Best of Florida Schools 2004
General Categories—Page 1

Best Performing Arts
Spotlights and Service at IRCC
Look out Broadway: Future show stoppers at Indian River Community College are already receiving standing ovations at sold-out performances. With a Greek tragedy, Neil Simon comedy, Woody Allen farce, and a touring holiday murder mystery, these leading men and women aren’t just expanding their repertoires—they’re getting numerous chances to show off for live audiences.

For many theatre students, finding a venue to perform at can be more difficult than memorizing lines. “At other schools, sometimes it’s like you’re touring at your own facility,” says David Moberg, chairman of IRCC’s fine arts department. But IRCC doesn’t let outside acts upstage its own players. “Our college gives first priority to us and books around our scheduled performances,” Moberg says.

While most colleges only put on one big fine arts production each semester, IRCC lets its students star in 10 plays and five music and dance performances during the school year. Having both the 624-seat McAlpin Fine Arts Center and the new Wynne Black Box theater available for student shows means even more opportunities for dancers, singers, and thespian-wannabes to practice their craft.

Auditions aren’t limited to veteran drama queens and prima donnas, giving students with varying levels of experience an equal shot to break into the biz.  “Ninety-five percent of students coming out are from the theatre department, but try-outs are open to everyone—all the commuter and dual-enrollment students, too,” Moberg says.

You don’t have to be a theater buff to appreciate the role IRCC’s fine arts department has played in their community. “We wanted to come up with some way to give back,” Moberg says. One solution: giving those who donated blood to the South Florida Blood bank free tickets to the October 2003 Count Dracula show. Donors were rewarded for their pains with a bloody good evening: a humorous retelling of the Bram Stoker vampire tale. In November, the department requested that patrons of the Neil Simon’s Dinner Party performances bring food donations. Overall, they collected 896 pounds of food items for the Treasure Coast Food Bank.

In the future, Moberg says he hopes to expand the school’s children’s theatre connections, forming more partnerships with local schools. The fine arts department has already developed the Performing Arts Academy, a series of dance and theatre workshops run by IRCC students for 7- to 15-year-olds.  By running these workshops, students aren’t just supplementing elementary students’ music and theatre educations; they’re also raising scholarship funds. With 97 full-time fine arts scholarships offered at the school, current students are helping their department support IRCC’s future Hollywood hopefuls. —AMC

Contact Moberg at dmoberg@ircc.edu.

Best Voter Recruitment
Rise and Vote
The disc jockey on the stage blasts the latest hip-hop hits while college students dance in the street. Organizers pass out free food and drinks to the growing crowd. Suddenly, the music stops and everyone listens as a politician speaks about the evils of high taxes and what he’ll do about them once inaugurated. The crowd focuses on his words and silently makes an educated decision about voting for him. When the politician finishes his speech, the DJ cues up another hip-hop tune and the dancing begins again. This party with a political beat, called Wake-up Wednesday, occurs every year at the University of South Florida.

USF sought to add a little bit of their own spin to the national program Participate America Week and came up with Wake-up Wednesday in 2000. On Wake-up Wednesday, Student Government officials organize roundtable discussions in classrooms on the various political issues facings students. They hope that once students recognize that political issues such as potential tuition hikes touch their own lives, they’ll be affected enough to register to vote.

Wake-up Wednesday must be working, because it’s kicking butt in the race of Florida universities to get students registered. All of Florida’s public universities are required to hold one registration drive per year. Most universities have tried to follow in USF’s footsteps—unfortunately, none have been as successful. USF leads the pack by registering more than 500 students in one week.

“This is a very difficult and time-consuming event to plan. I start planning this event in May, and the event doesn’t happen until the third week of September,” says Jarrod Ali, SG attorney general and coordinator of Wake-up Wednesday, “SG is the best organization to plan Wake-up Wednesday because administrators or anyone of another generation wouldn’t know what activities to plan or which issues greatly affect student’s lives.”

Wake-up Wednesday organizers target college students who aren’t registered to vote yet. Forget pens and sticky notes as premiums from politicians. USF’s voting citizens come to eat free food and dance in the streets while listening to speakers ranging from the mayor to the reigning Miss USF talk about issues most critical to the students, such as the new touch-screen computerized voting system.

“There are a lot of students here who are eager to vote and get involved with the political process,” Ali says. “Even though our goal is the education of voters, we have a lot of fun.” —JT

Contact Ali at ag@sg.usf.edu or 813-974-9900.

