Tower Award Honors - 2008-2009

The inaugural Tower Awards Ceremony! We changed the name of this ceremony to reflect the incredible dedication and commitment of the students, faculty and staff at The University in their efforts to improve the lives of the community beyond the 40 Acres.  Just as UT’s signature burnt orange tower building exemplifies excellence at The University, from this point forward, the Tower Awards will celebrate excellence in The University’s community service efforts.   We want to celebrate the remarkable service work completed this year.

The following excerpts about the 2008-2009 Tower Award winners are taken from the nomination forms:

Tower Award for Outstanding Student Volunteer
Tower Awards for Outstanding Student Organization
Tower Award for Outstanding Faculty/Staff Member
Tower Award for Outstanding Service Project
Tower Award For Outstanding Academic Service Learning
Tower Awards for Outstanding Community Partner
Good Neighbor Tower Award
Helping Hand Tower Award

Tower Awards for Outstanding Student Volunteer

Patricia Adesanya

Patricia maintains a passion for helping people.  In her time here at UT, Patricia has performed a variety of services for the Austin community including assisting Dr. Cleverick Johnson in helping to provide free dental care screening to low-income Spanish-speaking families at several dental health fairs, serving as a mentor/tutor for children with disabilities at Metz Elementary School, serving as a supervisor and mentor at the Austin Children’s Shelter, serving as a mentor for incoming freshman during the Black Student Lock In, and serving as a mentor for teenage mothers at Travis High School in the Road to My Dreams program, a motivational program to keep teenage mothers focused on their future which she helped to co-found.
 
Travette Webster

Travette seeks out any opportunity to serve.  In addition to her position as president of her sorority, she also serves as Vice President of the Pan-Hellenic Council and is a member of the Student Organization Safety Board.  Travette has provided advice and guidance to a variety of students including new UT students at the New Student Lock-In and the Multicultural Welcome Event.  She has assisted the elderly through her work with Austin Groups for the Elderly.  She has worked with school-age children through her efforts assisting with after-school technology programs for underrepresented youth at the River City Youth Foundation, mentoring high school-age girls at GirlStart, and helping to reward middle school students who passed the TAKS test through the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity TAKS Carnival.  She has been active in the national political scene having served as a Volunteer Deputy Registrar as well as a Travis County Democratic Delegate for now President Barack Obama. She has also provided assistance to students with hearing impairments through volunteer work with the Austin Deaf Club and the Jesus Lutheran Church for the Deaf.  In addition to helping all types of people, Travette has also assisted the environment by participating in the Keep Austin Beautiful Graffiti Clean Up project.
 
Cecilia Lopez

Cecilia has maintained her dedication to serving her fellow students.  She has been a major force as a Leadership Coordinator in the Leadership and Ethics Institute and her efforts to mentor and train students have doubled the size of one of its educational programs.  She has also served as the Communication Director for the UT Student Volunteer Board, Director of the Texas Freshmen Integrating Respect, Service, and Teamwork, Co-Founder and Events Coordinator for the Texas Interdisciplinary Plan Student Organization; a mentor for the UT Division of Housing and Food’s First Generation College Student Mentoring Program; and a member of Texas Exes Student Chapter.  Her volunteer work also includes serving as a Government Relations Fellow and Hispanic Youth Symposium Program Assistant for the Hispanic College Fund.
 
Honorable Mention
 
Shelley Rosmarin

Shelley has discovered that serving people in need is a rewarding experience.  She volunteers each week at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin in the Intensive Care Unit and the administrative offices interacting with patients and assisting the volunteer coordinator with her daily tasks and special events.  This amazing experience working with people caused her to add volunteering at the Texas Runaway and Youth Hotline as a telephone counselor. Since the Hotline is 24-hour, toll-free, informal, and anonymous, she has numerous opportunities to help people in all types of situations.
 
Meera Shah

Meera has demonstrated a dedication to community service since she was a child.  She was involved in Girl Scouts of America, and used this opportunity to volunteer at local charities.  Now, she serves as a current co-chair of Longhorn Outreach, an organization that serves volunteers for various causes in the Austin community.  She dedicates every Saturday morning to coordinating a volunteer event for members of Longhorn Outreach.  Because of her hard work and dedication, she has been selected as Vice-Chair of the incoming Student Volunteer Board.

