Board of Directors

So I figured I would make an entry of what I submitted as my candidate statement for the NCHC Board of Directors:

I am a sophomore at Rockhurst University, double-majoring in Nonprofit Leadership Studies and Accounting.  Rockhurst University is a Jesuit university and one of the major tenets of the Jesuit mission is service to others. This has always been an important value in my own life.  This past year, I had the honor and privilege of becoming a kidney donor to my Dad.  I am currently working with a grant from the Helzberg School of Management at Rockhurst University to coordinate a trip to Haiti, inspired by a service trip to Haiti that I took in high school. At the NCHC 2011 conference, I was a student moderator for two sessions and a session presenter. At Rockhurst, I serve on the Honors Student Association Executive Board and as a Student Senate Representative on the Honors Advisory Committee. Since I have been VP of Activities on the Honors E-Board there has been a tremendous increase in student involvement in activities. Further, last year, Rockhurst hosted the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Honors Conference and I played a major role in the planning of the conference and presented a session.  I also had the good fortune of attending the NCHC 2010 conference, where I volunteered with conference set up. I am also the Desk Manager of 19 Desk Assistants in Corcoran Residence Hall (the site of our Honors Housing) as well as co-president of a student health organization on campus and serving on the Student Advisory Committee for the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance in January. A student seat on the Board would only allow me to further serve others.

The opportunity to serve on the Board of Directors for NCHC would provide me valuable experience with nonprofit organizations, which would be applicable to my major in Nonprofit Leadership Studies. Moreover, I am tremendously dedicated to the honors program. By year’s close I will have already completed the required 24 honors credit hours. Additionally, I will have half of my nonprofit courses completed, so I have a strong understanding of how nonprofit organizations work. Finally, Kansas City is located only a few hours from the site of the annual board of directors meeting in Lincoln, which will ensure attendance at the required meetings. I humbly ask you to consider me for the two-year student board position. Thank you.

This will soon be online at http://nchchonors.org/2012_nominees.html along with the other candidates that are running. 

Hope you have a great week! 

"There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream" - Author Unknown 

NCHC 2011

So you are probably wondering what in the world NCHC stands for. NCHC stands for the National Collegiate Honors Council, which the Rockhurst University Honors Program is a member of. There are over 800 colleges and universities across the country that are members of NCHC. This past weekend was the annual conference for NCHC bringing together over 1600 students and honors from over 500 colleges and universities. The conference took place in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. So I got to take a nice but busy weekend trip out to Arizona. I along with another student from Rockhurst had submitted a proposal to present at NCHC last spring and found out over the summer that our proposal had been selected to be presented at NCHC. This is the first time in recent history that any Rockhurst students have presented at NCHC. So Kaela and I along with Dr. Walker, the director of the Rockhurst Honors Program, made the trip out to Phoenix.

            In addition to doing our presentation at NCHC we also heard countless other presentations and two keynote speakers. The other presentations we heard gave us numerous ideas on how the Rockhurst Honors program could be improved and what is working well for other schools. It is really a great conference that helps me to understand what makes the honors programs at colleges and universities across the country so special. At these types of conferences you get to meet really awesome people from all over the country which is fun.

            One other cool thing about this conference is that they have student positions open on the Board of Directors for NCHC. My honors director nominated me for one of those positions and now it is up to the voting member from each institution to vote on who they would like to see on the Board of Directors for NCHC. I am writing a personal statement for people to know more about me so I will post that as my next blog entry in case anyone is interested in reading it.

Hope you have an awesome week! We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fall Break then comes Fall Weather

Well I am not quite sure where that fall break went to. It seemed like it was almost over before it started. My youngest sister wanted to write my blog for me this week but she never followed through on this...So I am sure you all probably want to know what I did over break. Well when I got home on Wednesday I went to a couple of meetings I had set up with the organization I had done a volunteer internship for over the summer. It was a great experience doing that volunteer internship. There is something to be said for completing an internship without pay. In the end I learned so much doing that internship that will help me when I graduate from RU. An additional perk of going back last week to the organization was that I got to be interviewed to be on a local news station. After my meetings I came home and relaxed I was still tired from the bus ride home.  

