Two AT students complete strength and conditioning internships in Florida

Senior Athletic Training major Jordan Cook traveled to Jacksonville, Florida, for a month-long internship with SET Performance, an elite training center and leader in the field of sports performance. During his internship, Jordan assisted in the supervision of SET athletes of all ages during training sessions and assessments. He also assisted with athletic camps and combines, and was able to take a hands-on approach to teaching athletes at various levels, from middle and high school to the collegiate and professional level. The experience allowed Jordan to take what he learned in the classroom and apply it in a real-world setting. It also helped him to develop confidence and in-the-field experience as he works towards earning his degree.

Sydney Churchill, also a Senior Athletic Training major, spent Summer 2016 completing a month-long internship in Kissimmee, Florida, at Warrior Fit Club Functional Strength and Conditioning Center. During the internship, she worked with several different coaches, learned varying coaching styles, and was able to apply it in some of the classes they allowed her to coach. She was able to evaluate and assist in some client assessments as well as create corrective exercise programs meant to help prevent injuries. She learned new skills such as how to modify workouts for clients who couldn’t perform proper biomechanics, instruct proper form when performing certain tasks, and become a good strength and conditioning coach.

Meet Darci Faye

Darci works to create theater opportunities for campus and community members. She not only revived the University Players (the campus drama club), staged a show she wrote that featured actors from NYC, and hosted a playwrighting festival, she’s invited community members to take the stage as part of two Broadway Revues. Learn about her path to theater and playwrighting in the “County Faces” column that ran in a March 2016 issue of the Star-Herald, and included here with permission from the local newspaper.

 

Meet Kasandra Foster

Kasandra represented UMPI as a 2015 Maine Policy Scholar. As part of the Maine Community Foundation’s Maine Policy Scholars Program, students from campuses throughout the University of Maine System pursue a year-long program of applied research in the area of Maine public policy. Kasandra’s research focused on the economic struggles of dairy farmers in Maine and what could be done to help them. Foster recommended strategies that could help to open up more markets and create a stronger support system for the state’s dairy industry. Based on her findings, she was able to present a report in the form of a briefing to a panel of policymakers at the Buchannan Alumni House at the University of Maine in Orono.

 

Meet Cody Tompkins

Cody served as a student Financial Peer Advisor, volunteering his time in the Student Financial Services Office to help assist his fellow classmates with questions about loans and money issues in general. Cody helped the office make students more aware of what they currently have taken out and spent for student loans, how they can reduce their money owed and avoid taking on significant loan debt, and how the free SALT program can help them become more financially savvy. So how’d he snag this job? He was doing a project for one of his Business classes–learning about the financial aid process and loans–and the office was so impressed with his end project and the way he conducted himself in a professional manner, that they asked him to join the office as the campus Financial Peer Advisor.

 

Meet Brigitte Pratt

Brigitte served as the very first participant in the Athletic Training Program’s clinical opportunity at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi, Tanzania. She traveled to Africa in June 2014 to observe in a number of hospital departments and work with a community-based organization that serves children with special medical needs. The educational opportunity was quite an undertaking for Brigitte, who had never been on a plane and hadn’t traveled outside of the United States before, but it was an experience she’ll never forget. Brigitte was tapped by the University’s Distinguished Lecturer Series in Spring 2015 to serve as a student distinguished lecturer and deliver a presentation about her “learning safari.”