Posts tagged campus
Abare Elected As Head of ICUF Council of Presidents
Aug 1st
Flagler College president William T. Abare, Jr., Ed.D., has been elected as the chairman of the Council of Presidents of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida.
“It is an honor and a privilege to be elected chairman of the Council of Presidents of ICUF, an association that includes 31 private, not-for-profit, educational institutions all based in Florida and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges & Schools,” said Abare. “My highest priority will be to ensure that the State Legislature continues to support the ICUF institutions by funding the Florida Resident Access Grant.”
As chairman, Abare will have the responsibility of chairing the meetings of the Council of Presidents; appointing standing committees of the COP; working with the President of ICUF in developing agendas for all COP meetings and the annual retreat of the COP; representing ICUF institutions at state, regional and national meetings; and advocating to the Florida Legislature on behalf of ICUF institutions state funding for student financial aid programs.
“Bill Abare is a recognized higher education leader in Florida and he always places the need for quality access for Florida’s students in the forefront of education policy discussions,” said Dr. Ed Moore, president of ICUF. “His fellow ICUF presidents choose Bill to lead our organization based on his talent, his passion and his heart. The ICUF organization is pleased he will be our chair during these interesting times in Florida.”
ICUF institutions serve more than 150,000 students at over 140 sites around Florida.
Flagler College is an independent, four-year, comprehensive baccalaureate college located in St. Augustine, Fla. The college offers 24 majors, 29 minors and two pre-professional programs, the largest majors being business, education and communication. Small by intent, Flagler College has an enrollment of about 2,500 students, as well as a satellite campus at Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee, Fla. U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review regularly feature Flagler as a college that offers quality education at a relatively low cost; tuition is $23,690, including room and board. A relatively young institution (founded in 1968), Flagler College is also noted for the historic beauty of its campus. The main building is Ponce de Leon Hall, built in 1887 as a luxury resort by Henry Flagler, who co-founded the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller. For more on Flagler College, visit www.flagler.edu.
Source: Flagler College
Stevenson aims to help students in the job market
Jul 10th
Finding a job in a stifled economy can be a difficult task, especially for students about to graduate college. Flagler College’s new Director of Career Services, Tara Stevenson, is trying to make the process a little less daunting.
“While we’re not a placement office, we can give students all the resources and tools so they can utilize them to take their next step,” said Stevenson, who is beginning her fourth year at the college. “Whether it’s for a job search or to find out more about where the student would like to go and then ultimately help them build that network to get them there, we can help.”
Stevenson said Flagler College’s career services department offers plenty of opportunities for the student interested in preparing for the real world. From one-on-one services, to events and fairs featuring employers and graduate schools. Stevenson said she’s even planning on hosting an event in September that will bring 50 law schools to the Flagler campus.
And the dark cloud of a bad economy shouldn’t overwhelm students, says Stevenson, who has also spent time as a student life and leadership development specialist in higher education. Employers are hiring.
“We have so many connections to different employers in this office who are coming to us saying ‘We need people,'” she said. “Whether it’s volunteering, creating a relationship with someone so they can use them as a reference, an internship or an actual job, employers are looking.”
As the new director of the department, Stevenson said she would like to get more involved in the classrooms, offering specific help for individual majors.
“Students spend four or five years here and they’re so immersed in their major and their studies and sometimes career services is an afterthought,” Stevenson said.
She adds that her goal is to fine-tune programs already in place such as Thursdays with Employers, which brings an employer to campus each week. Stevenson says that turning events like these into bigger successes sometimes involves changing the mindset of the students.
“I want students to see these events as less of a ‘Oh this person is on campus, I need to go get a job’ and more of a ‘Oh this person is on campus, how can I work with them? How can I network with them?’ ” Stevenson said. “Students need to know that they can utilize us while they’re still here and not just when they’re getting ready to leave us for the real world.”
Source: Flagler College
“Damsels in Distress” Causes the Audience to Be in Pain
May 12th
“Audience in Pain”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Damsels in Distress is the fourth movie written and directed by Whit Stillman, all of them have received favorable reviews, but I thought this was the worst movie I have seen in a very long time.
The story takes place at a school called Seven Oaks University, and it begins during new-student orientation at the start of the school year when three girls approach a new girl attending the school and one of them says to her, “We’d like to help you.”
The three girls are Violet, Heather, and Rose, and the new girl is Lily, who is a sophomore and is transferring into the university.
The leader of the group is Violet, and she does most of the talking, which takes place when they are walking, which takes place when they are dancing, and which even takes place when the girls get into bed at night, where they all sleep in the same room.
Violet, Heather, and Rose volunteer at the Suicide Prevention Center, where they help some students to get over their depression with tap dancing.
Incidentally, when Violet herself gets depressed later in the story over a boy she thinks she is in love with, she doesn’t like to use the word “depressed.” She prefers to say that she “is in a tailspin.”
The university has social fraternities on campus, but they make a point of saying that they aren’t Greek fraternities, as there are on most college campuses. These are Roman-letter fraternities like DU, where the girls all go to a party and make fun of the members of the fraternity, whom they call morons and think of their attending as “youth outreach.”
There is no dramatic arc in this movie, just a dramatic plateau. No, make that a valley with no drama at all, because it never reaches the level of a plateau.
I wondered if all the people making this movie were as bored making it as I was watching it. I kept thinking, “Why don’t they just stop talking and do something?”
Violet’s ambition is to start a new dance craze, and the movie ends with a big musical dance number. No, two of them, but by then it is still too late.
Damsels in Distress is so bad that if I never see it again, it will be too soon.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