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Tower Awards for Outstanding Student Organization

Hispanic Health Professional Organization

Through the efforts of the Hispanic Health Professional Organization, over 700 people were screened for high and dangerous levels of glucose and blood pressure in the East Austin community this past academic school year.  The passion of the members and officers have been vital in successfully finding abnormally high blood sugar levels in about 100 of those screened.  With the help of the Hispanic Physicians Association of Austin, everyone screened was able to obtain information crucial to a healthier lifestyle.  This dedicated organization has been instrumental in educating and increasing awareness of health issues in the Hispanic community.
 
Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity, Inc.

Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity, Inc. has taken support to a new level.  This past year they worked in collaboration with other Greek organizations to raise funds to provide bed nets to affected areas of the world with high concentration of malaria cases.  Through their efforts, more than $5,000 was raised which effectively saved 1,500 lives.  Additionally, the fraternity provided service to students at the River City Youth Foundation, assisted in street clean-up efforts with Keep Austin Beautiful, raised funds for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer Foundation, coached youth football teams through the South Austin Recreation Center, provided service to the Capital Area Food Bank, and helped raise UT student awareness about drinking and driving in conjunction with the UT Police Department.
 
HONORABLE MENTION

Hispanic Student Association

The Hispanic Student Association hosts Hip Hop Into College, a free event for high school students designed to increase awareness, interest and preparation of underrepresented ethnic groups in higher education.  The event features information on financial aid, SAT/ACT preparation, scholarships, etc. in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.  This past year, more than 350 high school students attended this event.  In addition to Hip Hop Into College, the Hispanic Student Association has been active in supporting other efforts in the community including serving food to the homeless, assisting in voter registration drives and volunteering to assist refugees and immigrants.
 

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Tower Award for Outstanding Faculty/Staff Member

Dr. Namkee Choi

Dr. Choi is an internationally recognized scholar and leader in the fields of social gerontology, aging policy, and program evaluation. She has served as an award-winning member of the Meals on Wheels and More Board since October of 2002 and continuously serves as a knowledgeable and dedicated advocate and expert in the field of aging and homebound elders.   She consistently assists Meals on Wheels and More in developing and implementing programs and services that add quality and dignity to clients’ lives.  Her invaluable research and presentations on the needs of homebound elders provides the organization’s staff and board with an increased understanding of the challenges facing this vulnerable population. In addition, she is one of the organization’s most dedicated volunteers – driving to deliver meals and helping clients with other tasks that allow them to continue living independently in their homes.
 
Rebeca Trevino

Rebeca Trevino has been a tireless volunteer for a variety of programs at The University. Rebeca was a co-founder of the Hispanic Faculty Staff Association in 1991 and has served in a variety of capacities in the organization since then.  She has also been involved in the Hispanic Mother & Daughter Program, the University Outreach Program and the School of Nursing.  As an educator and social activist on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border, Rebeca has served as a frequent presenter, mediator, facilitator and speaker on Hispanic issues.  Additionally, Rebeca has also been director of an award-winning children’s dance company, a founding member and graduate of Leadership Austin, a Spanish instructor for the Austin Police Department, and a Folkloric Dance instructor at Travis High School and several elementary schools.
 

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Tower Award for Outstanding Service Project

Healing Origami

Healing Origami as a service organization was founded out of the Clinton Global Initiative University’s 2009 Commitment to Action as a means to prevent patients from becoming the disease during the healing process. Since origami supplies an imaginative, fun and educational healing outlet for people of all ages, the goal is to teach origami to 1,000 patients in Texas by the year of 2011. Volunteers in Austin and Houston started serving patients weekly in the fall of 2008 providing one on one interaction with patients teaching the different origami techniques tailored to the interest of each patient.  Volunteers in Austin work with patients at the Dialysis Clinic of Dell Children’s Medical Center, The Arc of the Capital Area’s art studio and Elderhaven Day Care Center.  Volunteers in Houston work with patients in the Texas Children’s Hospital.  To date, almost 200 patients in Texas have been taught origami.

