Reunited!

After a winter spent all over the globe (literally), our volleyball team is finally reunited again in Hanover, New Hampshire. Even the rain that hasn’t stopped pouring down since the minute I arrived on campus can’t dampen my spirits.

I spent this past term in hustling, bustling New York City. I interned at a small public relations firm called Nike Communications, where I worked on the “travel team,” making clips, keeping books, and pitching stories for the Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, a luxury hotel line with 22 properties all over the world. One of my favorite parts of the internship was being able to help out at events for various clients. I worked at Vino 2010, the largest Italian Wine Conference ever held outside of Italy, and also a couple parties for fun companies like Betsey Johnson and Esquire Magazine. It was my first exposure to PR, and I loved learning more about the field. I have grown to appreciate any experience that helps me understand just what I might want to do with my life, seeing as I am asked that question more and more often as I get older. Every day I feel blessed for the amazing opportunities I’ve been given, but with that realization comes the desire to do something that will fully take advantage of those opportunities – I guess figuring that out is really what college is all about.

Practices start up again this week, and I think everyone on the team is excited to be back on the court together, doing what we love. Our team has gone through a lot of changes over the last year and it has been so great to see everything clicking into place. It is always a bit uncomfortable getting back into the swing of volleyball, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like a fish on dry land for a large part of practice. But we have all spent so many hours of our lives playing this game that it really doesn’t take much to get back on track. Especially when you’re out there with your best friends.

Our team is in a great place right now, emotionally, mentally, and physically. In our team meeting to kick off this spring season, we all felt like we were on the same page, and the energy in the room was extremely positive, enthusiastic, and open. I know I’m not just speaking for myself when I say that I am so happy to be back, and so proud to call every one of these girls my teammate. Can’t wait for spring season!

-Jessie Hartman '11

Opportunities Galore!

Hello everyone from sunny San Diego! I am currently enjoying my winter off term in my hometown of San Diego, CA. This term has been a great break from the Dartmouth lifestyle and has really allowed me to get some great work experience as well as life experience. In terms of work, I was given the opportunity to intern with the Planning and Conservation League and helped to plan and organize their annual legislative symposium which occurs in Sacramento, CA every year. The Planning and Conservation League (PCL) is a major non-profit environmental organization in California as well as a significant lobbying power in the California State Legislature. Through this experience I not only learned a lot but also met some of the most influential people who are shaping the face of how California deals with the environment and the effects us humans have on it. Seeing as I am an Environmental Studies major, I was in HEAVEN.

I have also been interning for another firm, Crotty Consulting, Inc, which is a small governmental consulting firm in downtown San Diego. Chris, my boss essentially runs politicians campaigns from outreach to mailings to speeches. The main project we have been working on through my time there is the California Valley Solar Ranch, which is a proposed solar array “ranch” located in San Luis Obispo, CA. I have mostly been working on outreach to the public to get them behind the construction of the project.


But enough about work, I am sure no one really cares about that especially after reading about Annie’s adventures in Spain! So besides working, I have been traveling around California a lot. I have managed to see a lot of my close high school friends over the last 2 months. From Berkeley to UC San Diego to Cal Poly I have had a great time really exploring California. It is such an awesome thing that Dartmouth allows us to take this time off to work, explore and mature, but I still have a heck of a time trying to explain to people why I am not at school this quarter. People think I flunked out or something! Haha.

Besides traveling, the other fun part of my life is playing volleyball. I have been lucky enough to be able to practice weekly with my old club, Encinitas Wave. I practice with the 18-1s which is a BLAST and keeps me sharp on my game. Even though I will admit, I sometimes feel old playing with those 18 year olds. Since when am I almost a SENIOR in college?! Crazy! Anyway… it has been incredible playing with these girls, because I have really seen them grow up as players, from their freshman years in high school to now and I serve not only as a fellow player but also as a coach. On top of playing I have been training at a gym that is specifically for volleyball players. To put it bluntly I have been getting my butt kicked, which is good (when I can move again after the soreness recedes) because I am feeling strong and healthy and ready for spring season.


Last but not least, to continue with how amazing and wonderful Dartmouth is, I just found out that I received acceptance to the Environmental Studies Foreign Study Program to South Africa!!!! This is the same program that Katie mentioned in her entry, and I actually applied because of some encouragement I received from her. I am so incredibly excited to go and feel so blessed that Dartmouth has opened these kinds of doors for me. I am loving being home but I can’t wait to get back on campus this spring and see the team.

-Kelsey Johnson'11 (Carlsbad, CA)

The Best Adventure of My Life

Hola from Espana! As Katie Hirsch said in her entry recently, Dartmouth has provided us with some amazing travel opportunities, not just with the team, but on our own as well. I am in the middle of experiencing that right now!


I, along with teammates Kendall Houston and Madeline Baird, took this Winter as a transfer term to the Universidad de Salamanca, in Salamanca, Spain. I am not even sure where to start about this amazing adventure we are in the middle of! Since I was young, I’ve had the dream of studying abroad in college. This dream was part of the reason I chose Dartmouth volleyball: the fact that we have the freedom to follow our passions (no matter where in the world they take us), while still competing on a division I college team is spectacular. People always talked about it, but I never really appreciated it until this winter when we went away.

