Best of
Florida Schools 2003
General Categories—Page
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Best ROTC
Daytona ROTCs Fly High
Ten-hut! All you maggots fall in
line and give your respect to the best Air Force ROTC in the nation.
Detachment 157, composed of 600 cadets who attend Bethune-Cookman College,
Daytona Beach Community College, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University, has been named the best of the 144 AFROTC units in the
nation for the 2001-2002 academic year. This is not a drill!
After winning the “High Flight” award, awarded to the best unit in the region, Detachment 157 moved on to the national competition and was awarded the “Right of Line” award, given to the best unit nationwide, at the Worldwide AFROTC Commanders Conference. “There’s a long tradition of pursuing excellence that’s permeated the program for a number of years,” says Colonel Mike Coman, Detachment 157 commander.
Detachment 157 won the “Right of Line” award in 1999 and 1988 and has now won the High Flight award four years in a row. With such a distinguished reputation, the program has drawn cadets from all over and is now the largest all-volunteer college AFROTC program in the nation. It’s also among the top producers of pilots and Air Force commissioned officers, sending 35 to 40 students to flight school every year.
The criteria for the Right of Light and High Flight awards include best overall academic record, retention of cadets, cadet activities, university relations, community service, and innovation. “Maintaining the standards of excellence rests solely on the shoulders of the students,” Coman says. “Our students strive to meet and exceed those standards.” —JL
Contact Coman at 386-226-6880.
Best Experiment
Tonight’s Special: Lobster Dissection
When Red Lobster first opened in
Leesburg, the owners never imagined the restaurant would later host a
science class and lobster dissection. Likewise, when Dr. Nancy Browne
started teaching biology at Lake Sumter Community College, she
couldn’t have guessed part of her curriculum would include a rather unusual
field trip to the seafood restaurant.
“When we got to ‘mollusks’ and were talking about squids, someone in the class said, ‘Gee, that’s calamari. We should go to Red Lobster and all order calamari,’” she says. Rather than dismissing the idea, Browne took it seriously. She visited the local Red Lobster to see if they could handle a party of 20 students. Browne wanted the visit to be a real educational experience. “I asked if someone from the restaurant could talk to us about the lobsters, how they keep them in the tank, how they are prepared, and why they have to be cooked alive,” Browne says. The restaurant’s chef made the presentation.
Browne also performed a lobster dissection on the boiled lobster she had ordered for dinner, probably much to the chagrin of nearby diners. “I had a handout so they could follow along, and I dissected it right there at the table,” she says. “The students got to ask questions and really started to see how the things they were learning applied to real things that may be part of their daily lives. They had a terrific time and they learned a lot.”
Later, when Browne was teaching “Introduction to Life Science,” she found that her new students had heard about the field trip from their friends. They promptly asked her, “When are we going to Red Lobster?” Now the trip has become a regular and much-anticipated event in her science classes. “One of the things that’s really important when you teach science is to give students something real to look at because that makes what they’re learning real and stimulates their curiosity,” she says. “When people tell me they hate science and that they’re just taking this class because they have to, that makes me want to show them that science is just really a way of exploring our world and satisfying our curiosity.”
Browne says she couldn’t have done the visits without the blessing of Red Lobster’s managers and staff. “They’ve been extremely cooperative, very accommodating, and they really seem to get into the spirit of it,” Browne says. “The whole thing is so positive.” It seems everyone enjoys participating in this educational event–except maybe the lobster. —RGM
Contact Browne at brownen@lscc.cc.fl.us.
Best New Buildings
Please Excuse Our Dust
It’s a bird, it’s a plane…it’s a
construction crane? At Jacksonville University, new buildings are
popping up all across campus. “From the point of view of faculty, students,
and staff, these projects are less interfering and more exciting,” says
Joseph Wiley, vice president for administrative services and chief financial
officer. “The whole notion that there are new buildings going up and that
the campus is actually implementing its master plan…is creating a really
positive energy.”
The renovations actually began in 2002 with the arrival of the new Health Science Center. “[The center] enables us to begin our orthodontics residency program and to further expand our training for nursing. That’s a huge positive impact,” Wiley says. In addition, students vacated some of the older dorms and moved into four new student apartment buildings.
This year’s projects include a renovation of the arts annex and construction of a new Davis College of Business, a Navy Reserve Officer’s Training Corp (ROTC) facility, a new campus entrance, and a new Wilma’s Little Peoples child-development school. Two more major construction projects—a marine environmental science center and a campus life center—are in the works.
The campus improvements were made possible by “Campaign
2000—Beyond Excellence,” the largest capital campaign in northeast Florida
history. “One of its major focus areas was funding for expanding and
renovating,” Wiley says. “Every one of the construction projects—with one
exception—is funded by proceeds from Campaign 2000. It’s meeting its
intended purpose in enabling us to move forward with these projects.”
—AT
Contact Wiley at jwiley@ju.edu.
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Copyright © 2006 Oxendine Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved
