Best of Florida Schools 2004
Web-Only Categories—Page 5

Best SGA Meeting Schedule
Rollins SGA Meets in Bed
Some people dutifully drag themselves to five o’clock meetings by car or bus,  wearing their uncomfortable work clothes. However, the members of the Rollins College-Brevard Student Government Association can shuffle to such meetings in pajamas and slippers.

This is possible because SGA recently leaped into the telecommuting age by scheduling its meetings on-line for the 2003-2004 school year.

SGA is using Yahoo! Groups, a free on-line service that allows all SGA members and currently enrolled Rollins students access to message board postings, group files, photos, database uploading tools, meeting minutes, calendars, and more.

Traditionally, SGA held its monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. on campus. However, students’ schedule conflicts inevitably created problems when a quorum was needed for planning events or voting on budget issues.

Members of the SGA executive council found a solution by taking advantage of the fact that all students now have access to the internet. Students welcomed the idea enthusiastically, and its application has been a success.

“Our student body is as non-traditional as you can get,” says Marianne Bartman, assistant dean for operations and student services. “It was like pulling teeth to get people to come to meetings.”

By holding meetings on-line, SGA encourages participation from busy traditional and non-traditional students, who now may access information and give their input to SGA without disrupting their busy work and family routines. —MDJ

Contact Bartman at mbartman@rollins.edu.

Best Edible Art
All in Good Taste
How can you tell if a piece of art is good? If you’re in the Rollins College— Brevard class called “Cuisine and Art,” the answer is easy. Just taste it!

The popular interdisciplinary class Cuisine (and/as/in) Art, more commonly known as “Cuisineart,” explores how food relates to art and culture and how it structures our lives. Through literary texts ranging from Shakespearean tragedies to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, students fulfilling their interdisciplinary requirement explore the humanities and fulfill their appetite for knowledge in a mouthwatering way.

For the annual fall ArtFe(a)st, students pick a theme based on texts studied in class and develop an exposition, providing food and decorations for displays.

In past events, students have gone all out on displays such as I Fondue—Do You?, where a trendy fondue arrangement, reminiscent of the 1970s, was served.

Another exposition’s centerpiece was The Feast of MacBeth, where students re-enacted the feast featured in the Shakespearean play, complete with spectacular medieval costume and banquet fare of turkey legs, cheese, fruit, bread, wine, and cider.

“The creativity of the students is often more surprising than the food itself,” says Marianne Bartman, assistant dean for operations and student services.

Kate Kimbro’s display dealt with favorite foods of favorite authors.

“She created a huge backdrop of portraits and quotations, then had, for-sampling items such as madelines (Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past),” says Maggie Dunn, instructor of the class.

Food-related songs feature as background music and clips from food films entertain attendees while they enjoy a variety of culinary treats prepared by students.  —MDJ

Contact Bartman at mbartman@rollins.edu.

Best Residence Halls
Ra-Ra Residences Halls
While a new campus residence looks great on the outside, sometimes cramped rooms and low ceilings lurk inside. Anyone who takes a quick tour of the two new halls at Saint Leo University would be impressed by the two- and four-bedroom suites that give 360 students a place to call home. The buildings were designed to bring students together with lounge areas, conference rooms, and gathering places—not isolate them in their rooms. Even the lack of load-bearing walls in the center of the structure, which allows for easy renovation as students’ needs change, shows forward thinking. But the thing most beneficial to resident didn’t come from an architect’s plans, but from the staff.

“The residence life staff prides itself on selecting students with strong leadership skills, and in doing so, has ended up with a diversity of staff never seen before,” says Ingrid Gonzalez, assistant director of residence life. Ideally, a residence assistant is someone students can relate to. Having 11 athletes, two ordained ministers, members of the gospel choir and orientation team, the president, vice-president, treasurer, and board members of the Student Government Union serving as RAs means residents can go to the source when they want to know just about anything regarding campus life. And these RAs know about more than just their chosen vocation or sport—they submit to rigorous training to prepare themselves for the school terms ahead.

