The award was in recognition of the wide range of service activities that NC State students engage in. Almost 22,000 students at NC State spent a total of 330,000 hours doing community service work during the 2010-2011 academic year. The estimated “dollar value” of that effort was more than $7 million.
“North Carolina State University aims to transform lives, improve the human condition and create positive social change through partnerships with communities, business and government,” read the citation. “Community engagement partnership cultivation is an expectation of all college and university departments.”
The other institutions in the top five were Seattle University, University of Pennsylvania, Miami University and Carson Newman College.
Students in the Poole College of Management accounting program will offer free income tax return assistance this tax season. NC State students, faculty and residents in the community with an annual household income below $49,000 are eligible for the service.
The students are participating in the annual Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program (VITA), a programcreatedby the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has certified the students to prepare federal and North Carolina state income tax returns, and help individuals determine their qualification for Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC).
The services will be provided from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. in NC State’s Nelson Hall on the following dates:
February 11
February 25
March 17
March 31
The students will not be working with non-residents or individuals who do not have a valid Social Security number or Social Security card.
Mary Pat Bulfin, a Caldwell Fellow, had just returned from a LeaderShape conference sponsored by NC State’s CSLEPS (Center for Student Leadership Ethics & Public Service). She was looking for a way to translate what she had learned into a service opportunity. She had learned that the key to leadership is forming relationships. It’s about having people around you that you share a common experience with.
So she married that goal with the love she had for Jenna, a Sheltie Shepherd mix she had rescued from an animal shelter in 2005. The result is Pawssibilities, a new student organization on campus focused on outreach. Bulfin started it with three other friends, and right now the group has about 15 members who work with their dogs and with trainers, preparing them to go into hospitals and assisted-living facilities to visit with people.
“The whole goal of Pawssibilities is to empower students to let their love of animals be a catalyst to reach out to isolated communities in society,” Bulfin says.
The organization holds bi-weekly meetings, and Bulfin says NC State has been good about letting members bring their dogs to its facilities. She is especially appreciative to Chris Ashwell, associate professor in poultry genomics, who serves as faculty adviser, helping Pawssibilities solidify speakers to come in and talk about animal-assisted therapy. Speakers will either come help the dog owners train or speak about experiences they’ve had reaching out to those in need of love and contact.
More members of Pawssibilities donate time.
You have to be nationally registered with the Delta Society, a national nonprofit dedicated to animal-assisted therapy, in order to participate in the therapy in these facilities. It’s a process that is quite intense with both a performance exam with the handler and pet and then a written exam for the handler. When they actually go into a hospital or nursing home, the handlers and their dogs interact in different ways, always getting a feel for whatever is needed. It might be some tricks in the form of canine freestyle that Bulfin and Jenna do. Or it may just be sitting still and letting their dogs be petted.
Forging these new relationships with hospital patients or elderly people is a natural extension from Bulfin’s time at NC State. “What the Caldwell Fellows program has brought me is tremendous relationships and has helped me understand leadership is about relationships,” she says. “That whole concept of bringing diverse people together is what the Caldwell Fellows are about. And that’s the core value of Pawssibilities.”
Your vote is needed to award the People’s Choice prize. To vote, you have to drop by the Crafts Center, check out the various images of NC State and then vote (only once, please) on “your favorite image that best represents the spirit of NC State.” Judging will run through 5 p.m. on Oct. 21. The winner receives $100 and a free Crafts Center class.
The Judges' Award winner
Meanwhile, the Judges’ Award went to Pamela Ocampo, who is working on a masters in computer science. Here’s what the judges had to say about Ocampo’s photo of the atrium at D.H. Hill Library: “Her stunning photograph of the Atrium is wonderfully composed in a great display of visual clarity and depth of field.”
Ocampo received $100 and a free Crafts Center class.
The judges also gave out an award for the photo that best captures the ongoing renovation of the Talley Student Center. Nicole Vayo, a biology major, won for what the judges called a “perfect snapshot that captures this special time on campus.”
The renovation of Talley Student Center
Over 50 NC State students entered the contest by capturing images of NC State through the eye of homemade cameras. One student captured an image of the Memorial Belltower with an Altoids candy tin.
You can check out all the photos in the Pinhole Challenge on the Crafts Center’s Flickr site.
It’s time for the NC State community to give back.
Wolfpack Welcome Week is ending with a couple of chances for the Wolfpack family to play its part in the larger world family.
On Friday, NC State is hoping to give 1,000 pints of blood to the American Red Cross. The blood drive will be at Carmichael Gym from 8 am-7 pm on Friday. Visit this website for more information.
Sonja Jones was on a stretch of highway on the Oklahoma-Texas border a few weeks ago. Riding an average of 80 miles a day on a trip from Jacksonville, Fla., she was tired and thirsty in the summer heat. Jones had stopped to wait for the supply van to arrive and provide water for her and her two riding partners, David Mabe and Mark Menesses ‘11. It was then that a passing stranger stopped, saw the riders’ needs and provided three bottles of water.
“I have come to feel so much more fortunate for what I do have,” Jones says of her summer trip, which has taken her from Florida to Monterey, Calif., over the last four months. “It’s those random acts of kindness. The small things.”
