Not only is next week Earth Week, but it’s also National Parks Week, so get ready for a list of ways you can celebrate both the earth and our parks, whether it’s through picking up a new book to read or finding time to get outside and enjoy nature.

Activities to Celebrate 

Villanova is lucky enough to be situated only 15 minutes from one of Pennsylvania’s national parks—Valley Forge National Park. This week or weekend get together a group of your close friends, find someone with a car and make the drive over to Valley Forge to walk around and enjoy nature. Not only is this a great way to celebrate National Parks, but it also lets you get outside, clear your head and refocus for all of the end of semester studying and papers that lie ahead. 

Villanova has a wide variety of Earth Week events going on, some of them starting as early as this week, and all of them are worth attending; however, I wanted to highlight another event that gets you outside and looking at nature, even if it’s not at a National Park. Next Thursday, April 22, Villanova’s horticulturist, Hugh Weldon will be leading a tour of the trees around campus. More details and registration can be found here.

Books to Read 

The Falvey collection has a wide range of National Parks Travel Guides that you can reserve and pick up. The collection has guides for everything you need to know for parks from Shenandoah National Park to Glacier National Park. With only a month left of the semester, now is the perfect time to grab some guide books and start planning a summer road trip to a National Park near or far!

Fun Fact: Did you know each day of National Parks Week has its own theme?

The National Park Service website has a list with themes for each day of National Park week as well as other ideas for you to celebrate. Below are the themes for each day.

April 17 – Park Rx Day

April 18 – VIP (Volunteers In Parks) Sunday

April 19 – Military Monday

April 20 – Transformation Tuesday

April 21 – Wayback Wednesday

April 22 – Earth Day

April 23 – Friendship Friday

April 24 – Junior Ranger Day

April 25 – BARK Ranger Day

Let us know how you plan on celebrating both Earth Week and National Parks Week next week!

Jenna Newman is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department.

We’re officially halfway through National Library Week! There’s something about libraries that sticks with you throughout life, whether it’s memories of getting your first ever library card or late nights spent writing papers and studying for exams. For this week’s Cat in the Stax I’m going to reminisce on some of my favorite library memories and factors that make a great library.

My first library card was from the Mercer County Library, and I remember practicing writing my name over and over again because my mom said once I could write my own name, I could get my library card. Despite having not been there in over 10 years, I can still distinctly remember where everything is located. Every summer they would always have different events for elementary students that promoted reading and learning. One factor that makes a great library is the variety of programming and events that they have available, whether in-person or virtual!

During my undergraduate years, I spent quite a bit of time at the University of Delaware’s Morris Library. My four years there included many late night study sessions and trying to snag the best study spots between classes. Another mark of a quality library is definitely study spots and study rooms. My roommate and I would always meet up in our pre-booked study room after classes to study before heading back to our apartment!

Maybe I’m a little biased, but my favorite library right now is definitely Falvey! Beyond the extensive programming and study spots, Falvey also has an amazing group of staff and librarians that are always willing to help with papers and research projects. Plus, having Holy Grounds there to get a mid-study caffeine fix has become a deal-breaker for me as far as study spots go. Make sure to head over to Falvey sometime this week to celebrate National Library Week and let us know what you think makes a great library on social media or in the comments!

Jenna Newman is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department.

As we officially head into March and the temperature starts to pick up (at least a couple degrees!), it seems as though our coursework does as well. For this week’s TBT we travel to the 1960s and the Falvey Hall Reading Room. Falvey still offers great study spaces 60 years later, so make sure to come in and find the perfect spot to get your work done. 

This photograph comes from the University Archives and can be found in Villanova’s digital collection.

Jenna Newman is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes things happen and absolutely nothing goes according to plan. This lesson is something that we need to internalize and remember going into 2021 and beyond. Take a minute, stop reading, and think about all of the New Year’s resolutions you made last year that you completely forgot about when March hit. For my first Cat in the Stax of the year, I want to change the way that we think about “New Year’s resolutions,” especially with many of your resolutions potentially pertaining to the new semester that’s right around the corner.