Best Open House
Brevard’s Open House Party
Tux for the prom? Check. Graduation announcements? Check. Stop by Brevard Community College’s “Project Get Ready” open house?

Check? Among all the things graduating high school seniors need to do, going to Brevard’s recruitment party should be on the list.

For three years, “Project Get Ready” has let Brevard’s clubs and programs strut their stuff for potential students. This is no stuffy grip-and-grin event—the house is rockin’ with music, free food, and prizes. College wannabes can plan their futures by checking out the info from departments that will get them a job sooner than later, like the automotive or veterinary technician programs, or think about the long haul with university transfer information from schools like the University of Central Florida or Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Beyond the big stuff like planning life and career, students can take in the club scene…well, the clubs on campus, anyway. Members of the Multicultural Club, Phi Theta Kappa, Brain Bowl, and Student Ambassadors can help the newbies hook up with the group that will make the most of their interests.

“This was the third year that ‘Project Get Ready’ was held, and it evolved from a PTK leadership project,” says Catherine J. Beam, student services and student development specialist. PTK members spend time during the event hangin’ with kids and parents, talking about why they chose Brevard.

The college makes sure that if they’re going to throw a party, everybody knows about it. “Weeks prior to the event, BCC students went to the high schools and passed out flyers and candy,” Beam says. Even high school newspapers got with the program, running articles about the event, and postcards were mailed out to graduating seniors.

Once the invites were out and the pizza was on its way, Brevard opened up the house to more than 300 prospective students at the Melbourne campus Student Services Center. “Students felt a sense of pride as they were able to help high school students understand how to get ready for life after high school,” Beam says. —SRR

Contact Beam at beamc@brevardcc.edu.

Best Criminal Justice Program
CSI: North Miami
Scooby-Doo and his friends travel the countryside in their psychedelic van searching for mysteries to solve. But students in the Criminal Justice Program at Johnson and Wales University don’t have to go any further than their own classroom to find fictitious capers. Johnson and Wales criminal justice students get hands-on experience solving crimes in their “CSI: North Miami” course.

CSI, which stands for Crime Scene Institute, opened last April and houses three areas for its program. Once the crime scene is set up, student investigators receive first-hand training in how to gather evidence before actually doing it. Students begin to solve a crime by processing the evidence, dusting the area for the perpetrator’s fingerprints, taking photographs, and using the latest technology to identify a bullet’s projection. The queasy don’t have to worry because their professors are the ones creating all these mysteries and crime scenes.

“Students who participate think this program is fascinating because it’s the closest they’ve been to the things in their textbooks that they’ve been learning for years,” says Dr. Leoni, department chair of the College of Business. “This is their first opportunity to practice what they know in a practical environment.”

Forget Scooby snacks to reward these hard-working students—they receive grades for their detective work. Most graduates are hired by the FBI, DEA, police offices, and security companies. —JT

Contact Leoni at jleoni@jwu.edu.

Best Community Relationship
Dollars and Sensitivity
College students inevitably drain their checking accounts to buy books and pay bills. Although some have revolutionized the world of Ramen-noodle cuisine, college-goers remain a steady source of local business income. With students being so integral to a college town’s economy, shouldn’t they have some input on the policies and services aimed at them? Officials at Florida Southern College think so and helped organize a hospitality resource panel that takes the student consumer seriously.

Each month, FSC students join an assembly of owners of local bars, restaurants, and hotels, law enforcement officers, city planners, and residents to solve problems related to hospitality services in Lakeland. “Any college in a town is going to be a big money maker for all those establishments, so you want to have those students’ viewpoints on what works and what doesn’t,” says Carole Obermeyer, vice president for student life. Taking the students’ opinions into account, the group works to encourage future business, improve communications among panel members, promote responsible vendor practices, set guidelines for advertising in college media, and create educational programs that will benefit Lakeland’s hospitality industry.

FSC was inspired to start a hospitality task force after seeing the University of Tampa’s relationship with the City of Tampa and Ybor City establishments. “We saw the successes they were having as far as everyone working together for responsible alcohol consumption, responsible alcohol sales, and advertisement,” Obermeyer says. “We thought it was something that would be good for our community also.”

Panel discussions have already improved communication between different stakeholders in the community, and the group continually works on strategies to improve that relationship. In the future, they hope to develop the downtown area as a hub for the city, with expansions that don’t reduce health, safety, or quality of life.

“Everyone’s working together to see what’s best for Lakeland,” Obermeyer says. —AMC

Contact Obermeyer at cobermeyer@flsouthern.edu.

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