ISSUE 11 APRIL 26
SPRING 2016
Shedding light on Florida Tech's veterans The next transition
Photo by Chandler Erisman Hanging up the uniform, military veterans share their transition stories from the battlefield to the halls of Florida Tech. “It got me off that dirt road I was born on in North Carolina and got me out to see the world,” said James Baucom, a user experience specialist at Evans Library. “The world that is in many ways the same and many ways different.” Baucom, along with others from faculty and staff to students, who have served their country for years, are now living life as civilians with their priceless memories that helped shape them. “I still got a lot of Marine in me,” said Ian Sumner, a former Marine and a current defensive lineman on the football team at Florida Tech. The transition from
military to civilian life is different for everyone. For Col. Stauffacher, the director of industry education programs at the College of Business, it was the appropriate time. “I realized when I left the military that I was leaving, it’s fun to talk about but it's something I don’t miss because I knew it was time to leave after 27 years, so you move on,” Stauffacher said. Others left the service for different reasons. For John Allen, professor and manager of assessment at the College of Business, it was family. “They asked me to go again and my daughter just told me not to go anymore and it's hard to say no to an 8 year old kid when you’ve missed a couple of years already,” Allen said. Many veterans can
testify to being put through intense situations before their transition. “It’s one of those huge amounts of stress, really quick decision making situations,” Allen said when telling one of his stories. Once while scanning the crowd on his way back to base in Iraq, Allen faced one of those situations. He saw a young boy begin to pull out a pistol from behind his back. “I can remember looking down the sights on my gun and at this kid,” Allen said. “At the last moment, as I’m switching from safe to semi to pull the trigger and become the latest guy on CNN, I see that the tip of the gun is orange and it’s a toy gun.” Allen ended up paying the little boy for his toy and breaking it in front of the crowd, but this did not save
the child from abuse inflicted by his family. The stress and nature of the military makes it a little different for veterans to adjust to civilian jobs. “In the military you have to have a little Teflon skin,” Baucom said. “You can’t get upset because somebody raised their voice at you, or said hey do this instead of saying hey would you please do this.” Sumner likens the interaction to receiving instructions from a football coach. “They don’t pat on the back, it’s always critiquing,” he said. “You can’t take it personally, you’ve got to have thick skin.” Allen sees things a little differently. “The hardest thing when you get out of the military is to find something that matters, something where you still affect something else in a large
way,” he said. “In the army it’s easy if I’m deployed. I had multi-billion dollar budgets and I was building roads in Afghanistan, and helping build clinics, so you have a very real effect that you can see when you’re relatively young.” Sumner appreciates coming back to the U.S. after serving in places like Afghanistan. “It definitely gave me a different perspective on life and how precious it is, how good we have it,” he said. “It opens your eyes to how lucky we really are to live in a country with freedoms.” This sense of gratitude manifested itself slightly differently in Baucom. // ABEER JANAKAT CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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LYNN EDWARD WEAVER The president that no one talks about
Bust of Lynn Weaver behind Olin Engineering Complex. Photo by Ebube Ubochi
Most students have probably never noticed the bronze bust behind the Olin Engineering Complex, but it stands in the likeness of one whose legacy is impossible to ignore. Lynn Edward Weaver served as the third president of Florida Tech and is credited with bringing about remarkable developments in the university's academic reputation, physical plant, budget, endowment and research programs. Despite his role in the maturation of Florida Tech into the institution it is today, many students seem to be unaware of his influence, partly because he is in retirement and not a particularly visible presence, but also because they are concerned with other things. “Most people don’t care about history,” said Chubby Idigo, junior in mechanical engineering. “Like, it’s cool
and all, but people couldn’t be bothered.” Daniel Oguntoyinbo, also a junior in mechanical engineering, feels like Weaver should be talked about more. “I’d never heard of him before this and considering the way the school carries itself,” he said, “I feel like more should be said about him if he did so much.” Gordon Patterson, professor of history at Florida Tech, is one of many who had a chance to work directly with Weaver in his early years as president, and describes him as a transformative figure in the history of Florida Tech. Weaver first came to
Melbourne in 1984, after building a remarkable career as an educator that included an associate deanship at the University of Oklahoma, a deanship at Auburn University, and department head positions in the University of Arizona’s engineering department and Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Nuclear Engineering and Health Physics.
// EBUBE UBOCHI SCI-TECH EDITOR
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In this issue INFORMATION OVERLOAD SPACEX LANDS ROCKET BOOSTER MENS ROWING, PALA WIN GOLD
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