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This summer, APSCUF is going behind the scenes to show how faculty members and coaches continue to devote themselves to affordable, quality education even when class is not in session.

Dr. Adedoyin Adeyiga is a chemistry professor at Cheyney University. Photo courtesy of Dr. Adedoyin Adeyiga

As a professor at Cheyney University, Dr. Adedoyin Adeyiga is responsible for more than teaching his students about chemistry. He also manages the grants that help make that learning possible.

That means time outside classroom and office hours, adding up to 50- to 60-hour workweeks. Those hours include committee and service work, research, and professional development. His schedule is packed, but Adeyiga strives to remain accessible to students, he said.

Adeyiga does “whatever is needed to make sure the needs of the students are met as well as the agencies supporting/funding my grants,” he said.

As a grant manager for the university, Adeyiga provides Cheyney with an average of $500,000 each year. The task comes with its own set of responsibilities: Adeyiga oversees his own data manager and administrative assistant.

Adeyiga also participates in three campus committees, which means additional meetings along with his department meetings and various meetings associated with grant managing. Juggling his multiple responsibilities can be daunting at times, he said, as he is often expected to be in several places at the same time. Sometimes, one of those places is the classroom or lab, and Adeyiga is devoted to making sure his students are his main priority, he said.

“Cheyney is a small school, and we do not have the luxury of graduate science students or a lab technician who could prepare labs for us, so we do the lab preps ourselves,” he said.

A supporter of his personal academic development, Adeyiga strives to participate in as many professional-development opportunities as he can to increase his knowledge and bring new ideas back to his students. Grant management provides a number of such opportunities. He is able to attend conferences, take courses related to his area of study, do some grant-writing, and participate in peer reviewed discussions for federal organization, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

Adeyiga also finds time to pursue his own research projects, one of which involves the study of sickle cell anemia. His research findings on that topic could provide a therapy method for those living with this disease.

These types of research projects are part of why Adeyiga pursued a career in chemistry in the first place, he said. Adeyiga knew from the onset of his high school career that teaching was for him. The passion to contribute to and find solutions to societal issues steered him toward chemistry in particular, he said.

Finding a balance between his personal and professional life proves challenging, he said.

“When you are as committed as I am, anything goes,” Adeyiga said.

Witnessing his years of commitment come to fruition is an element Adeyiga finds most satisfying about his job, he said.

“With teaching, the reward is instant, because we get to watch them graduate, get a job or head to graduate or health-professional schools,” Adeyiga said.

—Corrinne Rebuck, APSCUF intern

Indiana University of Pennsylvania Professor Michele Papakie, at an executive council meeting in July, is new secretary of State APSCUF.

As an alumna of Indiana and California Universities of Pennsylvania, a professor at IUP, and a parent of a State System student, getting more involved in union service came naturally for Michele Papakie, she said.

“It did not take me long to see the importance of a union in state-sponsored higher education,” Papakie said.

The new secretary of State APSCUF said she is keen on working with the other members of executive council and partaking in the new opportunities that await her.

“We are blessed to have amazingly talented and intelligent people on our executive council,” Papakie said. “During my term, I am hoping to learn everything I can from them and share my perspectives as well.”

Papakie said she is especially eager to share her viewpoints as both a product and contributor to the State System. After working in public relations and journalism for two decades, she said she also believes her years of communication experience and personal insight into higher education provide the executive council with a unique perspective.

“I am confident that when conversations and concerns arise around these constituencies, I can provide a reasonable person’s insight to ensure empathy and representation of ideas and potential impact when contemplating decisions,” Papakie said.

Papakie said she is looking forward to gaining greater insight into the issues APSCUF faces.

“By serving on the executive council, I will become more aware and more articulate about the issues that threaten the quality education we provide at our State System schools, and I will be able to communicate them more confidently and widely,” she said.

A professor of journalism and public relations at Indiana University for the past decade, Papakie said she knows the importance of fighting for the causes and concerns professors and coaches face across the State System.

“I am living proof that the high-quality education our universities provide is the fruit of the intense labor and compassion our faculty and coaches provide daily,” she said. “I want to devote my energy now to seeing that my fellow dedicated professionals and I get the respect and voices we have earned and deserve in the process.”

Serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, Papakie said she is no stranger to service. Hoping to become a colonel before she retires, Papakie enrolled in Air War College to work toward this promotion.

Dedicating her time and energy across an array of service leadership positions has allowed Papakie to serve on a multitude of levels from local to military leadership — and now to union leadership.

“I ran for secretary of APSCUF to learn about our union and its workings from a broader vantage point,” she said.

