Tuesday, February 25,2014 | TechNews

 

ASB Pie-in-the-Face fundraiser has surprise participant

Utsav Gandhi & William Syvongsa
CAMPUS EDITOR & STAFF WRITER

Alternative Spring Break (ASB) has
had a lot of fundraisers this academic year to
raise money for the 25 students and four staff
members traveling to West Virginia during
the upcoming spring break.

The team would like to thank the
rest of the IIT community for helping us
raise funds for volunteering with Habitat for
Humanity.

This year, ASB has seen successful
spaghetti lunches, letter writing campaigns,
Rocky’s Tip-Matching Nights, a BOG event,
Singing Valentines and the Taste of IIT,
besides other fundraisers.

These events have helped the team
achieve not just financial self-support, but
also given the members valuable skills in
team building, logistical coordination and
financial/communication matters.

Fundraising is never an easy task,
especially in a college environment, but

with the most successful fundraising season
in history, the team has proven that good
coordination, communication and a solid
group effort can achieve any given goal-
oriented task

As the President and Vice President
of Fundraising respectively, the authors really
appreciate how, as a community we help
each other when it comes to our hobbies and
passions.

We would also like to take this
opportunity to talk to you about one of our
bigger remaining fundraisers as we close off
the season before final logistical preparations.
Our goal is to help the next ASB team to start
off strongly, just as our team did.

We are planning our annual Pie-in-
the-Face fundraiser for February 27, from 1 1
am. to 3 pm. on the MTCC Bridge.

Pie-in-the—Face is an event where
staff, faculty, and student volunteers can get
“pied” in the face (it’s actually whipped cream,
but the feeling and impact are just the same);
one pie for $3 or two pies for $5.

In the past, staff members from the
Office of Campus Life, Residence and Greek
Life, and Athletics have volunteered to get
pied, as well as former Student Government
Association and Union Board presidents.

This year the participant list is
impressive; some important members
on campus have volunteered to get pied
throughout the day: Eric Bugby, swim coach;
Tayyab Arshad, Academic Resource Center
Director; Professor Sally Laurent-Muehleisen
from the Physics Department; Sarah Wright,
Event Services Coordinator.

All day, Ken Smith from the Career
Management Center will offer to be pied.
At 12 p.m., the Director of Residence and
Greek Life, Betsi Pinkus—Huizenga, will be
on the bridge for half an hour. At 2 p.m.,
the President of the university himself, Iohn
Anderson, will be on the bridge for half an
houn

ASB has done its best to gather a
unique group of people to be pied. So come
on down and take part in the festivities!

If you would like to get involved
with ASB this academic year, but missed out
on team recruitment, we are partnering up
for the first time with the Office of Service
Learning and an external organization called
Architecture for Humanity, to provide an
exclusive opportunity for a similar project
right here in Chicago.

This project, similar to the
traditional spring build, will run for three
days, March 19 to 21, during business hours
at the Architecture for Humanity site.

For those looking to apply for
future Alternative Spring Break trips, this is a
fantastic opportunity to get some preliminary
exposure.

We are looking for volunteers
from all fields of study, class years, levels
of experience and even previous volunteer/
construction involvement.

Stay tuned for more details, because
sign—up spots are limited. Email asb.iit@
gmail.com,gandhi@hawlciit.edu or lrneyer2@
iit.edu for more details.

 

Presidential Scholars launch original blog

Shireen Gul
COPY EDITOR

Illinois Institute of Technology
is a home—away-from-home for many
international students. We leave our homes
and families and come so far for the journey
of knowledge, for a better future.

We must thank IIT for all they do
to make us feel at home. But have we ever
thought that there might be students who
come here to get a good education, but due
to financial constraints, can’t make it?

Someone else thought about it and
made‘this dream come true for almost 200
transfer students.

According to the Undergraduate
Admissions Department’s website, the
Presidential Scholarship was “inspired by
a series of conversations with Chancellor
Cheryl Hyman (IIT, CS 1996) of the City
Colleges of Chicago and the presidents of
the City Colleges of Chicago, in 2010 Illinois
Institute of Technology announced a major
new scholarship and educational outreach
initiative—the Presidential Scholarship.
Through this initiative, IIT is determined
to substantially redefine pipeline initiatives
in the science, engineering, architecture,
technology, business and human science
fields. '

Collaborating institutions and

 

organizations are committed to serve
as a catalyst to support students toward
their goals, to conduct undergraduate
research and earn advanced professional
and academic degrees. Scholars in turn
are asked to significantly engage with their
K-12 and community college communities
to encourage and empower others towards
educational success.”

For those who haven’t already
heard about the Presidential Scholarship
and the scholars on campus, this is a good
time to get to know them, and see how they
become a part of this cohort, and how they
are contributing to their communities.

Let’s take a look at how this
scholarship came into being. It was early
2010, when Cheryl L. Hyman became the
Chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago
(CCC) and she saw that there were many
deserving transfer students, who didn’t have
enough financial support for universities like
IIT. The CCC, along with IIT, wanted to
make an award for transfer students, while
mindful that the award should be an initiative
that includes community outreach, especially
STEM (science, technology, engineering and
math) as well as educational outreach.

At the same time, Gerald Doyle,
Vice Provost of Student Access, Success,
and Diversity Initiatives, connected with
Dr. Carl Mack of National Society for Black

Engineers (NSBE.) Mack has been visiting
the Caribbean, especially the island of St.
Lucia, and found that some of the most
talented students he met belonged to St.
Lucia. Therefore, he wanted to make sure
those deserving students get a good place in
a good institute.
Dr. Mack, met Dr. Lydia Pettis
Patton (one of the most inspirational people
this writer has come across in her lifetime) at
a conference in Toronto and shared his dream
and they—together with others who shared
their vision—made their dream come alive.
The first batch of Presidential
Scholars arrived on campus in Fall 2010,
which was focused on CCC and St. Lucia and
transfer students from City of Chicago (26
students from City of Chicago and 28 from
St. Lucia.) Later, they expanded their wings
and now there are students from Pakistan,
Jordan, Malaysia, and Syria, among others.
By this spring semester, there will be
six cycles of Presidential Scholars and several
have graduated as well. Many of whom are
making a difference in their communities.
That is what the Presidential Scholarship is
about: “doing at least one good thing a year.”
Recently, the scholars started their
own blog. The blog is open to submissions
and ideas from all current and former
Presidential Scholars, as well as all the other
students on campus.

The main goal of this blog is to
gather everyone’s reflections on the IIT
experience, not only as students, but as people
from many different viewpoints and walks of
life.

How has 'IIT and the scholarship
afiected you? What challenges have you faced
as a student? What advice would you offer
your successors? What are your goals for
the future, and how have they been served
by your experience at IIT? Have a funny,
inspiring, or thought-provoking anecdote
you'd like to share? Feel free to contact us in
order to contribute to the blog.

The choice of subject is entirely up
to you. We also have a guest writer section,
in which we have contributors from around
the globe. Another interesting section
is of faculty and staff, who will soon be
contributing content for the blog.

If you have an essay idea, but need
some guidance or encouragement, feel free
to pitch a suggestion and we’ll offer whatever
feedback we can. If you have a piece ready to
go, fire away!

Undergrads should direct inquiries
and submissions to Shireen Gul at sgu11@
hawkiitedu; alumni can reach Wilson David
Work at wwork@hawk.iit.edu.

For more information, please visit
our blog and don’t forget to follow us on www.
presidentialblogatiit.wordpress.com