We’ve been here in Spain since the beginning of January, and I can’t believe it’s already March. Time is flying! We’re taking Spanish language, Spanish Literature and History classes here. Salamanca, the city where we are living is great. It’s absolutely beautiful, pretty small, and full of young people because of the University. We’ve done lots of exploring here, and lots of traveling in Spain. We went to Sevilla and Madrid, and we are going to Barcelona next week, and Basque country the week after that! Our Spanish has gotten SO much better already, and keeps getting better every day. We have class every day, but usually take Fridays off to travel, including to Morocco, London, and Rome. I can’t believe that this life I am living right now is real! We’ve been taking tons of photos, and writing in our journals, and I am having the time of my life. Being with my teammates makes it even better. This week, we went and practiced with the University of Salamanca women’s team! The girls were so nice, and it was good to get some practice. They taught us all the Spanish words for “I go!” and “Your ball!” and “set me!”. Maybe we’ll bring those back to Dartmouth!


In addition to being the best adventure of my life, being abroad has made me appreciate Dartmouth. I can’t wait to come home and tell stories, share pictures, and be with the rest of the team again! I think that after realizing how much traveling you can do in a weekend, we will explore New England a lot more and take advantage of all the opportunities around us at Dartmouth. We are so lucky!

-Annie Villanueva '12 (Santa Barbara, CA)

My Blood Runs Green.

As time passes and I reflect on my years as a Dartmouth undergraduate, I feel increasingly fortunate. Because of being a Dartmouth student and a member of the volleyball team, I have had a number of opportunities that I am convinced would not have been available to me had I attended a different academic institution. Some of these grandiose opportunities involve travel, which has been a passion of mine since I was a little girl. The first travel experience that Dartmouth provided me occurred my freshman year, when the volleyball team went to Montana to compete in a pre-season tournament. After tournament play concluded, the team traveled up to Yellowstone National Park and spent a day exploring the park, Old Faithful, and its wildlife. I had been to Yellowstone once before when I was about 10 years old with my family, so it was very special to me to go back 9 years later with my new family - the Dartmouth Volleyball family.

Dartmouth volleyball presented me with other travel experiences as well. Aside from playing in a tournament in Montana, we traveled to compete in Ohio, North Carolina, and New Mexico (where I bought some beeeeeeeautiful turquoise jewelry) in addition to states in the Northeast. However, my travel experiences were not limited strictly to domestic adventures. The summer before my senior year, I went with my co-captain and best friend, Sandy Barbut ‘08, to Germany and Holland on a select US team coached by Dartmouth Head Coach Ann Marie Larese. While abroad, we played German and Holland teams at several tournaments, including a battle against the Holland Junior National Team (unfortunately we didn’t win). We also did some sightseeing in Amsterdam and visited a wooden shoe factory in Germany.

Last year I was entertaining the idea of playing professionally in Europe and went on another European tour (along with 2009 co-captain Morgan Covington ’10) led by Coach Larese to Austria and Italy. Once again we played local clubs from various towns but also got to tour Venice and the Alps and learned how to make traditional Austrian Apple Strudel! The hills were alive that day…


Another amazing experience Dartmouth Volleyball provided me with was a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic. Every so often, the Volleyball team takes an international trip where we compete against local teams, participate in a community service project, and explore a new part of the world. This trip occurred my senior year and was enchanting. From basking in the sun on the beach (which was warmly welcomed after spending a chilly winter in Hanover) to practicing with the Dominican Junior National team, to having a pizza/dance party with a local women’s volleyball team, it was incredible to share an experience such as this with my teammates and coaches.


At Dartmouth, in order to fulfill the graduation requirements, each student must complete what is known as the “culminating experience.” This may be done a few different ways with the most popular choice being to participate in a Foreign Study Program (FSP) offered through the College’s different departments. Being an Environmental Studies major, the FSP offered in my department is only offered in the fall. With Volleyball being a fall sport, I chose to partake in the FSP (in South Africa) the fall following my senior year. Since I was within three credits of fulfilling my degree requirements, I was still able to walk at graduation. Going on the South Africa FSP was a truly life-changing experience for me. It was so much more than a trip, or taking a class – it was discovering more about myself and the world around me through a new avenue of learning. The events that took place on this journey were unlike any I had ever been a part of before, and have since become memories that I will keep with me forever. It would be nearly impossible to sum up the course of three months into a paragraph of a blog, but some of the highlights included climbing a sand dune to watch the sun set; being in a jeep 15 feet away from a roaring lion; living in a thatched hut for three nights with a rural South African family; conducting a research project studying the migration patterns of African elephants through the use of dung beetle collection and analysis; eating Mopane worms and other local foods; making friends with a traditional South African healer, who used… “non-western” practices in curing her patients; and making new Dartmouth friends that I would have never gotten the chance to know otherwise.

