Student Life

As 15-year-old Dorothy Counts-Scoggins walked toward the entrance of Harding High School on Sept. 4, 1957, she endured the taunts of both children and adults. They threw sticks and rocks, pushed and shoved her and even spat on her.

The 2019 49ers4Life Blood Drive is a two-day affair, and campus organizers and sponsors anticipate this change will enable the University to reach its goal of 1,000 pints of blood collected. This year’s drive, which is being held in conjunction with the American Red Cross, will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 29-30, in the Barnhardt Student Activity Center.

If the correct audio equipment was poised above campus on a weekday morning at 10:45 a.m., one might pick up a lot of whispers that sound like, “Please, please, please let me find a close parking spot.”

That’s a peak time for parking demand on campus, so it’s unlikely that the pleading chorus will break into songs of joy.

A student team from the College of Computing and Informatics recently defended an oil pipeline’s control system from a devastating cyberattack. This simulation was part of the Department of Defense Cyberforce Competition, in which teams from 62 colleges and universities vied nationwide.

“Actually, it was here that I realized I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” said Miguel Avila during an interview in the 49er Foundry, the student business incubator at UNC Charlotte. Avila, a Belk College of Business senior, will graduate at Fall Commencement.

Recently, he was chosen to join the Venture for America (VFA) Fellowship program after a highly selective process. With more 2,400 applications for the class of 2018, the program extended offers to less than 18 percent, and Avila is the first UNC Charlotte student so honored.

Winter break is approaching, but the University still has a major celebration to undertake. December is a time to honor the accomplishments of UNC Charlotte graduates, which the University will do during Fall Commencement, Friday and Saturday, Dec. 14-15.

A team of mechanical engineering graduate students from UNC Charlotte’s precision engineering program won the student challenge competition at the American Society for Precision Engineering’s (ASPE) 33rd annual conference in Las Vegas.

A team of students from the College of Computing and Informatics (CCI) took the top prize – $10,000 cash and a $500 credit from Amazon Web Services – at the 2018 University Fintech Hackathon.

The CCI squad developed WADS, a multi-dimensional platform that allows cryptocurrency users to pay for goods and services without lengthy wait times and high exchange fees.

Matthew Gropp and Julia Signorelli recently received the Graduate School’s Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award.

The Master’s Thesis Award goes annually to a student nominated by faculty for the quality of their thesis work.  This year’s award applies to students who completed their master’s degree requirements and thesis between fall 2016 and summer 2018. Recipients receive a plaque and cash prize.

Judge William Webb, chairman of the UNC Board of Governors Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, came to UNC Charlotte Nov. 12 to learn more about the University’s programs to help its veteran students, groundbreaking research and efforts to hire more veterans.