Best of Florida Schools 2002
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Best Women’s Intramural Football
What if instead of Kurt Warner starting at quarterback for the Rams, it was Katrina? At Daytona Beach Community College, this isn’t that peculiar. For the first time in nearly a decade, DBCC fielded a women’s intramural football team.

Working off of a successful coed and women’s soccer program, Intramurals Coordinator Mike Phelan surveyed students to see what sports they were most interested in. Based on the results, Phelan put together a team of eight talented female athletes to play against local schools in a seven-on-seven flag football league. Quarterback Melissa Ignasiak, who Phelan says can hurl the ball up to 45 yards in the air, led the squad. “For our first time around, we did great,” says Phelan. “Especially in a few close games with Stetson.”

With DBCC’s air-it-out, long-ball attack, players are looking forward to next season, which should be filled with plenty of highlights and strong showings. RG

Contact Phelan at phelanm@dbcc.cc.fl.us.

Best Gender Awareness Program
In the Cornell Campus Center at Rollins College hangs a memory, in the shape of 75 t-shirts on clotheslines. Each is vividly decorated with a very personal message from sexual-abuse survivors who are celebrated and victims who are remembered. It’s the only display of its type by a Florida school.

Students created one of more than 250 nationwide displays of the Clothesline Project as a part of the national Sexual Assault Awareness Week. The t-shirts aren’t meant just for people who have experienced abuse, but also as a visual sign for people who need to know that there are people to turn to if needed.

“The goal was to reach out to the survivors and let them know they have resources they can use and people they can talk to,” says Danielle Boileau, a coordinator for Sexual Assault Awareness Week. “Another target of ours was just general awareness for everyone that these things happen.”

Rollins has designed a program to stress the importance of gender relations in campus life, trying to make this school year “A Year of Gender Matters.” The week also included “fishbowl” discussions between groups of men and women in which one gender speaks and answers questions, while the other listens and learns what is truly going on in the mind of the opposite sex, Boileau says. RG

Contact Boileau at dboileau@rollins.edu.

Best Smart Car
Herbie the Love Bug and Nightrider’s K.I.T.T. have nothing on South Florida Community College’s Smart Car. Not only is the cherry red Ford Mustang fully loaded with all the latest technology, it’s also a teaching tool for SFCC’s automotive students. Gary McClain, instructor of automotive technology, contacted a Ford factory representative and convinced him to donate the Mustang. The car was then turned over to Interface Technologies in Education where a computer interface and software was installed. Students in McClain’s courses use the Mustang during each of their 32 lessons. Each lesson begins with a customer complaint and then goes through a step-by-step process where students use factory manuals and electronics test equipment to determine the correct repair needed. Once the student resolves the problem and enters the correct answer into the smart car’s computer, the fault in the car’s system will be removed and the Mustang will operate normally. “It allows students to use hands-on experience and practice real problems without replacing any parts,” McClain says. MCB

Contact Gary McClain at gmcclain@digital.net. 

Best Coming Attractions
You don’t typically find Broadway productions and symphony performances among the local happenings in rural Southern towns—unless you’re in Niceville, Fla., that is. Although it’s well off the beaten path, Niceville is home to the Okaloosa-Walton Community College Arts Center, a venue that gives locals a taste of world-class theater, music, and artwork. This season, The Arts Center featured Footloose, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, The Mikado, and Cabaret. Not only does the Center’s diverse showcase attract members of the community who are potential students and donors, but the facility itself is a draw as well. The impressive complex could easily rival any large university’s arts center and includes a 1,650-seat main theater, a dance studio, a music wing, and two art galleries.

Contact Dirk Dunbar at dunbardirk@owcc.net.

Best Mentoring Program
Professors know what you need before you ever set foot on campus at Beacon College in Leesburg. Beacon is the nation’s only college offering bachelor’s degrees specifically to learning-disabled students. When new students are accepted, they complete several tests and surveys, which help professors and counselors develop a profile of students’ weaknesses and needs.

All Beacon students are scheduled for at least one hour weekly of individual “mentor” time, a time for tutoring and discussing students’ needs. Three professionals, along with six volunteers, help each of Beacon’s 62 students deal with their disabilities and find solutions to allow them to learn more easily. Dr. John Good, director of institutional research, says Beacon students learn “secret strategies” to allow them to “get around” their learning disabilities. When Beacon students get their class schedules, mentoring time is already blocked in: it’s guaranteed personal attention each week.

President Deborah Brodbeck calls the mentoring program Beacon’s “cornerstone.” “This is the heart of the Beacon experience,” she says.

Contact Brodbeck at dbrodbeck@beaconcollege.edu or visit www.beaconcollege.edu.

Best Topless Students
Made you look!  Stetson University, the Baptist-affiliated school, is not going risqué, except for the signs for a "topless" car wash held by the campus Circle K chapter. The club's fully-clothed members washed the bottom half of the cars for free but requested a donation to soap down the top half.  "Lots and lots of people honked," says Amy Howard, Circle K president. "Some people didn't even notice, but some said, 'Hey, you guys aren't topless!' and we had to explain to people the point of the car wash." The club received several $10 donations, but in general, gifts ran $3 to $5 as the members worked to raise XXX-tra money for club expenses such as publicity and conference travel. Howard says the club has done well with car washes before, but business was especially good that day, bringing in about $120. SRR

Contact Amy Howard at ahoward@stetson.edu.

Best Crocodile Hunter
What does University of Florida researcher Frank Mazzotti have in common with TV's famous Crocodile Hunter? “Not a whole lot,” says Mazzotti, a specialist in crocs at UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Science. “We go out and catch crocodile species but nothing like on TV. It’s a much safer endeavor for both humans and crocs.”

Looking out for both humans and crocodiles is what Mazzotti, assistant professor of wildlife and ecology, does best. His goal in the IFAS Ft. Lauderdale Research and Education Center is to evaluate the effects of the Everglades ecosystem's restoration on the crocodiles.

Working with the crocs offers perks other jobs don’t have. “Well, every day’s an adventure, and crocs pick really pretty places to live,” Mazzotti says. And his take on the techniques of that TV guy? “I’ve been at this since 1977, and I’ve never been bit!” SRR

Contact Mazzotti at fjma@mail.ifas.ufl.edu.

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