Spectrum - Volume 20 Issue 06 October 2, 1997 - Student Affairs presents awards

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Student Affairs presents awards

Spectrum Volume 20 Issue 06 - October 2, 1997

The Division of Student Affairs held its annual fall meeting September 9 and recognized the Outstanding Program Awards in the Division for 1996-97.
Lanny Cross, vice president for student affairs, established the awards in an effort to recognize the outstanding programs that focused on the division's five priorities: quality, learning, diversity, service, and technology. The department of each award-winning program received a monetary award of $1,000 jointly supported by the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of the Provost.
Nineteen programs in all were nominated. A selection committee of representatives from across the university was appointed by Cross. The committee members were Terry Wildman, director of the Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; Ellie Sturgis, associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences; Joan Hirt, associate professor in higher education and college student-affairs administration; Michelle Holmes, equal opportunity specialist in the Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Office; Bevley White-Watkins, career advisor in Career Services; and Sharon DeMar Yeagle, assistant to the vice president for student affairs.
There were five programs which received awards this year. The "International Speaker's Bureau" was coordinated by Jackie Nutter of the Cranwell International Center. This program provided schools, civic, and religious organizations with speakers from Virginia Tech's International Community. These programs helped to "Bring the World" to the New River Valley. Last year, over 65 VT students visited 19 sites, volunteering approximately 145 hours throughout the area.
The "Multicultural Center," a program award winner, is a center that is a program function of the Office of the Dean of Students, with facility support from University Unions and Student Activities. The center's existence is the result of a proposal from a student advisory committee. The Multicultural Center serves as the homebase for the Multicultural Awareness Program for Peer Educators. Exhibits and programs representing 14 diverse groups and issues have been featured. A few of the groups for which the center has shown support are Asian Americans, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, and bi-sexuals.
"Relational Database Software for Judicial Affairs, Disability Services, and Emergency Response" was developed by Jerry Riehl, assistant dean of students. This program adds new relational software programs in three areas: judicial affairs, disability services, and emergency responses.
Using Filemaker Pro as a platform, the new software provides shared data-management capabilities, as well as report and correspondence generation. This program enhances services to students and reduces the costs due to the virtual elimination of paper files. The emergency response database is the first systematic effort to record and track contacts with students in crisis. The database for disability services provides ready access to all information related to clients of Services for Students with Disabilities. Faculty accommodation forms are automatically generated, and the application can generate detailed reports in an endless number of user-defined formats.
The "Student Organization Accounting System" was administered by Melinda Crowder and Joyce Rolen, both of University Unions and Student Activities. This PC program was developed to support the financial transactions of student organizations that have accounts in the central accounting office. The coordinators developed this new system when it became apparent that there was not available software to meet the needs of student organizations. Computing technology was used to develop a more efficient system on line. This system replaced the previous 15-year old main frame and provided additional services. It reduces costs of programming by $3,200 per year, is user-friendly, and provides up-to-date account balances. This program allows students the opportunity to learn about fiscal management through hands-on experience.
The "Tech Connect/VT Career Link" is organized and administered by Michael Rheiner and Pam Herrmann of Career Services. This program enables students and alumni to network with alumni for assistance in the exploration of careers or in the job-search process. Through the joint efforts of the Alumni Association and Career Services, students may identify those alumni whose major, occupation, work setting, or location may match their particular interests.
Typical topics of assistance include individual advice about careers and job searches, as well as the identification of actual employment contacts which often include summer jobs, internship or shadowing experiences. Approximately 2,800 alumni make up the TECH CONNECT database.