Month: February 2025

Standout Seniors ’25: Meet Amy Newcomer (Psychology)

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Penn State Behrend’s Class of 2025 is ready to make its mark on the world. We’re proud of our students and all that they have learned and accomplished here at Behrend. Over the next several weeks, we will introduce you to a few of our remarkable seniors who have conducted valuable research, pioneered innovation, overcome challenges, and engaged in college life in a big way.

Today, we’d like you to meet Amy Newcomer:

Major: (B.S.) Psychology, Psychology in the Workplace option

Certificates: Behavioral Health and Counseling Psychology; Child Development

Scholarships: United States Army ROTC 3-year Advanced Designee Scholarship

Why she chose Behrend: Behrend offers many opportunities for Psychology majors to gain experience, from mentoring programs at the Susan Hirt Hagen Center for Community Outreach, Research, and Evaluation (CORE) to the ability to do research work with professors, in addition to the built-in research required in some courses. This is work that undergraduates at most universities don’t get to do, so it looks great on my graduate school application.

Why she chose her major: I’m in awe of mentoring and helping professions. Growing up, I dreamed of inspiring and helping people. But, more than that, as I’ve gotten older, I realized how sacred and important the mental health profession is. To truly sit with someone on their darkest and brightest days is an honor I cannot wait to have in my therapeutic relationships.

Awards: President Walker Award (4.0 in first semester); Dean’s List every semester.

Campus involvement: Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) took most of my time, but I was also involved in the Women’s Engagement Council and attended the Penn State Summer Leadership Conference each year.

What makes her unique: Today, it seems most people keep to themselves, but I like to have conversations with new people because we can share insight and learn from each other. My friends joke that I know everyone, or could talk to anyone, and I feel like that is a unique trait today.

A determined leader: I thrive on helping others reach their best selves. I love to mentor, and every day I do the best I can for the people I serve and myself. That’s just how I operate.

What you’d be surprised to know about her: Though I appear to have a lot of confidence, I struggle with feeling inadequate sometimes. I can get rattled and discouraged like every one else.

Go ahead, doubt her: Growing up, I was teased a lot by my classmates and seemed to be the butt of a lot of jokes. They doubted my intelligence and that fired me up to work my hardest to prove myself. After four years, I know it’s time to let those ghosts go. I became successful not in spite of them but because I’m me. I’ll thrive wherever I go.

Post-college plans: I want to take some time to travel and enjoy nature. I have high hopes of going to Acadia National Park in Maine with my partner, Katie. We plan to visit a lot of the National Parks in the future.

Advice for first-year students: Make yourself known, especially to your professors. They love their jobs and are more than happy to talk with you before or after class. Establish a relationship with them because you never know when you might need their help.

Words to live by: My favorite adage is “Don’t get bitter, get better.” There are going to be times when you feel knocked down and defeated. Feel those feelings, then plan to get back on the right track. If you get bitter, it halts your progress, and you get stuck.

After her graduation in May, Amy will serve in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard as an Adjutant General Officer, which is a human resource professional. She plans to attend graduate school in the fall to obtain a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.

 

From Service Trip to Smith Chapel: A Behrend Love Story

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By Heather Cass, Publications Manager, Penn State Behrend

Each year, twenty-four Penn State Behrend students and four advisers participate in an Alternative Spring Break (ASB) service trip coordinated by the Office of Civic and Community Engagement. The experience, in which participants spend their break volunteering for a community in need, is designed to engage students on multiple levels, including personal development, group and team dynamics, and public service.

Many who participate in ASB find it life changing. Some discover a passion for service. Some make lifelong friends. Some choose a new career path. Some meet their soulmate.

Such was the case for Gretchen (Shaffer) Magera ’20 and Max Magera ’19 who met during an ASB trip to Beaumont, Texas, to help with Hurricane Harvey cleanup in 2018.

