By Anthony Chighisola (Men's Ice Hockey)

About the Author: When he isn't scoring goals and moving up the charts in the Franklin Pierce men's ice hockey record book, Anthony Chighisola serves as a feature writer for athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) For his first story for the website, he talks about all the exciting, new initiatives from a students perspective. Check back soon for his Q&A with golf team senior co-captain Brian Fleckles.

The 2011 fall season has presented its fair share of changes to Franklin Pierce University. All of the changes took careful planning, but University officials believe it will help to greatly enhance the school for the future.  The addition of three sports teams, sprint football, track and field, and women’s ice hockey have helped reshape to what the athletic department now offers. Furthermore, ground was recently broken on a new academic and athletic training center for the new health science major. To go along with the new academic center, Franklin Pierce will be restructuring its general education curriculum, to help better prepare students for the workforce.

Athletic Endeavors

The new sports started with the exciting news that Franklin Pierce hired David Stockdale as the first women’s ice hockey head coach in early October. Stockdale has coached collegiately for nearly 10 years and brings great recruiting abilities to Franklin Pierce. Bruce Kirsh, the athletic director at Franklin Pierce, said that Stockdale was “extremely passionate about coaching, and is looking forward to the opportunity to be a head ice hockey coach.”

The women’s ice hockey team will begin competition as a varsity independent starting in the fall of 2012. The team will play its home games at the same facility as the men’s team, the Jason Ritchie Ice Arena, which is located on the campus of The Winchendon School in Winchendon, Mass. (approx. 8 miles south of the FPU campus). Some of the teams that could make up the Ravens schedule include, Saint Anselm, Holy Cross, Sacred Heart, Saint Michael’s, Plymouth State, Salve Regina and more New England schools. One person on campus who is excited to see the women’s team play is Dr. Kim Mooney (Provost, Vice President for Academic Affairs), as she is reminded of her days when she worked at St. Lawrence where the women’s hockey team is NCAA Division I.

“There was something really energizing about ice hockeygames to get a community through the cold winters at St. Lawrence in northern New York,” Dr. Mooney said. ” It’s an elegant game and is extremely different with how men’s ice hockey is played. In women’s games, there is no checking so the play strategy unfolds on the ice differently. “

The new track & field and cross country programs are glad to welcome Zach Emerson as the coach of the men’s and women’s teams. Emerson is actually a New Hampshire native and went to school in Concord, before attending Mount Saint Mary’s, a Division I school in Maryland. After graduating, he was the head coach of track and field at Concord High School before becoming the head coach at New England College for the past year and a half. Franklin Pierce Athletics hopes that with the experience Emerson brings, a winning track & field team could be built up within a few years. The cross country team expects to compete in approximately  6-to-7 races during the fall season starting in 2012, while the track & field teams will compete in both indoor and outdoor events. Franklin Pierce will become the 12^th school in the Northeast-10 Conference to sponsor the sport of track & field.

The other program to be joining the Franklin Pierce lineup is sprint football. The team will begin competition in the fall of 2012 and will be playing in the Collegiate Sprint Football League (CSFL). The reason it is called sprint football and not regular football is team members must weigh 172 pounds or less. The team will play a probationary schedule of 3-to-4 games the first season, but plans to play a full, seven-game schedule during the second season of 2013. The other exciting element of sprint football is the competition Franklin Pierce will be facing. The other seven schools in the league that sponsor the sport, include Army, Navy, Penn, Princeton, Cornell, Mansfield and Post.

Franklin Pierce recently named Peter Ewald as the new head coach of the program. Ewald brings an extensive amount of collegiate coaching experience (17 years) to Rindge, including the last two seasons as the head coach of the Post University sprint football program. Ewald was named the first head coach for that program and built the team from the ground up.

“I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to work at Franklin Pierce University and build its sprint football program from the ground up,” he said. “This is a great opportunity to join a very successful athletic department and I’m hoping to add to the success and rich history of Franklin Pierce Athletics.”

“I’m very pleased to be bringing in a coach of Peter Ewald’s caliber to lead our new sprint football program,” Kirsh added. “Coach Ewald has considerable experience coaching college football at every level, including sprint football, and I believe his passion and drive for coaching will play a major role in helping to develop our sprint football team into a top-notch program in the CSFL.”

A Growing Campus (Facilities & Academics)

The Rindge campus will also see several new changes, as they won’t just pertain to athletics. In early October, the campus broke ground on a new academic/athletic training center. It is a two story, 9,000 square foot building that will be attached to the existing Fieldhouse. The cost of the center is $2 million, as $1.1 million of that was generously donated to the University by Dr. Arthur and Martha Pappas. Franklin Pierce also received a generous $75,000 donation from the George I. Alden Trust of Worcester, Mass., which will aid in the development of the academic portion of the new center.

“The Pappas family have played a very instrumental role in the development and success of Franklin Pierce, “ Kirsh said.

“Words can’t describe how important the Pappas family is to Franklin Pierce University,” said head athletic trainer Cindy Arman. “Whether it’s Dr. Pappas giving medical knowledge to help athletes, or providing money to build better facilities which helps in serving the athletes, he has been very helpful in the growth of this school. However, moving into the new building will be like losing an old friend. We can no longer work comfortably in the space we are currently in. With the new building we will not be getting anything new, but we will increase the number of stem machines, whirlpools, ice machines and tables, which will help athletes and our staff.”

The new addition allows for expansion of the University’s health sciences program which will be offered to incoming students beginning in the fall of 2012. The health sciences major is a pre-professional program providing students with the curriculum, advising, internship and field experiences necessary for entry into graduate and professional programs including medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, public health, physical therapy, pharmacy and healthcare management. We offer conditional acceptance of highly qualified undergraduates into our doctor of physical therapy program and our graduates may also pursue admission to our master of physician assistant studies program.

The addition will include two unique learning environments for undergraduate and graduate students: a multipurpose, multimedia smart classroom designed to take advantage of technology in education and maximize student-teacher interaction, and a connecting flexible laboratory classroom equipped with technology and media for today’s health education. Three faculty offices on the second floor are designed to allow for greater collaborative opportunities between teaching faculty from undergraduate and graduate programs.

The last thing that has changed is the new general education that will be offered at Franklin Pierce. According to the Keene Sentinal on Oct. 8, 2011,the goal, said Mooney, is “to offer the kind of curriculum and educational experience that really inspires our students to contribute once they leave.” The new general education program will start in the fall of 2012. The hope is that it will better the students leaving here for the world today, compared to the previous general education program.

“We understand that future employers are looking for college students with these skills,” Mooney said. “These are the kinds of students that employers want to hire and promote in their companies.”