Ahha Dalmia
TECHNEWS WRITER

Fresh in the City is an annual
teamebased challenge that began in the fall
of 2010: The event is sponsored by Office of
Undergraduate Affairs and the IIT Leadership
Academy (LA): It is specifically targeted at
freshmen and transfer students as it aims
to welcome and integrate them into the IIT
community and familiarize them with the city
of Chicago

This year, the event took place
on Saturday, September 26, 2015: Students
gathered early in the morning at 10 am: in
Morton Park (the field north of Hermann
Hall): As they arrived, LA scholars checked
them in and assigned them to different teams:
Initially they planned to have around eight to
nine teams but due to the weak turnout on a
Saturday morning, teams were merged to form
a total of five teams: Each team had separate
color bands and came up with their own
names:

Every team had to complete
two challenges before embarking on their
scavenger hunt around the city The event
began with a sack race challenge followed by
mind game challenges: The mind challenges
were composed of seven tasks out of which
each team had to complete at least four The

 

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fresh in the City Scavenger Hunt
Introduces new students to Chicago

tasks included things like a sudoku puzzle,
identifying countries on a map of Europe,
matching authors to the books they have
written, multiple choice questions on IIT
trivia, and unscrambling phrases by sounding
them out: The teams that completed these two
challenges fastest got a head start on the full
day scavenger hunt, where teams explored
different areas of Chicago and completed
specific tasks: The scavenger hunt began with
students choosing two places to explore from
a comprehensive list of tourist sites including
Millennium Park, Lincoln Park Zoo, Navy
Pier, The Magnificent Mile, Museum Campus,
and The Loop:

Points were awarded based on
the number of tasks each team managed to
complete and not based on how fast they
completed it: However, every team had to
check in to the different locations by a certain
time and make it back to Morton Park by 5
pm: to avoid penalty and deduction of points:
There were about 17718 questions that teams
had to answer for each of the two stops they had
chosen: Some questions were just asking for
information while others required participants
to take pictures at certain locations: The
information seeking questions asked things
like the reason why the Ferris wheel at Navy
Pier was made, who invented it and other such
questions: The practical questions asked teams

 

to do things like go into Ghirardelli Chocolate
Company and take a picture while enjoying a
chocolate sample, take a picture while doing
your best Michael Iordanpose outside Nike, or
take a picture with the LEGO figurine outside
The LEGO Store:

The scavenger hunt actually required
quite a bit of strategic planning While some
groups took the simple approach of completing
tasks in a linear fashion then checking out and
heading back to reach the last stop on time
despite not being able to complete all the
challenges, other groups chose to complete the
challenges and reach the last stop a little late
as the points they obtained from completing
challenges more than made up for the points
lost from reaching late:

Fifteen dollars was allocated to
each student for lunch at a restaurant near
the destination tea.ms chose to explore from
the list of restaurants that LA had prepared:
The restaurants on the list were ones offering
Chicago cuisine and hence students got to try
the local food: Dinner was served on campus
when all the teams returned:

Overall, it was an exhausting
but enjoyable experience as it allowed new
students to gain a little more familiarity
with the city of Chicago: It made them more
comfortable and more confident about
travelling independently around a big city like

   

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Chicago, which can be a little overwhelming in
the beginning Moreover, students got to build
teamwork and leadership skills while having
fun as they completed challenges as a team:
Students also learned to use the CTA system
and see the train line options available near
and on campus: In addition, since students
were randomly assigned teams, everyone got
to make new friends:

As for the event,there is always scope
for improvement Some students felt that even
though they enjoyed the event it could have
been better organized if team leaders were
given more information about the activities:
Some teams had to walk around for 30 minutes
or more just looking for the scholars that
would check them in at each location as check,
in locations were not designated:

On the brighter side, tea.ms received
amazing prizes: Team Popcorn came first and
each participant on the team won a $40 gift
card that can be used in any store that accepts
payment using a visa card: Team Purple came
second and earned $25 vouchers while Team
Slayers ca.me third with each member winning
a $10 voucher: On the whole, students were
happy about attending this event and that is
what really matters: Such an event is not easy
to organize and students who attended would
like to thank the Leadership Academy for
putting it together

Photos by Abha Dalmia

SGA opens nominations for President's Student Advisory Council

Reno Waswil
TECHNEWS WRITER

With the induction of Dr: Alan W
Cramb as Illinois Tech’s ninth president last
week comes the responsibility for President
Cramb to make decisions that address the
concerns of everyone affiliated with the
institution, which naturally include those of
the student body For this expressed purpose,
President Cramb has decided to assemble a
group of student representatives to become the
President’s Student Advisory Council: These
representatives will act as a direct line from the
student body to the president to determine and
evaluate any concerns of the students:

The student membership of the
advisory council will be tasked with, among

other things, seeking out and representing
issues and suggestions of the student body,
voicing these directly to President Cramb, and
advising and assisting in developing potential
solutions, when appropriate:

There will be a total of fourteen
positions on this council: These positions will
include: the SGA president, currently Rahul
V Wadhwani, who is elected by the student
body every spring; a student worker from
Residence Life chosen by Residence and Greek
Life (RGL); a member of Greek Life chosen by
Greek Council; a member of athletics chosen
by the Student Athletics Advising Committee
(SAAC); a member of the International
Student Organization (ISO) to represent
the international student body on campus;

a member of the TechNews newspaper; a
member of the Graduate Student Association
(GSA); a member of the Commuter Student
Association, and a student selected by the
Dean of Students Katherine Stetz:

The most exciting and applicable
part about this news though, is that this leaves
five remaining positions open in the council
for which SGA, as of this paper’s release, will
be accepting nominations! These positions
will be held by students who represent general
student interests at Illinois Tech, and who
will be elected by SGA based on the pool of
applications Any student at the university
can be nominated for consideration, and self,
nominations are accepted and encouraged:
For students who think they can offer a lot of

insight into a discussion on issues pertaining to
student welfare and who would be comfortable
voicing these concerns, this is a fantastic and
prestigious opportunity

Nominations for these positions
will run from Tuesday, September 29, 2015
to 11:59 pm, Sunday, October 11, 2015 and
can be directed to iitnominations@gmail:com:
Applications for the positions for those that
accept their nominations are then subsequently
due at 11:59 pm, October 19, 2015 and these
can be found on the SGA’s Hawklink page
under the “Forms" section

The President’s Students Advisory
Council will have their first meeting on a yet,
toebeeannounced date in late October: