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Taking Flight
February 2015
A Word from the Student Board…
As recruiting season kicks in high gear, we will need all the help we can. If you
can give us 20 minutes or a day, the Recruiting Committee could definitely use
your help. Our biggest recruiting event is coming up on February 8. We will be
hosting high school seniors and showing them what the Honors Program is all
about. Please contact Ms. Loden if you would like to help. We will also need
people that will be able to send emails or make phone calls to honor student
prospects. As we try to grow our program, we need numbers behind us.
Last semester we had our first ever Pumpkin Patch. Our hope is to make this
an annual event. The funds from this event will help us start a study abroad
scholarship. As many of y'all know it may become required for honor students
to travel abroad. We may have more fundraisers in the future to help us build
this fund. If you have any ideas or know a vendor that can help, please email
me at cioti@student.uiwtx.edu.
We are excited for our first honors meeting of the semester on February 2.
The Student Board has decided to change the format a little bit. We want
these meetings to be more interactive, engaging and help build community.
February’s meeting will feature fun games and will be in the Convocation
Center (where the basketball games are held). We will use the first 15 minutes
to make announcements and the rest will be reserved for games. We want
you to want to come to the meetings, but we also want you to benefit from
coming to them. We will have a survey after the meeting to see if you liked
the new format. If you have any comments, suggestions, or ideas please let
one of the board members know.
Get ready for game night! I hope
everyone's semester is going well, and
keep up the good work!
-Erica Cioti
Upcoming Events
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Feb. 2: All Honors Gathering
Feb. 4: Doris Goodwin Lecture
Feb. 7: Expanding Your Horizons
Feb. 8-9: Honors Overnighter
Feb. 13-March 1: The Merchant
of Venice
 Feb. 20: Careers a la Carte
 Feb. 22: St. Lawrence String
Quartet Concert
 Feb 24: Pecha Kucha San Antonio
Please visit the Honors Event
Calendar on Blackboard for
more interesting and cool
events!
Angus Says:
“Become
published! Send
your stories and
pictures for the
newsletter to
Ms. Loden.”
First Annual Pumpkin Patch
A Big Success
Recruiting Coordinator Erica Cioti, with significant help
from Karly Brightwell and their crew, organized our first
fundraiser for a study abroad scholarship fund. The
Pumpkin Patch, held in conjunction with the Alumni
Office’s Trunk or Treat event, offered an array of
activities for kids to spend a little time on campus
having fun in their Halloween costumes. Our volunteers
provided many games, face painting, balloon animals,
and pumpkin patch photos and families participated in
a raffle for several vendor offers.
The final amount raised was $354, including a generous
donation from the Cioti family and a matching donation
from BP. Considering that this first event had virtually
no publicity and we couldn’t accept credit cards, we are
optimistic that the Pumpkin Patch can become a
significant fundraiser. This money will go to
scholarships for study abroad programs to encourage
our students to take advantage of the many
opportunities to learn in a different cultural setting.
A BIG thank you goes to Erica for taking the initiative
to develop an event to help students who want to have
an international experience but need financial
assistance. We plan on offering the first scholarship
later this spring for the fall semester.
Be ready for next year’s Pumpkin Patch! Alumni
children will be looking forward to seeing you with new
tricks and treats!
Alan Amaya and Cailyn Crossland
enjoyed a nice evening at the San
Antonio Zombie Run! Decked out in
full zombie fashion, those two ran a
grueling 5.1k obstacle run
masquerading as the “undead.”
February Careers a la Carte
Think you might want to own your own business?
Going to run your own medical office? Want to
understand how research works in business or how
companies use PR to make themselves look good
when things get bad? The February program will look
at a variety of topics: market research, marketing and
public relations, entrepreneurship.
Both our guests own their own businesses. Nitin
Sharma, is president and founder of Gold Research, a
market research firm. Gold Research has a client list
that includes emerging companies as well as Fortune
100 companies. Mario Ochoa is co-owner of Sammis &
Ochoa and a UIW alumnus. Sammis & Ochoa is a
public relations firm with clients across a wide range
of industries plus the City of San Antonio. S&O has
internship opportunities, by the way.
Bonus! The Honors Program provides lunch from
Central Market. The luncheon will be held Friday,
February 20, from 12-1pm. Sign up on the wiki or
email Ms. Loden your RSVP.
Alumni Corner
This is the first installment of a new feature: Alumni Corner. The goal is to put a spotlight on the activities and
achievements of our honors graduates. The information will fulfill a dual purpose: to keep alumni informed on each other’s
news and to inspire current students.
To be meaningful we need news and current email addresses of our alumni from our wonderful former students to keep
the area filled. So email Ms. Loden your updated email addresses and news you’d like to share. We’ll keep you in the loop
with old friends!
Speaking Engagements
People on the Move
Mollimichelle Cabeldue and Annalisa Moore will be guest
speakers at this year’s Honors Symposium, to be held on
Saturday, March 28. Alumni will receive more information on
this event in early March. We hope to see more alumni there;
and we’ll get you on the evaluator list!
Our first pre-pharmacy students, Andrew Fierros and
Jessica Jennings, received their Doctor of Pharmacy degrees
in May 2014 from the UIW Feik School of Pharmacy. They
are both employed by Walgreen’s in south Texas locations.
Three cheers for these two who carried the banner for the
Honors Program into the Feik School with grace and
academic excellence!
We will be adding more alumni to our events as time goes on
and would like to start a speaker list. Let us know if you
would are interested in being a guest speaker. We are
looking for speakers at the Welcome Ceremony for the
incoming freshmen and their families, at the honors
overnighter, and at an All-Honors Gathering. Or perhaps you
might want to host a career hour or help students secure an
internship. You might have your own idea to contribute to
the program: just let us know!
Alumni Blog
Do you like to write? Do you always have something to say
on everything? We are considering the start of an online blog
that we would link to the UIW Honors website. Content
might include reflections on current events in the big world
or on a situation or an event in your own life, and
encouragement/advice to others in their efforts. We’ll make
it so readers can comment, of course! However, it would
require a couple of dedicated contributors to make it work.
One idea is to have two alumni alternate postings for a twice
a month blog. Each contributor would post monthly: one on
the first and one on the 15th, for example.
If you’re interested in participating, email jloden@uiwtx.edu
with your ideas in what your content might include and how
consistently you would be able to post.
Taylor Fox (BA Cultural Studies, 2011) earned a Master of
Science degree in Library Science from North Texas State
University in December 2014. She is in her third year of
employment at the UIW Mabee Library as the Interlibrary
Loan Specialist. Maybe she’ll have time now to revive her
band, Tiny Fox.
Annalisa Moore (BS Mathematics, 2013) earned a Master of
Science in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering
at UT-Austin in December 2014. She is now facing the
realities of full-time employment in her new job with BNSF
Railways as a Technology Services Management Trainee in
Fort Worth, Texas.
Auriel Vokolek (BS Nursing, 2013) was inducted into the
United States Air Force on November 7, 2014 as a Second
Lieutenant in the Air Force Nurse Corps. Congratulations on
jumping through those admissions requirements
successfully!
Jennifer Caldwell (BA English, 2013) entered a Master of
Arts program in Communication Studies at St. Mary’s
University in January 2015.
Courtney White (BS Biology, 2014) is in the BioMedical
Engineering Master of Science program at Mississippi State
University starting January 2015.
Ryan Zapalac (BA English and BA Philosophy, 2014) began
his studies at the UT School of Law in fall 2014. He is
rooming with Matthew Gunst (BS Biology, 2012) who is
doing his clinical work in Austin as part of his MD program
at the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston.