Best of
Florida Schools 2003
General Categories—Page
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Best
Minority Focus
HCC
Reaches out to Latino Kids
¿Necesitas ayuda? Do you need help? Latino middle school or high school
students who need help finding information about colleges can turn to ENLACE
(Engaging Latino Communities for Education) at Hillsborough Community
College's, Brandon Campus.
The project helps Latino kids transition from one level of education to the next. ENLACE also shows parents what education opportunities are available for their children, and translates important college forms from English to Spanish if needed.
ENLACE members hope to increase the number of Latino kids who continue their education past high school. Many Latino students are the first generation of their family to consider college. And ENLACE's mission is even more poignant since the Census Bureau just announced that Latinos now are the nation's largest minority group. "Our main focus is to create an educational pipeline of support services for [those] students," says Salvador Torres, HCC-Brandon's project manager.
The group provides mentoring to younger Latinos on the importance of staying in school and graduating both high school and college. The group holds ENLACE Day, when high school students go to HCC to tour the college and participate in workshops geared toward interesting them in college. The workshops prepare students for real life college situations.
"This isn't a typical college tour," Torres says. "Conversations with College Students" is a workshop designed to give Latino high school students a chance to hear from peers and have their own questions answered about college. ENLACE members also stress the importance of ethical and moral leadership skills through a program called Student Concilio (council).
ENLACE hopes to enlighten Latino students at a young age and to expand the possibilities of more Latino students graduating and fulfilling leadership roles in society. —LE
Contact Torres at storres@hcc.cc.fl.us or visit www.hccfl.edu/enlace.
Best
Outreach
USF Tunes
in to Community
“Do, re, mi… Ga-ga, goo-goo?” Baby talk may not be a normal part of scale
recital, but Tampa children will be exposed to music thanks to the
Pre-College and Community Outreach program at the University of South
Florida. USF music students are exchanging their conducting wands for
baby rattles to teach toddlers through the Early Childhood Music Education
program.
After two years of calls from area families and early education centers asking for ECME, Community Outreach finally took the idea and ran with it. “One center in particular, a joint partnership with a community health center and a pre-school...asked if we could send someone to help develop a music program for their school,” says Jean Calandra, director.
USF students being trained this summer will go to St. John’s Presbyterian, the first pre-school to benefit from the new program, to teach music to children from 12 months to four years old.
USF Professor of Music Education Dr. Sheila Woodward says the experience USF students gain through teaching is invaluable with the ultimate goal of giving students practical working opportunities.
Community Outreach also gives group instruction in piano and guitar as well as private lessons in voice, piano, strings, oboe, and clarinet. —BF
Contact Calandra at jeancal@admin.usf.edu or call 813-974-5146.
Best New Group
FAU
Marches to a Tropical Beat
When you’re in South Florida and see people dressed in Hawaiian shirts,
straw hats, and khakis, you’d expect them to be carrying cameras and Mickey
Mouse paraphernalia—not trumpets, flutes, clarinets, and other band
instruments. But if you’re in the vicinity of Florida Atlantic University,
that’s the attire of a new marching band.
Last July, after given the go-ahead to create a band, Director George Sparks quickly recruited new members by creating a class for the fall, “University Band.” Most students showed up for the first day without any knowledge of what they had just gotten themselves into. Luckily, about 95 percent of those who signed up stayed with it ---the band now sports 65 musicians and 20 color guard members.
Sparks’ next mission was to find instruments and uniforms. With a mere $60,000 budget and little time to fundraise, the band got a little creative in the wardrobe department. After much debate, the group chose the tropical-styled uniforms. While most band uniforms cost approximately $200, FAU cut the cost by three-quarters by using khaki pants, a straw hat, and flowered shirt.
Instruments were much harder to come by. For the one and only rehearsal held before their first show, the percussionists had no drums and instead were banging on plywood boards or the floor, Spark says. Even worse, when performance day rolled around, two of the seven tuba players had to compromise and play a different type of brass instrument, baritones.
After just two months, the Marching Owls made their debut halftime performance at the FAU vs. Bethune-Cookman College football game. “We were very lucky to get it (the performance) on the field this year and have it be as successful as it was,” Sparks says. “It was all due to the good work of the students the support of the school’s upper administration.”
Thinking ahead, Sparks and his students are holding a shirt designing contest for the fashion-design students. “We had an amazingly good year for the time constraints we were under, and I’m looking forward to being more organized in the coming year,” he says. —EG
Contact Sparks at 561-297-3822 or sparks@fau.edu.
Best Quiz Show
Alex, I’ll take UM for 100
University of Miami, come on down! UM students show off their wisdom and
wit on the UMTV quiz show UMIQ. Students face off, putting their
knowledge to the test with questions written by professors and faculty in
academic areas such as biology, math, and political science. Movie buffs and
UM fanatics also can score big with off-the-wall categories such as motion
pictures, pop culture, and UM trivia.
Sanjeev Chatterjee, associate professor at the School of Communication, came up with the concept for UMIQ to get the students involved in a common, fun, academic activity. He wanted students from all parts of the university to share an activity they could all enjoy. With hard work from communications students and a generous grant by the UM provost, UMIQ went from an idea to a reality.
Contestants are divided into teams based on their living arrangement: commuters, apartments, Greeks, and residence halls. Their incentive? A $1,000 prize for each member of the winning team, and a $250 for each losing contestant that can be spent in the UM bookstore. Is that your final answer? Actually, many of the participants just want a chance to be on TV.
Host Joshua Johnson uses charm and humor to keep the studio audience and home viewers of UMIQ enthralled by the fast-paced 30-minute trivia game. Are the students excited? Survey says…yes.
“The response has been great from both the students and faculty,” Chatterjee says. “UMIQ is also seen well beyond the university campus, and I have heard positive feedback from people in the community as well.” Those who missed an episode or don’t get UMTV can watch episodes on its web site at www.miami.edu/com/umtv/videos.htm. —AR
Contact Chatterjee at sanjeev@miami.edu or at 305-284-2234.
Best School Party
Beach
Party FLA
Belly flops, bikini contests, kegs, volleyball tournaments, and bands.
Sounds like MTV's Spring Break has invaded Webber International
University. Webber’s 400 students and faculty party together to let it
all out before finals.
Six years ago, Dean of Students Steve Warner started the beach party as a way for students to relax before the onslaught of exams. "It's gotten bigger and better every year," he says.
The beach party provides a fun but safe environment on Webber's private beach, on Crooked Lake, where students enjoy a live Caribbean band, a DJ, a volleyball tournament, cash prizes, wave-runners, and boats. Faculty and students get to chow down on barbeque, soda, and beer free.
Ironically, according to Warner, Webber went to a “wet” campus four years ago and their discipline problems have gone down. At each beach party, the "number of kegs has gone up." He says the increase in kegs isn't because the students are consuming more but because the beach party has gained more popularity. "This has really turned into a huge event that our kids look forward to. We use it as a recruiting tool," Warner says. —LE
Contact Warner at warnersteve@hotmail.com.
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