Student Life

A tree planting, the spring Campus Cleanup and an Earth Day Festival are just some of the activities planned by UNC Charlotte’s Sustainability Office to encourage the University community be become more aware of and involved in environmental issues.

Star of TLC’s “My Big Fat Fabulous Life” and body-positive activist Whitney Way Thore will spend March 30 leading an afternoon fitness class, and in the evening, she will continue the conversation about body image.

Thore will host her “Werk With Whitney” dance class at 12:30 p.m. in the Belk Gym. Special guests include KISS 95.1, UNC Charlotte Panhellenic Association, the Epsilon Phi Chapter of the Lambda Theta Alpha Sorority, the Iota Rho Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and the Alpha Lambda Chapter of Chi Upsilon Sigma Sorority.

Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12) encouraged students to be committed not only to themselves but also to their communities during her keynote at “Revolutionizing the Dream,” celebrating the life, work and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Tuesday, Jan. 17.

U.S. Rep. Alma Adams (NC-12) will present “Revolutionizing the Dream,” celebrating the life, work and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., at 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 17, in the Cone University Center, McKnight Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

“We are excited to have Congresswoman Adams address our campus community for this year’s MLK celebration,” said Kim Turner, director of the UNC Charlotte Multicultural Resource Center. “She has dedicated her life to public service, helping shape local communities as well as influencing policy on the national level.”

A six-member team of Lee College of Engineering students recently took first place in the fall semester Senior Design Expo for its completed work on the “Ingersoll Rand Pneumatic Pump Energy Harvesting Unit.” During the expo, 30 teams presented their finished two-semester projects, and 50 teams presented their first-semester design concept posters.

A team of four UNC Charlotte students was recognized with the People’s Choice Award in the 2016 Teradata University Network (TUN) Data Challenge, an international data analytics competition.

Laxmi Narayana Atluri, Sri Harsha Degala, Vrushali Sawant and Freddy Cabrera, all graduate students in data science and business analytics, demonstrated their findings at the 2016 Teradata PARTNERS Conference and Expo, and won the support of 3,500 of the world’s most advanced data and analytics experts and business leaders.

Two doctoral students from the College of Computing and Informatics Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics, Adriano Schneider and Gregorio Linchangco, and visiting research scholar, Dennis Jacob Machado, were part of the winning team that participated in the Zika Innovation Hack-a-thon in Boston.

The student group Voices of Eden Gospel Choir recently completed its spring semester tour with concerts in Winston-Salem and Greenville, N.C., and Richmond, Norfolk and Suffolk, Va. The group will be featured in concert at Mission Gathering Charlotte at 10 a.m., Sunday, April 10.

In Richmond, the choir sang at a nursing home and visited with residents; the performance was part of its established tradition to uplift the campus and community through sharing its gift of music.

A pair of UNC Charlotte social work master’s students recently unveiled a plan to help provide mental health services to Charlotte’s underserved Latino population.

Graduate students Laura Pierce and Cameron Rifkin presented the plan at the UNC Social Entrepreneurship Conference after being selected as UNC Charlotte’s participants.

UNC Charlotte will conduct a ceremonial tree planting at 12:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 16, at the west end of Hechenbleikner Lake. This event is part of the University’s KEEPING WATCH initiative and celebrates North Carolina Arbor Day, which is March 18.

Organized by the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture and UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute, KEEPING WATCH is a multi-year initiative designed to foster collaboration across disciplines and interest groups to engage the public in local ecological issues.