Tuesday, November] , 2013 | TechNews

Union Board wins regional award for MTCC Late Niite

Katie Peters
STAFF WRITER

The National Association of Campus
Activities Mid-America conference is an
exciting weekend for Union Board, and this
year was filled with even more events and
initiatives that they participated in. The
regional conference, which was held in Peoria,
Illinois from November 7 to 9 this year, had
special events that are not held at the national
conference, including event and individual
awards, a graphics competition, a school
showcase, and the chance to present educational
sessions.

This year Union Board nominated
several programs for the awards, including
our traditional Homecoming Carnival, the
collaboration event Paint IIT Pink, a small
budget program Sweet and Sour Banquet Hour,
and the spring late night event MTCC Late Niite.

Our school is part of the large
budget category, competing against large state
schools such as Illinois State University and
Eastern Illinois University, yet Illinois Institute
of Technology Union Board brought home
the prize for MTCC Late Niite as the most
Outstanding Late Night/Alternative Program
for large budget organizations in the Mid-
America region.

The nomination description is as
follows: this award is presented to a program
from a member institution that took place late
night (after 9 pm.) on a Friday or Saturday. This
may be a series or individual program, but the
duty of the program should have been as an
alternative to drinking on campus. The program
was judged on the following criteria:

- Effective use of available resources
(financial, human, logistical)

- Evidence of an effort to encourage
participation in and promote and market the
series/program to the student population
(posters, newspaper ad/articles, etc.)

- Creativity involved in the creation
of and the achievements or successes of the

|EEE@|IT closes semester with fi

Swasti Khuntia
LAYOUT EDITOR

Rohit Aganval, 'l‘reasurer of lliliEQ’D
ll'l‘, welcomed everyone and spoke about the
various activities oi‘ll4,lil<‘,@ll'i~ during the Fall
2013 Semester.

Starting from the general body
meetings in which they had speakers from
Goldman Sachs and National instruments,
he talked about the various events in which
members of the group have been awarded.

The first general meeting was held
in September, in which IlililiaDll'l‘ invited a
speaker from (ioldman Sachs who advised
students about how to crack interviews and
also shared information about how Goldman
Sachs recruits students. It was attended by
more than hundred students and marked as a
huge success. Similarly, in the second general
meeting which was held in October, lElZIiQDll'l‘
invited a speaker from National Instruments
who gave a live demonstration of various l\'l
devices used by students in their projects. He
advised students about Nl's policy in recruiting
students.

Agarwal also spoke about the
achievement of the llihliaitll’l‘ group
represented by six students in the ll€hl€
Regional Student Leadership
Conference held at the University of
Minnesota. He talked about other
events like the Microsoft technology
Center Tour, [El-:15 BBQ, llilil", Xtreme.
and the Microsoft Game Development
Workshop

On October ii, the [iii-Iliaii
llT chapter organized a tour of the
Microsoft 'l‘echnology Center, which
was attended by around 30 students.
lliEEQDllT is also organizing another
tour this semester to the liA‘l‘ON facility
in Chicago. The tour is scheduled to be

program as determined by the stated goals of
the programming board.

- Involvement of students in the
planning and implementation of the series/
program.

- The level to which the program
relates to the specific award category (low-
budget, diversity, etc.), and if the series/program
met the criteria for that category.

This is the first award that Union
Board has won at NACA-Mid-America,
although it is only the second year that they have
nominated any programs, and it is hopefully the
first of many years to come!

Union Board also participated in the
school showcase, which invites programming
boards to create displays and hand out giveaways
to share event and marketing ideas with other
schools across the region.

Mid-America’s theme this year was
“Naca-ular Spectacular,” a circus theme, so
the delegation put together a three-ring-circus
trifold filled with pictures of past Union Board
events and designs. The event was a great
networking opportunity, and also helped spark
some creative new ideas for events to hold on
campus, as well as signs and other guerrilla
marketing tactics. The most popular part of our
table however, was taking a picture with our
Ringmaster Talon, and taking home a boogie
bot to show to their delegations!

Last but not least, this year was a great
opportunity to show other organizations on
campus the benefit of NACA.

Since the conference was so close
this year, Union Board and the SAP sponsored
day passes for members of other programming
organizations on campus; the applications were
open to any student and International Student
Organization and Syrian Club both decided to
send representatives.

Hopefully in the future the conference
will also be close enough for other student
organizations to attend the conference, allowing
them to find new events and speakers to bring
to campus.

on November 22, but the timing is yet to be
decided.

IEEE BBQ was organized on the
eve of Halloween Day, and was followed by an
international marathon programming event
called, IEEE Xtreme

There were five groups consisting
ol’thirteen students from lIT. These included
both graduate and undergraduate students. All
these groups were sponsored by ll‘lhhtiirll’l‘ and
IEEFAChicago section, One ot‘the live groups
was ranked 18th in the US region. There are
four projects currently being supervised by
[EEE@I l'l‘, which have received great attention
among students. The projects that are funded
by IEEE are Quadcopter, Muti—touch project,
Guitar Amp, and Ardupilot.

The guest speaker for the last general
meeting was Dr. Ashfaq Khokhar, Chair of
the ECE Department. He talked about the
various changes being made to improve the
ECE Departmet and stressed the interaction
between faculty members and students. The
ECE Department now has a coffee lounge in
Siegel Hall meant for faculty members as well
as students working in the labs. At the end, he
asked the audience {or any advice regarding the
Dept, and students stressed the engagement of
more TAs and upgrading lab equipment.

gag-magmas

Photos Irv Si/vusti Khuntia