In the six years that I have been affiliated with Dartmouth College, I routinely have to pinch myself to make sure my life isn’t surreal. I have a love for Dartmouth that encompasses every vein, every pore, and every skin cell in my body. My blood runs green. It is my home and it always will be. Dartmouth helped me grow up and become a woman (reluctant as I am to admit I’ve grown up) and I will be forever grateful of my time spent here. Whether I was traveling in a foreign country, sweating on the volleyball court, or succeeding in the classroom, I was always appreciative of Dartmouth. I still am. There is no other institution that compares. However, I’m sure my opinion is biased…after all, I did come back to coach!

-by Katie Hirsch '08, Assistant Coach

Dartmouth's Own Winter Holiday

This past weekend was one of Dartmouth’s oldest and most celebrated traditions, Winter Carnival! I had heard so many stories about the winter festivities from alums and the older girls on the team, but I still had no idea what to expect. The theme was “I came, I saw, I carnivaled,” playing off of the Latin phrase. The best tradition was the snow sculpture, which I am still amazed that the students were able to build considering that we have hardly any snow on the ground! They built the coliseum, to go along with the carnival theme. It was a big success because last year it had collapse. Opening ceremonies for Winter Carnival was at 6 pm Thursday night, where they introduced the finished snow sculpture and lit fireworks off of it!
The Colosseum Snow Sculpture

I was afraid that the fireworks would destroy the sculpture (considering one of the fireworks was scorching the snow before it went off!) but the students did a really amazing job making sure that the sculpture was strong. The opening ceremonies also had a speech from our new president Jim Kim, and a performance from Dartmouth’s a cappella group The Cords. It was so cold too, it was awesome that they all got up and sang for us. Sadly, there were supposed to be hot chocolate and cookies for after the ceremonies, but we couldn’t find them anywhere! My friends and I circled the inside of Collis Café (one of my favorite places to eat) for ten minutes, but no luck. The rest of the weekend had tons of great winter activities like the Polar Bear plunge, rock climbing, 99 cent day at the ski way, and the human dog sled race! I was too scared to do the polar bear plunge down at Occum Pond, but all my friends did it!
(photo by Joseph Mehling '69)

I was just there to take photos and help them zip up their coats after because they couldn’t feel their fingers anymore. It was so much fun because being from California, it is my first winter and it’s great to be at a school that embraces the season. But, I have to admit the best part was getting Friday off from classes, it’s awesome that Dartmouth has its own holiday to celebrate winter!

-Lexi Campbell (Solana Beach, CA), Freshman, Outside Hitter

Our Chance to Give Back

Each term our team participates in a community service project. Past projects have included volunteering at the CHaD Half-Marathon - which benefits the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD), cooking dinner for the families at David's House, and painting a local elementary school.

This term, we were fortunate to help celebrate National Girls and Women in Sport Day, by conducting a clinic at a local rec center. The event is called Girls' SportsFest and is hosted by the city of Lebanon (NH) Recreation and Parks Department.

On Saturday, Lexi Campbell '13, Alissa Santa Maria '13, Head Coach Ann Marie Larese and Assistant Coach Heather Somers hopped in a car and drove to Lebanon eager to share their love of volleyball and passion for the game with approximately 60 girls ages 3-12.


Basic individual skills such as passing, setting, serving and attacking were covered as well, and most importantly, the team cheer!


We'd like to thank Paul Coats and his staff at the Lebanon Recreation and Parks Department for hosting Girls' SportsFest and giving us the opportunity to give back to our community and share the game of volleyball.

"Surprisingly enough, I am surviving the cold..."

Winter term has been great so far. Surprisingly enough, I am surviving the cold, but I’ve heard the real test comes in February. This term has been very different from fall term, but equally as enjoyable.

This past Saturday was the Men’s Hockey game against Princeton. I dressed up in green and went with some friends down to Thompson Arena to watch the game. It was exciting to see such a huge crowd of Big Green Hockey fans, including a group of Dartmouth students who painted “GO DARTMOUTH!” on their chests! There is a well-known rivalry between these two hockey teams, and traditionally, when Dartmouth scores their first goal against Princeton the crowd throws tennis balls onto the ice at the Tigers. Of course I had to partake in this great tradition, but unfortunately my tennis ball didn’t quite make it over the net surrounding the ice (I’m working on that shoulder strength :-)). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many tennis balls before in my life. I really enjoyed supporting the hockey team, showing my school spirit and participating in a legendary Dartmouth tradition.


Volleyball workouts are going great with Amanda Bayliss. I love getting into the gym after a day in the classroom. This coming week Lexi and I will be starting to practice with the Men’s Club Volleyball team to get in some extra touches on the ball. We are excited to show them some real defense.

This term I am taking a freshmen seminar class, which focuses on skepticism of the paranormal. Professor Pfister, a professor of psychology here at Dartmouth, teaches this course in East Wheelock. I have found this course particularly interesting and my favorite topic of research thus far, has been superstitions and athletics. I researched into this topic and got to discuss some of my own volleyball superstitions with my professor. I then proceeded to write a paper on why superstitions were/are created: to give people a sense of control over situations that are sometimes out of their control. I look forward to learning in this class every week. I now look at the world through skeptical eyes.

-Alissa Santa Maria (Yorba Linda, CA), Freshman, Setter