Best of Florida Schools 2005
General Categories—Page 13

Best Honors Orientation
Optimizing Orientation
Embarrassing parents, two-hour campus tours in suffocating humidity, and overnight stays in dorms with the subtle stench of mildew. It’s the dreaded freshman orientation—at least at most college campuses. But, things are a little different at the Hillsborough Community College Honors Institute.

While most students at other schools are contemplating just how hard the fall would be if they made a running jump out the nearest window, members of the incoming class at the HCC Honors Institute are busy untangling themselves from human knots with their newest friends. Students who have already been through orientation run the show, keeping the length to a minimum and maximizing the fun.

“I think it’s a great idea because most orientations can be boring,” says George Graham, one of the Honors Institute’s student ambassadors. “What’s great about our student-run orientation is it gives students a more ‘homey’ impression.”

Each incoming student is matched with a student ambassador, a peer who has been enrolled in the school for at least a year and volunteers to help new students adjust. The ambassadors guide up to 15 charges through the orientation. Each topic is presented in a different way, and presentations are held in rooms all around campus, providing students with a combination info-session and tour of the grounds.

But, the orientation doesn’t stop there. While the student ambassadors and their groups participate in organized team-building activities throughout the year, they often spend time together outside of school as well. Academic program coordinator Sherry Rix says that’s one of the program’s best features.

“What’s really cool is that the student ambassador often will come back and say, ‘Well I think I’m going to take this student and this student to the movies tonight,’” she says.

Students participating in the program know that they immediately have a group of friends to hang out with and a mentor to call on. In fact, many students enjoy the experience so much that they decide to become student ambassadors themselves. Carlie Phaneuf, a student ambassador, says that she still keeps in touch with her former ambassador, who’s now a student at the University of Florida.

“When I first got to HCC, I was a little bit scared and not sure what was going to happen. My ambassador Hang Tran was so heartwarming,” she says. “She’s the one who thought I would be a good ambassador.”

At the end of each orientation, students fill out a feedback form. The most common complaint: “It’s too long.” At a mere three hours, the incoming students at HCC’s Honors institute should count their lucky stars! —MM

Contact Rix at Srix@hccfl.edu

Best Western Event
Home on the Campus
Bull riding, calf roping, and gun slinging. These weren’t stunts from a classic Clint Eastwood flick—they were all part of the old-fashioned fun at Pasco-Hernando Community College’s first annual “Wild Wild West Day.” More than 400 students, faculty, and staff threw on their cowboy hats and saddled up for a day in the life of an outlaw.

The country music played for about four hours as PHCC “mavericks” enjoyed down-home cookin’ like hot dogs and potato salad and tested their riding stamina on the mechanical bull. “The response was excellent,” says Bob Bade, coordinator of student activities. “I don’t know if a lot of students actually went to class that day.”

Organization members, co-workers, and campus visitors posed in traditional western costumes for free “Old-Time Photos”—one of the highlights of the day. “The company representative running the Old-Time Photos ran out of film,” Bade says. “He said it was the first time that ever happened and that PHCC had more students take photos than the University of Georgia did a few months before.”

To conquer its western theme, PHCC had a faux calf-roping event, horseshoe games, and a cork-gun rifle range. “I was surprised by how much the students enjoyed shooting the cork guns,” Bade says.

The event was one of the most popular in PHCC history, and students are already roping together plans for a second ride in April. Ya’ll come back now, ‘ya hear? –LD

Contact Bade at badeb@phcc.edu.

Best Arts Showcase
ERAU Blasts into Art
Looking at the sky with a pencil in his hand, 5-year-old Graham Force began to sketch a plane from the sky. Today, the sky is still the inspiration for his masterpieces.

The aeronautical artist’s exhibit kicked off the 2004-2005 Arts and Letters Series at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The series also included other guests like Philip Deaver, an award-winning writer and director of creative writing at Rollins College, and the Harmonic Motion Trio, which put on a performance that was a progressive blend of international music and dance.

While ERAU has a reputation for being a “science” school, students are exposed to a myriad of subjects and ideas. “Embry-Riddle isn’t a technical school, it’s a university, and part of the mandate of any university is what they call ‘broadening the cultural horizons,’” says Linda Straubel, assistant professor of humanities and social sciences and chair of the Arts and Letters Committee. “The Arts and Letters Series provides more for the students not just by technical lecturers but by way of opera, Shakespearean plays, writers, poets, dancers, and art.”

Every year, there’s a new artist displayed through the Arts and Letters Series. Force creates his signature abstract masterpieces by painting on large canvases behind fighter jets, using the blast from the jet to create the effect. This unique technique—in addition to his collection of pen and ink drawings of planes—ties in well with ERAU’s aeronautical focus. Force received mostly positive feedback from students, she says.

“I think the bigger pieces—the paintings—were rather experimental in the combination of realistic detail and expressionistic background,” Straubel says. —RG

Contact Straubel at straue75@erau.edu.

Best Health Fair
FSU Spreads the Health
A Green Acres-style partnership occurred last summer when kids from the country and students from the city teamed up at Florida State University. The College of Medicine’s Minority Association for Pre-Health Students (M.A.P.S.) became mentors for rural high-school students in the Rural Introduction to Pre-Medical Education (R.I.P.E.) program.

“R.I.P.E. was initiated so that high-school students in rural areas would have an in-depth exposure to a campus environment,” says Marsha Fridie, graduate assistant in the College of Medicine. “In addition, they’d have exposure to academic and applied curricula in medical, health, and science education.”

The health fair was a major event and the culmination of all the preparation that the M.A.P.S. mentors and R.I.P.E. students had done for three weeks. Organizers contacted the Southeastern Community Blood Center to include a blood drive as a major part of the fair. Also, mentors and students made arrangements to accommodate the 40-foot blood mobile that the blood center provided. Furthermore, various Tallahassee food establishments made food and drink donations so that participants in the fair could have lunch and blood donors could have some nourishment.

Mentors manned four medical stations and helped train students to calculate body mass index, take blood pressure, take and evaluate blood-glucose levels, and take the pulse rate of participants. All participants received a record sheet to record their vital statistics taken at each station.

“Dr. Eugene Towers from the FSU College of Medicine was also on hand as the consulting physician to provide medical advice to participants if necessary,” Fridie says.

Organizers distributed pedometers, giveaways, and health-related brochures to the total of 150 students, staff, and faculty who took part in the health fair. Brochures contained information on cancer prevention, heart health, arthritis, degenerative-disease management, nutrition, obesity, and exercise.

“I think it was one of the most successful health fairs in Florida State history,” Fridie says. –MF

Contact Fridie at marsha.fridie@med.fsu.edu.

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