“We first go off-campus and have a team retreat that helps them build friendships and relationships to support one another so they’ll be successful as a group working together,” Gonzalez says. “Then, we come back on campus and really begin training for what an RA may have to handle.” The RAs get exposure to everything from pinpointing health issues to identifying funny smells. “We’ve had police come on campus and do a ‘controlled burn’ so RAs will recognize the smell of marijuana,” Gonzalez says. “The fire department comes and mocks up the experience of having the building on fire.”

Although the sheer diversity of the staff this year was mostly a happy accident, Gonzalez says they plan to recruit more aggressively from all areas of campus life. “We’re serving students better than ever with this staff,” she says. —SRR

Contact Director of Residence Life Mark Stier at mark.stier@saintleo.edu.

Best Noisemaker
Trashy Music
One look around a dark room reveals bashed-in trash cans, empty water bottles, and broken brooms meticulously organized into neat piles, despite their weathered appearances. Someone could easily walk into the room and think they’ve wandered into the middle of a “neat” garbage dump. However, it’s really the practice room for members of Southeastern College’s FX team, which finds musical inspiration in these items discarded by others.

The FX team is a percussion-style music group that pounds on things like old oil barrels instead of a brand-new drum set. The group devotes countless hours every week to practicing their beats, perfecting their “trashy” performance. Local churches, homeless centers, and juvenile detention facilities beg FX to perform for their members.

“The best thing is seeing the people’s faces when we’re up on stage.” says Shanna Jager, a two-year FX member. “It’s so heartwarming to know that you’ve bettered someone’s life just by performing for them. We didn’t think we could make an impact on people like this, but we are.”

Since they’re a student-led group, FX auditions potential members themselves. In addition to being able to keep a basic beat, read percussion music, mimic a step routine, and show a lot of creativity, new members also have to meet the group’s high academic standards. Out of 30 auditions in the fall, only four students were accepted as members of the group.

FX was recently invited to play at a youth convention in Venezuela next year. The group hopes to fundraise enough money to participate in the event by selling tickets to a concert they will perform at Southeastern College. —JT

Contact Jager at shan_af33@hotmail.com.

Best Exchange Program
Exchanging Wisdom
A Japanese proverb says that to teach is to learn. Embracing this philosophy, Warner Southern College invites students and teachers from Tamagawa Seigakuin, a Church of God high school for girls in Tokyo, to participate in the college’s Tamasei English Program.

The three-week long Tamasei program takes place each summer, providing an opportunity for students from both schools to learn about one another’s cultures. For the duration of their stay, Japanese students live in the college dormitories and attend classes, while Warner students teach them.

“I use my seniors to help teach these kids,” says James Moyer, chair of the communication arts department and program director. “The Japanese are a very polite culture and they’re a very amenable kind of people, so our interactions with them are very positive. They’re eager to learn.”

The 33 students and three teachers practice their English skills; participate in American college life and planned cultural tours that include shopping excursions to Wal-Mart and Eagle Ridge Mall; and visit Epcot, Kennedy Space Center, and Islands of Adventure. The students experience typical American Christmas, Easter, and birthday celebrations, which are planned for their amusement and cultural experience.

For two weekends, 16 host families volunteer through church affiliations, welcoming students into their homes to help them experience everyday American life outside of the campus environment. Through the “Homestay” part of the program, students get to spend two days of total cultural immersion in Lake Wales and South Daytona, becoming part of their host families’ lives.

“If they go shopping, the girls go shopping. If they do yard work, the girls do yard work,” Moyer says. “But on Sunday, we like them to have a church experience so they can see what it’s like in the United States.”

As a key part of the Tamasei experience, the visiting Tamagawa Seigakuin students keep journals to record their thoughts and note differences between the Japanese and American cultures. Among the things the Japanese students note the most are the availability of space here compared to Tokyo, where residents are used to tiny apartments and crowded spaces, and the flatness of the Florida landscape. “They enjoy the big sky,” Moyer says.

The girls receive feedback from the college on their writing skills and their journals help organizers key into the strengths and weaknesses of the program so that it may continue to be a positive experience. —MDJ

Contact Moyer at moyerj@warner.edu.

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