Hispanic Faculty Staff Association Holiday Assistance Program

The Holiday Assistance Program provides UT employees and their families in need with all of the ingredients for a full-course, individual holiday dinner to take home. To fulfill this community service initiative, recipients are selected according to financial need and income level.   The first Holiday Assistance Program Committee was formed in 1996 and was able to serve over 20 families with the support of a single generous donor. Since then, the Holiday Assistance Program has grown to serve many more families, with the help of numerous donors from all of the Vice-Presidents' offices, various student groups, Hispanic Faculty Staff Association members, faculty and staff from every office and department at the University, various private businesses and a number of anonymous donors.  This past year, the Holiday Assistance Program celebrated 12 years of serving fellow co-workers by offering complete packages of food and supplies to 302 families in the UT community to feed their loved ones during the Holiday season.

Orthodox Christian Fellowship

Orthodox Christian Fellowship is an organization committed to serving the community through action. This past spring break, seven members traveled to the only older boy’s orphanage in the Tijuana area, the St. Innocent Orphanage outside Tijuana, Mexico.  The goal was a week of service, spirituality and purpose. Throughout that week, the seven members worked in an extremely impoverished colonial settlement helping the orphaned boys, completed construction projects at the orphanage and helping residents in the community.  Although the trip lasted a week, the experience of service to those less fortunate will be with them for a lifetime.
 

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Tower Award For Outstanding Academic Service Learning

Dr. Elizabeth Alexander

Dr. Elizabeth Alexander is a professor whose teaching and course development exemplifies academic service learning.  Dr. Alexander teaches Non-Profit Consulting at the undergraduate level to allow students to gain experience applying the knowledge gained from their coursework to real life issues non-profit agencies are facing.  The semester before this course, Dr. Alexander contacts local agencies to discover their needs and how these needs may be met by her students.  Four agencies are then selected and students are allowed to choose the agency that they would most like to serve.  From there, the semester begins and Dr. Alexander spends countless hours working with students and agencies to make sure both parties needs are being met.  At the end of the semester, these agencies are invited into the classroom where students present their practical reports that the agencies can then use.  As a result of the experience gained in this course, Dr. Alexander’s students go on to obtain highly competitive consulting jobs.  Unfortunately, this is Dr. Alexander’s last semester as she is returning to the non-academic world.  Fortunately, we are able to award her tonight before she leaves the University.  Dr. Alexander, because of your commitment and creativity with this course and commitment to service, award you with the 2009 Tower Award for Outstanding Academic Service Learning.
 

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Tower Awards Outstanding Community Partner

Austin Fire Department
Austin Parks and Recreation
Downtown Austin Community Court

All of the recipients in this category were instrumental in helping to make Project 2009 an amazing event.  For those of you who do not know, The Project is one of the largest one-day student and community run days of service in the nation.  Normally, the Project incorporates about 10 – 15 service projects in one neighborhood with the help of about 1,500 student volunteers completed in a matter of about 8 hours.  This past February, Project 2009 incorporated 50 service projects completed in two days!  Our three community partners were instrumental in helping to coordinate the service projects, the volunteers and staff and, did I forget to mention, all of the 400+ Clinton Global Initiative University conference delegates who were bused in to provide assistance on the second day?!?!  The dedication, commitment, professionalism and support of these three community partners made a complicated project run with veritable ease.  We are very grateful for the continuing support of our three 2009 Tower Award.

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Good Neighbor Tower Award
 
University Federal Credit Union

Working to coordinate the Project is a major responsibility that requires a massive amount of coordination from students, student organizations, university resources, community service agencies, and, yes, the business community.  The requirements for a successful day of service encompassing 1,500 plus students and countless numbers of community and local government staff and volunteers is amazingly complex.   
 
Our 2009 Good Neighbor Award recipient has been a huge supporter of The University for many years.  They have quietly yet consistently been supporting community service efforts of the VSLC for the past five years.  This organization has given so much to VSLC community service efforts and now we want to honor you.  

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Helping Hand Tower Award
 
The Home Depot

When we realized the massive amount of needs to complete 50 service projects, we realized that our tool and equipment needs were well beyond our budget.  From the first time we met with our 2009 Community Helping Hand Award recipient, his entire staff embraced the Project and all other community service events we needed help with.  We’ve visited with him and his staff a few more times since Project 2009!  Whenever we need help, he and his staff always roll up their sleeves to help us every step of the way. Although this is a new partnership, we anticipate that this is the start of a long and beautiful relationship.

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