Alumni are using their degrees in unique ways

From kitchen to community 

Deanna Segrave-Daly ’93 NUTR, runs a blog and a brand centered around sharing the love of food in the nutrition community. 

When the company Segrave-Daly founded, Teaspoon Communications, started out nearly ten years ago, it provided consulting to businesses on how to share their healthy recipes and products through radio, TV, and trade shows. 

Today, Teaspoon Communications manages the blog “TeaspoonofSpice.com,” and community of close to 200 dietitian bloggers; The Recipe Redux, a recipe-sharing networking group; Blog Brulee, a two-day retreat for dietitians and healthy living bloggers; and will soon offer a cookbook. 

Segrave-Daly credits her degree in Nutrition – now the Department of Nutritional Sciences – for giving her tools to succeed and grow in her field. 

She said her basic nutrition courses provided with the general knowledge to run her business; her food lab courses gave her hands-on experience to help lead the cooking demos she does today; and her undergraduate field experience as a student counselor for the Nutrition Clinic at Penn State provided her with insight into working with the community.

“As technology has evolved, we’ve tried to stay on top of it,” Segrave-Daly said. “Our ultimate goal is to reach our customers and consumers and not only get them interested in nutritious and delicious food, but help them make these foods a part of their lifestyle.” 

Segrave-Daly said she wants people to enjoy food, and today there is so much confusion on what’s “healthy” or “in trend,” which takes away from food’s enjoyment. 

Bolstering the board room

For more than 25 years, Julie Daum ’76 HPA has worked for Spencer Stuart in New York City, where she recruits executives to corporate boards.Day to day, she consults with corporate boards, working with companies of all sizes from the Fortune 10 to private investor companies before they hit the market. 

Daum credits her Health Policy and Administration degree with opening her eyes to the different ways people can help others and communities.

Although Daum has recruited outside directors for Johnson & Johnson, Saudi Aramco, Amazon, and others, she is most known for her work to increase the number of women in US boardrooms.

To date, Spencer Stuart has recruited more than 1,800 women to corporate boards – an initiative Daum has proudly spearheaded.

“I like the fact that I see every industry and every size company,” she said. “It’s a really broad job which exposes me to what’s going on in the business world. It keeps you current. I have loved getting to know the next generation of directors – people with strong IT and digital backgrounds.”

Daum works with boards to see what skill sets they’re looking for, and gets to know executives who have matched credentials and experience to serve on boards. 

“It’s important to expand the universe of who is on a board,” she said. “We use our access into the boardroom to make sure boards are casting a wide net and looking for the best directors.”

Paving his own path

Physical education was a passion for Richard Rice ’56 RE ED, so, it was only fitting that his first job after graduation was providing group and individual physical and recreational therapy to veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Though recreational therapy is widely practiced now, at the time the idea was innovative. 

After graduation, Rice enlisted in the U.S. Army. Following two years of service during the Korean War, the medical director at the time asked Rice to lead physical activity for the Korean War veterans, many of whom were receiving medical treatment after suffering combat injuries.  

“I taught in the gymnasium at the medical center,” Rice said. “It was incredibly rewarding to work with these men.”

But then, when Rice’s father passed away not too long after, he was faced with a new challenge: taking over the family’s goldfish farm in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The farm breeds several varieties of goldfish across 300 acres of pond. The fish are then sold and shipped around the country and to Canada for the pet industry, Rice said.

Though Rice is mostly retired – he’s still part manager of the goldfish farm – the business remains strong with more than 25 employees under his son’s leadership.

Rice said his undergraduate experience in Recreation Education, tenets of which are still offered in the current major of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management, encouraged him to pursue his passions after college.

Using the arts for activism 

Vincent Cianni ’74 COM Dis a documentary photographer, educator, community organizer, and activist. 

“Upon coming to University Park, I looked for a major that would tap into my desire to engage in community organizing, social and public policy change, and radical political thought,” Cianni said. “Essentially, through majoring in Community Development, I learned how to be a community organizer and change agent.”

In his current roles as a photographer, and director of a nonprofit, Cianni has found that teaching and training people is one of the most direct ways to build communication and understanding in a community. 

Specifically, his documentary work involves developing long-term photographic projects that investigate issues of social justice, human and civil rights, and community. 

As founder and director of the Newburgh Community Photo Project (NCPP), a grassroots community-based non-profit that teaches photography and activism to young adults in the marginalized and distressed communities of Newburgh, New York, Cianni extends his photographic practice into community organizing and activism. 

Cianni initially put up fliers in the neighborhood to attract participants for the NCPP workshops last year. During the workshops, participants identified victims of gun violence and their families through talking to the community, and research into public records, such as newspapers and police reports. 

With the help of two empowerment grants, NCPP has been able to expand its programming to offering stipends to young adults to learn photography and activism. 

“What I love about my work is the ability to merge my undergraduate studies and my social and political ideologies with my photography to learn about people's lives to bring visibility to communities that are under-represented,” Cianni said.

As a Penn State student, Cianni completed a practicum for his Community Development degree with the Office of Drug and Alcohol Programsin Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. He worked as a legal advocate for teens and young adults arrested for minor drug crimes. 

“My goal was to help themgo into drug treatment programs rather than getting incarcerated or getting a fine” Cianni said. “We tried to move minor drug offenses away from the prison system, and to a more reconstructive and rehabilitative area.”

Cianni, who later earneda master of fine arts degree in photography at State University of New York New Paltz, also teaches for the photography department on social justice and identity at Parsons School of Design.