Kara Laskowski, another member of the executive council, said she believes Papakie will make an excellent addition to their membership.

“My impression of Michele is she is both highly organized and highly committed to the principles APSCUF embodies,” Laskowski said. “Her experiences in both the military and higher education will make her a highly valuable member of the executive council.”

Even with her hectic agenda, Papakie said she ensures her priorities are straight.

“Despite my insanely busy schedule that ultimately revolves around some type of service in one way or another, my family and my friends always come first,” she said.

—Corrinne Rebuck, APSCUF intern

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While in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention, Michele Papakie volunteered to be an usher for “The Daily Show” and was put in the studio audience. Photo courtesy of Michele Papakie.

In case you missed it: Papakie at the RNC

Michele Papakie was a faculty leader for the Republican National Convention July 18–21. She oversaw 15 students during their time in Cleveland. As an “avid and critical consumer of news,” as Papakie describes herself in one column, she outlined her point of view on the conventions’ events in her a series of columns for the Indiana Gazette. Each day, she summarized her experiences and her take on what transpired.

Negotiators for APSCUF and the State System met Aug. 2. Click here to read today’s press release.

The next faculty negotiations session is scheduled for Aug. 9. The next coach session is slated for Sept. 19.

Members, click here to sign up for text-message alerts about future contract news.

This summer, APSCUF is going behind the scenes to show how faculty members and coaches continue to devote themselves to affordable, quality education even when class is not in session. 

At Kutztown University, Dr. Emily Cripe, assistant professor of communication, often checks her email while her son eats breakfast or spends six hours at the office each weekend simply to keep caught up.

“The line between work and home is very blurry,” Cripe said.

Cripe teaches four class loads per semester on top of her other responsibilities on campus. Juggling her 40 advisees, attending various meetings, and devoting herself to committee service keeps this wife and mother on her toes.

Additionally, Cripe is often responsible for overseeing as many as five interns a semester.

“It’s challenging to get everything done that we’re expected to accomplish and to find a balance between all of those activities,” Cripe said. “It’s easy to spend all of your time with students and neglect research and professional development.”

Simply showing up for work is not enough for her to feel that she has done her job well, she said.

“I try to be very accessible to students, so I frequently advise students outside of regular office hours about everything from course papers to graduate school to family issues,” Cripe said.

The hours spent with her students can become especially time-consuming during registration periods in the semester. It is not unusual for Cripe to spend 20 hours a week advising during these demanding times.

Then there is her research. Cripe, whose specialty is in health and organizational communication, plans to publish her findings related to breastfeeding-support groups. She became interested in breastfeeding in graduate school, when she realized breastfeeding in the workplace is an area of study that covers all of her communication specialties: gender, health, and organizational communication. Upon further research, Cripe realized how divided society is on breastfeeding in general.

“We want women to do it because it has health benefits, but we don’t want to see it, or really offer much assistance with the whole process,” she said.

Upon her arrival at Kutztown, Cripe was shocked to see the quality of the campus lactation rooms, most of which did not even have a sign indicating their purpose, so very few mothers were aware of their existence. Through her committee service as vice chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, Cripe was able to improve these designated campus lactation rooms, because she realized through her research how important it is for mothers to have an appropriate place to go in their workplace to feed their children. Cripe also saw the importance for students to have the same accessibility to the campus lactation rooms as the faculty and staff.

“We have a number of students with children, and if we can make campus friendlier for them, it makes it easier for them to get their degrees and have better lives for their families,” she said.

Improving health communication is also something about which Cripe is passionate — especially because just about anyone can benefit from improvements when it comes to this sensitive area of communication, she said.

“At some point in our lives, every one of us is a patient or has a health issue, or has a loved one who’s a patient, and that’s a very unique, stressful occurrence in life,” Cripe said.

Personal experiences with health issues inspired Cripe to further research this area of study. Through her research, she is striving to improve communication about these sensitive topics.

“Anything we can do to improve our health-related communication makes people’s lives better,” Cripe said.

This continuous learning and teaching experience is exactly why Cripe finds her profession so rewarding, she said. She is able to share her knowledge with her students, and they are then able to expand on this knowledge in their own future careers.

“I love feeling that I make a difference in students’ lives, and through them, in the world,” she said. “That’s why I do what I do.”

—Corrinne Rebuck, APSCUF intern

Negotiators for APSCUF coaches and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education met July 26. Click here to read today’s press release.

The next coach sessions are slated for Sept. 19 and 26.

Members, click here to sign up for text-message alerts about future contract news.