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Davis Shaver

Davis Shaver

Major: History

Year: Freshman

Davis Shaver grew up in Lebanon, PA. He attended Cedar Crest High School for one year before transferring to The Lawrenceville School, a coeducational boarding school in Lawrenceville, NJ.

While at Lawrenceville, Davis was a member of the Varsity Water Polo and Varsity Swim teams. As a senior, he took two leadership positions on campus. He was the Vice President of Social Life, and in that capacity was responsible for envisioning, planning, and executing the social calendar for the school. He also served as Sports Editor for the school paper, which is an eight-page weekly broadsheet.

After Lawrenceville, Davis found himself taking his boarding school experience to the Middle East. He served as a Junior Fellow at King's Academy, a new coeducational boarding school that was founded by King Abdullah II of Jordan. As a Junior Fellow, he served as a role model to the student body in the school's first year. He was also the school's primary tour guide and the boys' swimming coach.

During his time in Jordan, Davis spent his free time trying to understand the region's politics and exploring the Arab blogosphere. Those pursuits gave him a focus for his collegiate career.

In summer 2008, Davis had an internship at Harrisburg News Company, which distributes magazines and newspapers to retail stores throughout the mid-Atlantic region. In previous summers, he has held an internship WITF's development office, strung for the Lebanon Daily News, and served as a lifeguard at Lebanon's public pool

At Penn State, Davis has shaped his curriculum to understand how new media affects sociopolitical dynamics. He hopes to regionalize his studies to focus on Asia. In the fall of 2008, he launched Onward State, a blog focused on the Penn State community.