Best of Florida Schools 2004
General Categories—Page 3

Best Intramural Recruiting
Bird Bowling a Big Hit
The turkey’s frozen hard as a rock—now what? According to the USDA food safety guidelines, you can safely thaw it for several days in the fridge. Or at Chipola College, you can use that sucker as a bowling ball.

Right before Thanksgiving, Intramurals Director Rance Massengill gets out the Visqueen, the bowling pins, and the Butterballs and heads off into the middle of campus for a couple afternoons of turkey bowling. “We take the activity to the students by setting up right in the middle of campus and catching them coming or going to class,” Massengill says. He says silly activities are the perfect way to promote the more orthodox sports organized by his department. “It draws the attention of students that may not otherwise be reached by more conventional methods.”

Massengill’s goal is for students to participate in intramurals if they want to, regardless of schedule constraints. Whether it’s participation in spring flag football, posting (regular) bowling scores in Massengill’s office, or stopping by campus when he’s encouraging students to throw frozen poultry, the intramurals activities are flexible enough to let students have fun and be as gung-ho as they want to be.

Inspired by David Letterman’s show, Massengill has been creating the makeshift bowling lane on campus for three years. Once he stakes down the plastic, sets up the pins, and hits the grocery freezer aisle, Chipola students brave frostbite and poultry elbow for their strike at glory, or at least get to be top turkey with their picture in the school paper and a free T-shirt.

“We’ve had crowds as large as 60 turn out,” Massengill says. “It’s a great avenue to talk with everyone about the serious activities we have coming up.” —SRR

Contact Massengill at massengillr@chipola.edu.

Best Class for Non-Majors
Micro-Molecular WHAT?
It’s Tuesday night. You should be studying the cellular structure of amoebas, but you’re too enthralled by the episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation that you TIVOed last week. And besides, you’re no good at all that scientific jargon anyway, so what’s the point in studying?

If this sounds familiar, Barry University is here to help. Working with a $137,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, professor Gil Ellis and his colleagues created new classes specifically for non-science majors with attention-grabbing titles such as “Alien Empire” and “Disease Detectives,” in which students study real-world diseases such as malaria, the West Nile Virus, and HIV.

Two years ago, Ellis developed the first class in the series, “The Biology of Crime,” with an initial enrollment of 20 students. The following year, 39 students signed up and the number multiplied to 62 the year after, forcing Ellis to cap enrollment at 50 students and three lab sections.

Students enrolled in “The Biology of Crime” do their work CSI-style on DNA fingerprinting, hair and fiber analysis, toxicology, and blood spattering analysis so they can learn scientific concepts from a real-world detective angle. Ellis sets up a mass grave on campus and students study the bones to determine the gender of the “victim.” They analyze the development of maggots on rotting beef liver to determine the “time of death.”

 “I’m finding that students are now taking more than one three-credit science course,” Ellis says. “I even found that this semester, some of the non-majors have declared biology for their major.”

He says the goal is to encourage non-science majors to think more like scientists so they can make better critical life choices. “The cognitive part of science education for non-majors is not as important as the self-efficacy issue,” Ellis says. “A head full of facts for them isn’t an issue. Rather, how well they judge and evaluate the science they read about every day [is].”

Ellis currently is working with the support of NSF to advertise this revolutionary idea in traditional science teaching, hoping other colleges will utilize the effective hands-on nature of Barry’s innovative curriculum. —LD

Contact Ellis at gellis@mail.barry.edu.

Best Student Academic Support
Call on the A-Team
On the early ‘80s TV show, members of the A-Team were mercenaries for hire. If you are a student at Florida International University, you can still get the A-Team to rescue you. Thankfully, FIU's Academic Team can help save your grade in math, science, or English.

Each of the residence halls has two A-Team tutors, one who focuses on English and writing and another whose expertise is math and science. The team renders students with individual assistance, academic programs, and group study sessions in the residence halls. And we pity the fool who doesn't know that they are the best among the best. A-Team members were chosen through an elimination process that went from essays to interviews. "I'm lucky to have fantastic students working with me," says Suzanne Onorato, coordinator for residential life.

More than 880 students have called on the power of the A-Team, and over 35 group tutoring sessions have met without international incident. Not convinced yet? A-Team has also helped students succeed academically with nearly 30 programs in FIU's five residence halls.