Consider the bottled water a sort of reciprocity paid back to Jones, Mabe and Menesses, three NC State students and Caldwell Fellows who committed to participate in the ride for Bike & Build, a nonprofit dedicated to providing affordable housing for those in need.
The organization also aims to inspire young adults into a lifetime of service, so every summer it recruits young people to pedal across country in teams of around 30. They stop in about 15 U.S. cities for a day or two along the way to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity. The team including the three NC State students worked on projects in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Dallas.
Jones says the teams traveled a total of eight routes across the U.S. this summer and hope to donate more than $500,000 this year. Jones, Mabe and Menesses were each required to raise $4,000 to participate in the trip. Their team gave $100 donations for housing projects of their hosts’ choices (they spent their nights in churches and community centers).
The riders also reviewed grant proposals and awarded money to a housing project of their own choice. Some of their money went to Habitat for Humanity, which provided a van stored with water, granola bars, vegetables and supplies to travel with the team along the way.
“I mostly ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Jones says.
For Jones, it was life-changing experience, from biking in Zion National Park to touching the lives of those in need. She even had her bike stolen in Delano, Calif., with only four days left on her trip. But an NC State alum living in San Francisco heard about it, drove four hours and gave her a bike to use for the duration of her travel.
“His generosity was totally unexpected,” she says. “Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the final days of my trip. It makes me thankful and proud to be part of the Wolfpack family.”
The Caldwell Fellows program is an intensive leadership-development scholarship program that was created by the Alumni Association to honor the legacy of Chancellor John T. Caldwell.
Here’s a reason to tune in to 88.1 FM on your radio. The Independent Weekly has named WKNC, NC State’s student radio station, the best college radio station in the Triangle. WKNC was also a finalist in the category of non-profit radio.
The students who run WKNC are passionate about the station, said Bradley Wilson, coordinator of student media advising. Programming ranges from indie rock during the day to specialty shows including “All Things Acappella,” “Chainsaw Rock” and “Shut the Punk Up.”
The station runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even during the summer months when students all but disappear from campus. About 150 students work at WKNC, and the jobs are so popular there’s a waiting list. Perhaps not surprisingly–considering the popularity of all-nighters among the college-aged–the most sought-after shift is 3 a.m.
Today, WKNC broadcasts at 25,000 watts and can reach 1.1 million listeners in central North Carolina. That’s up from 10 years ago, when the station was at 10,000 watts.
Samantha Rich ‘09 is looking for images of Memorial Tower, and she needs your help.
Rich, a graduate student in the public history master’s program at NC State, is designing an exhibit on the Memorial Tower to be displayed in Withers Hall beginning in May. It is part of a project for an advanced museums course she is taking.
She’s asking NC State alumni to consider donating items to the exhibit. Here’s what she says she needs:
We specifically want items that have images of the Memorial Tower on them, particularly items that were made between 1960-1990. We’d be most interested in objects that are somewhat uncommon - no apparel - possibly glasses, plates, towels, bookmarks, pins, etc. The purpose of the exhibit will be to show how the Tower has changed over time as a symbol of the University. We want to show how the image of the Tower became so prominent that it was put on a variety of objects.
Rich is careful to point out that while the exhibit case will be locked, she can’t guarantee that items won’t be broken.
Rich asks that you contact her at snrich@ncsu.edu.
Justin Michael Boucher, a senior in environmental engineering and a University Scholar, has served as president of the GLBT Community Alliance, as an Alternative Service Break team leader and as an Engineering Ambassador. Boucher also worked as a DJ at campus radio station WKNC-FM and as a site coordinator with the University Scholars Program language exchange to promote collaboration between students and housekeeping staff members.
Kristy Craig, a senior in political science, has served as a student senator, director of the Athletics Commission, a representative to the U.S. Department of State and president of the 2011 Senior Class. Craig is the Arch Regent of the Golden Chain Society. She has worked as a community educator for the Triangle chapter of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and represented NC State as a liaison for Service NC State.
Jeffrey Johnson, a senior in business administration with a concentration in finance, has worked in student government, athletics and University Advancement. Johnson developed the Coaches’ Corner Kay Yow Memorial.
Members of our Student Ambassadors Program (AASAP) hosted this year’s event. The three-day conference drew 450 attendees from 35 different schools.
We want to thank everyone who made the conference a success, including conference co-chairs Chandler Thompson and Megan Vice.
“The best part of the conference was seeing 400 students from schools all over the Southeast make the Wuffie hand sign at the ending banquet. I also enjoyed hosting the schools and enabling them to share their ideas with other organizations,” Thompson said.
To learn more about the NC State Student Ambassadors Program, visit our website.
The students are participating in the annual 
It’s time for the NC State community to give back.
Sonja Jones was on a stretch of highway on the Oklahoma-Texas border a few weeks ago. Riding an average of 80 miles a day on a trip from Jacksonville, Fla., she was tired and thirsty in the summer heat. Jones had stopped to wait for the supply van to arrive and provide water for her and her two riding partners, David Mabe and Mark Menesses ‘11. It was then that a passing stranger stopped, saw the riders’ needs and provided three bottles of water.
Samantha Rich ‘09 is looking for images of Memorial Tower, and she needs your help.
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