According to Google, a resolution is, “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” In my opinion, humans just aren’t good at that, we’re wishy-washy and that’s totally okay. So let’s stop setting ourselves up for failure. If I make my New Year’s resolution to workout 5 times per week, the first time that I don’t do that, I’ve technically failed. Instead, let’s think of this new year as a time to reassess our goals.

By changing our mindset and making goals instead of declaring resolutions, we offer ourselves more grace and can celebrate the progress made. In 2020, I set my reading goal on Goodreads to 25 books, as of December 13 I had read 9. Instead of thinking of that as, “Wow, I failed!” I can focus on the fact that had I not set that goal, maybe I would have only read 3 or 4 and missed out on reading fantastic books.

Goals partially completed at the end of each year can be seen as progress markers. I now know that I read 9 books in 2020, and I wish that I had made reading more of a priority. In 2021, maybe my next goal is to read 15 books. It’s not that lofty 2020 goal of 25, but I took the progress I had made and can now work to beat that.

To encourage you all in crushing your goals for 2021, here are some of my goals for the Spring 2021 semester:

• Get to know two Falvey librarians better
• Engage Cat in the Stax reader’s by replying to every comment
• Read 5 books off of the Falvey shelves
• Take my own photos for 50% of my Cat in the Stax 

What goals do you have for 2021 and how can Falvey help you crush them?

Jenna Newman is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department. Current mood: Figuring out how to crush my goals (& 2021)!

With Reading Day right around the corner and classes coming to a close, let’s throw it back to the 1991 Belle Air and Falvey during finals. Author of this article and alumna, Rachel White, writes about how around finals time the library is filled with “thousands of last minute crammers and a number of truly studious people.” Maybe you recognize yourself in one of these two groups. And although in an ideal world the library is the perfect quiet place to study, between the thousands of books and hundreds of people around you, it can be fairly easy to get distracted. 

Falvey offers a productive space to study if you’re in the right mindset. Which is unfortunately the case for studying pretty much anywhere. If you want more study or presentation tips, check out some of my recent ‘Cat in the Stax! 

Although studying in the library looks a little different 29 years later, there are individual study seats in the Dugan Polk Family Reading room and on all floors of Old Falvey. Come in with a focused mind-set and you can still find a productive place to study at Falvey.

Jenna Newman is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department. Current mood: In the mind-set for a nap.

That feeling when you spot a Falvey sticker at the Villanova football game!

Thank you, Nova Nation for reppin’ the library. Good luck to Nova Football as they take on William & Mary at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow! Share your Falvey swag with us on social: Instagram@villanovalibrary  Twitter@FalveyLibrary

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library.

Falvey Memorial Library student employee Kelly McMahon celebrates Family Weekend with her grandmother Carol White. Download the free Family Weekend App for the full schedule of events. A warm welcome to parents and families visiting campus this weekend!

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

Martin Ganda ’07 received a warm welcome during his return visit to campus on Thursday, Sept. 19. The Villanova alumni, and author of the 2019 One Book Villanova selection, I Will Always Write Back, joined students, staff, faculty, and community members for a book signing in Falvey’s Speakers’ Corner. As part of the St. Thomas of Villanova Celebration, Ganda delivered the keynote address to an eager audience in the Villanova Room.

Thank you to those who participated in the festivities. We urge you to keep the conversation going by participating in the Campus Pen Pal Program. Stop by Student Life in Dougherty Hall or Falvey Memorial Library and fill out a postcard with some fun questions about yourself. Leave your completed postcard and take a postcard from a fellow Villanovan. It’s an old school way to make a new friend on campus!

We look forward to seeing you at upcoming programs that will continue our conversation around themes raised in this year’s One Book.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 

We love a good book! To celebrate National Read A Book Day, pick up a copy of this year’s One Book Villanova selection, I Will Always Write Back. See which books Villanovans have frequented in our Holy Grounds display on the first floor…and be sure to grab a free Falvey sticker.

Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

With this week’s #TBT picture we are taking it all the way back to the ’60s, when two students took advantage of the quiet atmosphere on Falvey Library’s third floor. Many students have studied in that same spot in the stacks over the years, especially when they have a paper due or finals looming!

This picture was included in the program for Falvey Memorial Library’s dedication ceremony, which took place on Saturday, Nov. 16, 1968. You can view the program in Falvey’s very own Digital Library.