Now it's safe to relax. The next time you're struggling with an English paper or have no idea how to solve a math problem, just stop by the center of operations (OK, it's really the front desk of the residence halls) and ask for an appointment.  After all, everyone is doing it and no one wants to get a bad grade. —MAC

Contact Onorato at Suzanne.Onorato@fiu.edu.

Best Rebirth
Spurred Back into Action
It seems that in today’s world everyone wants to look a little younger. Even old college publications like the Rollins College—Brevard newspaper, The Sandspur, are indulging in a little cosmetic surgery.

Established in 1894, The Sandspur boasts the title of oldest college newspaper in the state of Florida, but thanks to efforts made by the college and its student body, it no longer looks it.

Once plagued by a lack of funding, editorial guidance, and sense of ownership since the paper’s layout was outsourced to an independent contractor, The Sandspur was reborn over the past year.

The college pledged to provide increased resources to the ailing publication in hopes of sparking a new sense of pride and purpose in it. With new computers funded by the college, the student staff can create their own layout, thus retaining full control of the publication. The college also financed the hiring of a part-time staff adviser.

“After the college invested money for new computers that allowed the paper to be designed in-house, the students took the ball and really ran with it,” says Dean Hybl, assistant director of athletics for communications and The Sandspur’s staff adviser. “Their level of pride increased significantly and they began to believe in the importance of their work.”

Taking advantage of the opportunity, students worked hard to overcome obstacles such as learning how to use QuarkXPress to create the layout, and setting a regular weekly publication deadline that allowed for timely coverage of events. Some of the successful initiatives made by this team include an entirely staff-maintained web site and a new humor page.

The most challenging problem they tackled was revolutionizing the content and style of their newspaper, making it more appealing to their peers.

“The Sandspur had become so inconsistent and the quality was so poor that few students even bothered to look at the paper,” Hybl says.

Attracting the student body’s interest also proved a challenge. After a month of handing out papers to students outside the dining hall each Thursday, the staff has boosted the paper’s credibility and popularity. Today, participation in The Sandspur’s production has increased from its staff of eight lonely writers to more than 30 staffers and contributors who have since rallied around them.

“Our hope is that eventually there will be no students left at Rollins who remember the time before The Sandspur was a quality paper that is an important communication source for campus,” Hybl says. —MDJ

Contact Hybl at dhybl@rollins.edu.

Best Business Outreach
The Capitalist Kids
While most college students could use a lesson in budgeting their money, Students In Free Enterprise from Lake City Community College are passing on their financial skills to a younger generation of spenders. SIFE students at LCCC "design educational outreach projects and go into the college, the community, and public schools to teach others about the principles of free enterprise," says Dr. Sheri Carder, professor of marketing and management.

Last January, 75 Girl Scouts at Camp Kateri had something in their pockets besides a great brownie smile—they had $300. SIFE members gave each girl a stipend in phony bills to "pay" expenses for the weekend. The mission was accomplished—the girls learned how to budget their money while SIFE students learned how to fight for more covers while camping in unheated cabins.

In the summer, girls and boys attend a week-long Money Camp where they "learn everything from how much it really costs to own a pet to how local businesses operate," Carder says. The most popular part is when the kids follow the production of their own Cookie Factory each morning. Young entrepreneurs develop a business plan from beginning to end, and when the camp is over, they "sell" their business and each gets a $5 profit.

SIFE students have also worked with "senior citizens who wanted to know more about researching the stock market and were inexperienced with computers," Carder says. In addition, SIFE has had resume writing and interview workshops for different LCCC groups.

SIFE's outreach to both the young and old hasn't gone unnoticed.  According to Carder, LCCC's SIFE has been bringing home the goods. "We've won every major Student Government award on campus for the last five years," she says. Last year, SIFE completed 47 projects, partnered with 31 different community groups, and reached over 5,000 individuals directly through projects—all on a budget of just over $1,500.

Since money doesn't grow on trees, SIFE members fundraise to cover their outreach budget. In an Easter Bunny fundraiser, students created different designs for Easter baskets such as the "Peter Rabbit in a Pot," a hand-painted clay flower pot, and "Cottontail in a Cup," a 20-ounce ceramic soup mug. The sales brought them $400 in profits, allowing them to continue their outreach projects. —MAC

Contact Carder at carders@mail.lakecity.cc.fl.us.

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