all about helping first-year students explore the person that God has created them to be, now in the context of college,” said Schipani. Being encouraged in their faith and affirmed in their identity in Christ is what makes Grove City College’s student leaders outstanding.
For many first-year students, their impressions of college are shaped by simple moments of genuine care. This can be a smile in the dorm room hallway, a conversation, encouragement from a peer, or a professor who takes the time to know them. This year’s Outstanding First-Year Student Advocates remind us to love one another in small moments, and that faithful service often leaves a greater impact than we realize.