{"id":74483,"date":"2025-04-07T10:43:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=74483"},"modified":"2025-04-07T10:43:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:43:17","slug":"pen-pal-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/pen-pal-project\/","title":{"rendered":"One student\u2019s \u2018red-letter\u2019 idea to bridge generation gaps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last summer, <\/span>Emma Patterson<\/span><\/b> had a core-shaking realization at her grandmother\u2019s funeral.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were talking about the woman she was, the mother she was \u2026 and the person they were talking about wasn\u2019t the person I grew up getting to know, because when I knew her, she had Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cI thought, how shallow am I that I let her disease depict who she was to me? She was so much more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Patterson always knew she wanted to work with the elderly after graduation\u2014she first got the idea when, as a child, she\u2019d bond with her grandfather by helping him with his physical therapy exercises. But it wasn\u2019t until last year\u2019s pivotal moment that she realized why.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want people to be seen only for their physical and mental limitations,\u201d she said. \u201cFor older populations, they\u2019re often seen that way automatically.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Emma<\/a>
Emma Patterson visits The Peaks each week to collect letters from participating residents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s why the Honors College student and aspiring physical therapist started an ambitious pen pal program this spring, opening a communication channel between seven NAU students and seven residents at The Peaks, a senior living community in Flagstaff.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every week, Patterson visits The Peaks to collect letters from participating residents, even helping some with physical challenges compose their letters. She comes up with a different prompt every time: What\u2019s your favorite Valentine\u2019s Day memory? Who do you most admire? What makes you laugh and what makes you cry? Then, she delivers the letters to student participants\u2014most of whom she recruited from <\/span>Melissa Schonauer<\/span><\/b>\u2019s<\/span> Biology of Cancer class\u2014and collects their responses. Each Peaks resident writes to the same student every week, and vice versa, allowing a closer relationship to form over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Patterson didn\u2019t expect an outpouring of enthusiasm from students when the pen pal club got up and running, but that was exactly what she got.\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLots of the students are telling me things like, \u2018My grandparent was in a senior living facility and felt isolated sometimes, and they would have benefited from something like this, so that\u2019s why I signed up,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThey keep telling me it\u2019s such a cool experience. It seems like people wanted to do it for themselves and are truly enjoying it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fostering empathy<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The pen pal project is just one part of Patterson\u2019s independent study course with faculty advisor <\/span>Kerri Quinn<\/span><\/b>, an assistant teaching professor in the Honors College, examining how written relationships like these can encourage empathy and understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"two<\/a>
Patterson’s project is grounded in research that shows written relationships can encourage empathy and understanding.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIn science, there\u2019s something called the halo effect,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cIt\u2019s the idea that, once we form an initial view of someone, we just naturally accept it and don\u2019t look into it any further. What the pen pal club aims to do is mitigate the halo effect, challenge different generations\u2019 assumptions about each other and encourage empathy.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Quinn, no stranger to pen pal programs, said writing letters to others can also benefit oneself\u2014especially in the digital age. Last spring, Quinn facilitated a handful of pen pal relationships between Puente de H\u00f3hz\u00f3 Elementary School students and NAU students in her Writing to Change the World class. Quinn said some students enjoyed it so much that they carried on their correspondence long after the spring semester wrapped up.\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world inundated with noise and distractions, I believe our Gen Z students are looking for and need different ways to connect that are real and meaningful,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cThese students are creative and imaginative, and they jump at the first opportunity to write, pen to page. This is a visceral experience because our stories live in our bodies and by writing them down, either in a journal or to a pen pal, students get to share who they are and what they\u2019ve experienced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Later this semester, Patterson will interview her pen pal club participants about their experiences to examine how the correspondents\u2019 impressions of each other changed over time. She\u2019ll also make a website with more information on the project for families of Peaks residents and other community members who may be interested.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, Patterson hopes the project not only sparks joy for the participants but also inspires more college students to get to know the older people in their lives a little better.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of students at NAU want to go into a healthcare field,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cWhether they go into healthcare or something else, they\u2019re probably going to need to communicate with people of all ages and backgrounds. If we want to care for them and serve them well, it\u2019s important to start with empathy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last summer, Emma Patterson had a core-shaking realization at her grandmother\u2019s funeral. \u201cPeople were talking about the woman she was, the mother she was \u2026 and the person they were talking about wasn\u2019t the person I grew up getting to know, because when I knew her, she had Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cI thought, how…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":74490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}