Though it would be years before they officially dated, their friend Ashlyn Kelly ’18, who was also on the trip, spotted the chemistry right away. (She would have. Ashlyn was a Chemistry major.)

Gretchen (Shaffer) and Max Magera, fourth and fifth from the left, at Penn State Behrend’s 2018 Alternative Spring Break service trip to Beaumont, Texas, where participants helped with Hurricane Harvey cleanup.

“I remember early on in the trip, a group of us were standing around talking while waiting for everyone to go to the worksite, and I noticed how much Gretchen lit up when Max would join the conversation,” Ashlyn said. “I could tell something was going on.”

Ashlyn spent the next several years gently encouraging her friends to be more than friends.

“I always knew they’d end up together one day,” she said.

Sweet as (American) Pie

Gretchen, a Plastics Engineering Technology major, liked Max, a Mechanical Engineering major, right away. He was smart, funny, capable, and among the first in the group to jump in and do the hard labor needed in the flood-ravaged homes they were working on.

It’s a tradition on ASB trips for each person to anonymously submit a favorite song to a playlist members listen to when traveling during the trip. The challenge is to match the song to the person who selected it.

Gretchen chose “The Saga Begins,” a “Weird Al” Yankovic parody of Don McLean’s “American Pie,” with lyrics that humorously summarize the plot of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace through the point of view of Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of the film’s protagonists.

“Everyone hated that song,” Gretchen said. “It must’ve played five times before they figured out it was me.”

Halfway through the trip, when the group decided to make another playlist with fresh songs, Max chose the original “American Pie.” Gretchen knew right away who submitted that song.

It went on like this for the two: friendly conversations, shared jokes, and subtle flirting. They did another ASB trip together, traveling to Puerto Rico in 2019.

When Max graduated in May 2019, he moved away and began a series of six-month rotations in Wabtec’s LEAD Program. He and Gretchen stayed in touch with occasional texts.

Rotation Leads to Reunion

“In 2020, Max texted and said that he was going to be back in Erie for six months,” Gretchen said.

They reconnected, and their near-weekly happy hour hangouts at a local brewpub soon turned into something more.

“Every time she made a comment about seeing Max, I asked if they were hanging out or dating,” Ashlyn said. “When she finally said they were dating, I said, ‘Well, it’s about time!’”

Their first official date had a Behrend connection: They went to see The Groove, a band that features Jim Dowds, a case manager in Behrend’s Personal Counseling center, on drums.

By spring 2023, Max decided to pop the question at Behrend’s Lion Shrine.

He enlisted help from Ashlyn and Behrend’s Mary Kay Williams, whose official title is admissions support assistant but who also serves as a surrogate “campus mom” to the many students she befriends.

“Mary Kay and I scheduled a lunch with Gretchen,” Ashlyn said. “The plan was for Mary Kay to cancel at the last minute, which she did, so that I could suggest that Max and Gretchen still meet up with me and my boyfriend for a walk on campus with our dogs.”

First stop was the Lion Shrine to “take some photos.” Ashlyn was prepared, whipping out her camera and handing her phone to her boyfriend, Paul Lutz ’19, to capture the proposal in both photos and video.

“Happy to say that after all that hard work, she said ‘yes,’” Ashlyn said.

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Blending Blue and White Forever

On September 28, 2024, Max and Gretchen married at Behrend’s Smith Chapel—the building where it all started, with the first ASB planning meetings held in the downstairs lounge. Ashlyn was a bridesmaid.

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Photo credit: Alan Freed Photography

During the ceremony, the couple performed a unity sand ceremony—a wedding tradition in which a couple pours sand from separate vessels into one vase, symbolizing two people uniting in marriage. The sand in their ceremony was Penn State blue and white, a nod to the college that brought them together.

Max is a supplier quality engineer at Wabtec in Grove City. Gretchen is a project engineer at Molded Fiber Glass in Union City. The couple resides in Cambridge Springs with their dogs, Zeus and Athena.