Best of
Florida Schools 2003
General Categories—Page
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Best
Student Newsletter
The Wolf Appears Every Month
Come
every month, a wolf stalks to Lake City Community College’s campus.
And it’s not because of a full moon or a break-out from the zoo. It's
Wolf Beat!, a monthly newsletter that keeps students informed about
campus and their Student Government.
Is the newsletter something to howl about? Although Wolf Beat! started as a four-page publication and has grown into eight pages filled with a monthly calendar of events, community activities, important student issues, faculty spotlights, and students of the month, its greatest strength is the size of its audience. "What makes our student newsletter special is the fact that it’s mailed to every enrolled student," says Tony Hart, SG president.
The monthly newsletter came about after Hart and the SG executive board studied a campus survey, saw that a major student concern was lack of information on campus happenings, and decided to create an antidote. "I'm extremely proud of what we've been able to accomplish with Wolf Beat!," he says. —TH
Contact Hart at sga@lakecitycc.edu.
Best Research
FIT Gives Research a WHIRL
The high
winds from a tornado lifted Dorothy, and her little dog too, up into the air
and far away. But when she crashed down on the Wicked Witch, did anyone
bother to see if the wind damaged her poor little house? Dr. Jean-Paul Pinelli, an engineering professor at Florida Institute of Technology,
is conducting research on the pressures that high winds bring to bear on
man-made structures. But since we’re not in Kansas anymore, Pinelli is
studying Florida’s hurricane-force winds instead.
Through the Wind and Hurricane Impacts Research Laboratory (WHIRL) Pinelli is learning how to build stronger and safer structures for Florida’s residents. “Wind is a very important topic here in Florida, and with this research, you have the satisfaction of doing something that’ll be useful to the community,” Pinelli says.
Pinelli and his team are outfitting buildings along the coast with new sensors to measure the action of the wind on the structures when there’s a hurricane. "When the hurricane hits, it’ll hit one of our houses, and we’ll have data to make conclusions about what works best to resist hurricanes,” he says.
Pinelli and his team aren’t going at it alone—many Florida Tech students work with him on the WHIRL research. Pinelli hopes the instruments will be ready and installed by the next hurricane season. —RGM
Contact Pinelli at pinelli@fit.edu.
Best Vets
This Doc Makes Pond Calls
Sick
fish? No problem. Just call up Dr. Allen Riggs, a University of Florida
veterinarian who makes house calls to residential aquariums and private
ponds through the Aquatic Animal Health service, one of the few statewide
services in the nation for sick fish.
UF veterinarians at the Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital also offer in-house hospitalization, as well as telephone and e-mail consultations. “A past problem was that fish veterinary care was just not readily available on a consistent basis to the clients in the field,” Riggs says. “The AAH service is providing for that need and also helping train the new graduating veterinarians so fish medicine can be incorporated into more conventional veterinary practices in the future.” —JB
Contact Riggs at riggsa@mail.vetmed.ufl.edu.
Best Freshman Activity
UCF’s Freshman Frenzy
Beep!
Beep! Are you ready to honk for your team? Well, the freshmen at the
University of Central Florida sure are. During the first football game,
the “Freshman Frenzy” program, which began in fall 2002, greets the first
200 freshman respondents with a campus tailgate party, a free T-shirt, a bus
ride to and from the stadium, and special seating at the game.
The freshmen also form a human tunnel on the football field during halftime, and they have an autograph signing party with football players after the game. Freshmen enjoy it so much that the program is going to be expanded to include 300 students.
Jan Lloyd, associate director of the LEAD Scholars program, was instrumental in the creation of Freshman Frenzy. “The event was alcohol-free and provided students a fun way to see UCF football with an alternative to alcohol-based tailgating,” she says. —TK
Contact Lloyd at 407-823-2223 or jlloyd@mail.ucf.edu.
Best History Lesson
Celebrating Barry’s Big Bang
History
classes rarely leave students leaping for joy. School history, however, is
an exception at Barry University, where students and faculty have
taken pride in organizing an annual Founder’s Day bash since the 1960’s.
The second Friday of every November, the festival kicks off with a cake-cutting ceremony where students and faculty play carnival games and laser tag, climb a rock wall, spin on a gyro-sphere, and bounce on a bungee trampoline. They also enjoy a BBQ, dance performances, a disc jockey, local musicians, and the highly anticipated “bed races,” where faculty, staff, and students race against each other to see who can prevent their teammates from falling off a speeding bed.
Amidst the hoopla, students and faculty don’t forget the vision for the university held by its founders. “Founder’s Day is one of the most important traditions at Barry because it serves as an opportunity to remember our past and celebrate those special people who founded the university,” says Francisco Duque, media relations coordinator. —AS
Contact Franciso Duque at fduque@mail.barry.edu
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Copyright © 2006 Oxendine Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved
