Stake Your Claim

Making learning fun is a goal for many educators, and starting this fall, resources developed by two College of Education students will make that aim a little bit easier.

This fall, Michael Maynard will be a Master of Science in Real Estate student, but this summer, he explored urban planning from coast to coast – on his bike.

Maynard is an incoming graduate student who participated in Bike and Build, a national group that organizes cross-country bicycle trips to benefit affordable housing groups.

Chair of the Africana Studies Department Akin Ogundiran has been named a National Humanities Center Fellow for the upcoming academic year. He will join 36 other distinguished scholars from 32 institutions across the United States and eight foreign countries working on a wide array of projects as part of this competitive, prestigious fellowship program.

At its recent planning meeting, the Division for Student Affairs staked its claim to community engagement as more than 264 staff members donated school supplies to Classroom Central, a nonprofit organization serving more than 100,000 students living in poverty in  200-plus schools in six local school districts. 

UNC Charlotte has earned the inaugural Smart Fleet Champion Award from the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center and the N.C. Department of Transportation.

The honor is the program’s highest level and is given in recognition of vehicle fleet efforts to reduce petroleum use and carbon dioxide and other “harmful” emissions. It was presented recently at the first Southeast Alternative Fuels Conference in Raleigh.

The University Career Center for Work, Service and Internships is cosponsoring a “Peace Corps Alumni Panel and Information Session” at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 29, in the College of Health and Human Services, Room 376.

UNC Charlotte alumni will share their experiences about living and working in communities overseas as part of their Peace Corps service, and local recruiter Deborah Buckley will provide information about the advantages of being a Peace Corps volunteer.

For its innovative and efficient application of National Instruments products, the Lee College of Engineering’s Rocket Team won a chance to travel to Austin, Texas, to present at the 20th annual NIWeek. Out of 3,250 student projects submitted from 25 countries for the Student Design Competition, National Instruments selected the 49er team as one of three finalists.

Katareena Geller, a senior in the College of Computing and Informatics Department of Software and Information Systems, is one of 11 women to receive the national Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security.
Awarded by the Applied Computer Security Association (ACSA) and the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W, the $2,500 scholarship is funded by the Hewlett-Packard Company; winners also may receive internship opportunities through HP.

Performing artist CarlosAlexis Cruz is the 2014 McColl Award winner. An assistant professor of voice and movement in the College of Arts + Architecture, Cruz received the honor for the project “Nouveau Sud, Nouveau Cirque,” which translates to “New South, New Circus.”

UNC Charlotte researcher Margaret Quinlan and colleagues recently won a regional Emmy Award for “The Courage of Creativity,” a documentary series that explores the role that artists and creativity can play in people’s well-being in health-related contexts.
The series earned its award from the Ohio Valley Regional Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the arts/entertainment category, at the 50th Emmy black tie gala at the Hilton Columbus Downtown.