Technician
wednesday january
26 2011
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
Spring convocation held for First Year College
Giving Back
Since its inception in 1996, First Year College has held their own convocation.
Scott Wittig, is the author of Holy It!: A guide to finding and doing your thing – Your ‘It’. Wittig was a banker who now resides in Apex, N.C. Because of events Wittig spoke Chelsey Francis about at convocation, he found his News Editor passion. Wittig’s goal was to talk “You’ve got a unique opportunity to students about their passion in to choose the life you want and not life, as well as their purpose and the life others think you should have.” their project for life. “Passion will get you teary-eyed This was the main take-away message for the approximately 700 stu- in front of 700 people you don’t dents in First Year College and Trans- know,” Wittig said, while he was ‘teary-eyed’ fer Program who telling the story attended convoof his daughcation Tuesday ter’s friend with night in Stewart an inoperable Theatre. brain tumor on First Year Colher brain stem. lege holds a small“It just obvier convocation at ously hit me bethe beginning of Scott Wittig, keynote speaker tween the eyes,” the Spring semesWittig said. ter to help refocus According to Wittig, passion can the group and get everyone ready to be serious about the semester, accord- come from anywhere. His passion ing to Karen Hauschild, the associate came from the situation with his daughter’s friend. He quit his job director of First Year College. “This is something we do every as a banker to help plan a birthday Spring semester for First Year College party for her, then found his pasand the Transfer program. We rec- sion and purpose in life. “I joined 10 women, planned the ognize the achievements of students, our resident mentors, student coun- mackdaddy birthday party for her,” cil, the scholarship winners, give our Wittig said. “We had this princess advocacy awards and have a keynote themed birthday party. She arrived speaker,” Hauschild said. “The Ladies in a horse drawn carriage. She was in Red will also be singing a couple all dressed up, her parents were all selections.” The keynote speaker at the event, fyc continued page 3
“Passion will get you teary-eyed in front of 700 people you don’t know.”
OIT sponsors student advisory group OIT meeting aims to give students the ability to assist University technology officials.
Donations/Campaign Money
Lee Daniello
For more information about the IT student advisory group: visit http://oit.ncsu.edu/it-studentadvisory
Staff Writer
Students looking to shape the future of technology on campus can give input at the IT Student Advisory Group meeting Wednesday. The IT student advisory group allows students from all disciplines to express concerns, suggestions and ask questions to IT Technicians and University officials. The student group will be meeting 2 to 3 times this semester to discuss changes OIT could make. The group was founded last year by Jennifer Riehle, technology outreach specialist with the Office of Information Technology, to give students the chance to express concerns about the University’s computing system. The group meets several times each semester to stay updated. “We meet 2 to 3 times [during] the semester to allow students time to
alex sanchez/Technician
McDonald’s director of operations Tony Myers chats with Jan and Shelby Richards, wife and daughter of Western boulevard McDonald’s owner Ric Richards at an event honoring former women’s basketball head coach Kay Yow Jan. 25, 2010. The event was held at the restaurant and featured fundraising raffles, promotional smoothie cups sold by Delta Zeta, and a presentation of two donations totalling $5000 to the Kay Yow foundation. The first was given in honor of Kay Yow and the second in honor of the owners’ neighbor, Jen Newman, who is undergoing cancer treatment.
Q&a the winners of Think Outside the Brick with
Competition increases awareness Technician sat down with two of the four members of the group that won the Think Outside the Brick Competition sponsored by Student Government. Think Outside the Brick intends to promote awareness of the environment and incorporate students in the process.
ple could take those ideas and run with it. I think it was a combination of everyone’s idea, Zack especially.” Eliza: “We were going a different way with it, kind of looking at doing a solar greenhouse with it. Our friend Zack, who’s in the group with us, thought that it would be kind of a cool idea to maybe do something that the students would see more. And that the students could actually use more versus something like a greenhouse that wouldn’t really even be seen, because it would have been part of the WESA garden that won the Think Outside the Brick last year. We agreed with him. We thought it would be much more beneficial to the students because it would be something that they could use daily.” Sonum: “A lot of the things that we emphasized, or at least when we were campaigning for this project, was that we really wanted for students to be able to see something that represented alternative energy, not just a little sign that says ‘this is run by solar power.’ You can actually see the solar panels. That was actually like the main idea, to be able to enjoy something with learning about alternative energy, because I’m sure there are people that don’t know that much about it. It would be open to mainly N.C. State students, but even people from other schools visiting could see it and be really impressed with our innovations and also the public and the local area and the community.” Techni-
Chelsey Francis News Editor
To be added to the mailing list: e-mail it-sag@lists.ncsu.edu Source: OIT Office
speak with the chief information officer about a number of technology issues on campus,” Riehle said. Each meeting features specific topics of discussion based on what is going on around campus at the time. The most recent meeting, held Oct. 26 in Witherspoon Hall, featured discussions regarding MyPack Portal updates and IT security issues. “We generally have a few topics in mind based on what’s going on
oit continued page 3
insidetechnician
Technician: What is your plan that won the Think Outside the Brick competition? Eliza Jones: “The idea of it is that we have a gazebo on campus which is outdoors and makes it a little bit more comfortable for people doing studying or meeting with groups to be outdoors instead of inside in the library. You get a little better feel out there. The solar panels will power a couple of plugs, sockets. So that students can sit in the gazebo and charge their laptops, their cell phones, any electronic device while in the comfort of the outdoors. It’s a nice alternative to being cooped up in the library.” Technician: How did your group come up with this idea? Sonum Nerurkar: “I don’t remember [how we came up with the idea.] I know we were brainstorming at a WESA meeting and we were brainstorming ideas for Think Out side t he Brick that peo-
Men’s basketball loses third road ACC game against Clemson See page 8.
Haiti: a year in retrospect See page 5.
viewpoint features classifieds sports
4 5 7 8
Winners of the Think Outside the Brick Competition: Grand Prize: ($1000) “Solar Gazebo”: Eliza Jones, Bryan Maxwell, Sonum Nerurkar, and Zac Schnell Location: to be determined Runner Ups ($500 each) “Hall Light Timers”: Kyle Barth Location: Quad “Planter Boxes/Community Garden” Scott Hefner Location: Quad Source: Rachel Conley, Student Government sustainability director
cian: How is the planning for the gazebo going so far? Sonum: “We’re really pushing for the gazebo, however, because of landscape and the politics of everything, we might just be adding the solar panels to an existing structure. We’re still trying to work out the kinks with that, so we don’t know exactly where it will be, but we’re going to try to put the solar panels somewhere so that students can use it and hopefully have that in the next year, and maybe implement the gazebo and the solar panels, in the next few years, like in a longer plan, but we don’t have anything set for sure, we’re still trying to work with the administration and figure things out.” Eliza: “We haven’t really gotten too deep into it. We’ve been meeting to with the Sustainability office. They’ve been really helpful to us in answering our questions.” Technician: How hard is it to talk to the people you need to talk to about this? Sonum: “Sometimes it’s hard to get in touch with people that are higher up, just because they’re so busy. It’s nice having a middleman, sort of like the Sustainability Commission and David Dean and stuff, just because they go to those meetings. They can go to those meetings and talk to them. Brian, a guy in our group, has talked to the landscape architect because he worked on the SOUL garden, and talked about that. I definitely think N.C. State is great about really incor-
brick continued page 3 Graphic by carsi ton
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