            On Thursday it was try to attempt to get my homework done day. Fact of the matter is you never get as much done as you want to at home. It is just so nice being home though, sleeping in your own bed and catching up with your family.

            On Friday it was a day to spend with my Mom. We went out to breakfast at my favorite place Corner Bakery (It is a Chicago thing) then she took me birthday shopping since my birthday is this week. Most importantly though we just got to spend time together talking about life. Nothing can top that.

            Then on Saturday our family went down to visit my sister at Bradley University which is about 2.5 hours from our house. It was awesome to see her. She is a freshman this year. However it makes for a long day. It was the first time I had ever been down to Bradley.

Over the break I think I figured out I think I spent at least 20 hours traveling from Tuesday night to Sunday morning. Want to hear about how I am getting to go to Phoenix AZ next weekend? Stay tuned for the next blog! Have a good week!

Quote:"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. 

Norman Vincent Peale"

It's Finally Fall Break

Alright so I thought I would have time to post this Wednesday but the break just escaped me. So…written Wednesday the 12^th: Yesterday I finished up my final two midterms that I had to take before my fall break. It is a great feeling to get those midterms behind me. Although I do have a decent amount of homework to do over this short fall break. Its hard to believe I am already done with 1.25 years of college! Last night I rode the Megabus home. (Highly recommended for those thinking of coming to RU from St. Louis of Chicago. I got home to Chicago for a grand total of $15.50. The only drawback is that it is almost 11 hours to Chicago on the Megabus. Alright off to enjoy my break now.

Today’s Quote: “Anything is possible. You can be told that you have a 90-percent chance or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.” –Lance Armstrong.

Another one bites the dust

It is hard to believe but I have already finished one of my classes. My Nonprofit Fundraising and Development class concluded last Tuesday night. Most of the nonprofit classes are formatted as half-semester accelerated classes. The class meets for four hours one night a week and then also meets on one Saturday. Four hours gets to be a little long I have to admit but I have begun to get used to it. As I have mentioned previously I really enjoy my nonprofit classes. I have really found a deep passion for nonprofit organizations so these classes are perfect for me. A lot of the nonprofit classes have a service learning component to them which is nice. The service learning component to this one was either participating in or helping with the Hopkins 5k and then following that up by writing grant proposals that they could use for additional support in the coming years. I find it interesting the range of the ages of the students we have in our night classes. For example about half of our class was night students or nontraditional students. This age range makes for some really good discussions. When I return from fall break I start another nonprofit night classes called nonprofit administration.

In our class we read an awesome little book called The Go-Give to supplement out textbook. Here is a quote from it. “The Law of Value… Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment”- Bob Burg and John David Mann

So I’m trying something new and writing two shorter blog entries a week so check back in a few days for the next one.

Family Weekend

So as I mentioned in my previous blog entry I would talk about family weekend in the next blog entry so I am sorry it is so delayed though. It is hard to believe family weekend was already over a week ago. However looking forward I get to go home in just over a week for fall break; which is always exciting! (Not like I don’t love RU or anything sometimes it is just nice to go home and be spoiled for a few days).

            So anyway… my family came up for family weekend this year which was so nice because they were not able to make it up last year. They made the eight hour drive in on Friday. That afternoon my sister got a tour of RU (she is a junior and thinking about coming here). It was a perfect weather weekend all weekend long. That evening we sat outside had dinner and watched the family weekend soccer games. On Saturday we attended the Helzberg School of Management and Professional Development’s activities which included different speakers as well as a panel discussion. The panel discussion was very interesting and thought provoking. I hope they decide to do it again next year.

            Then on Saturday afternoon we attended Family and Alumni weekend mass at St. Francis Xavier Church (the church were we have our weekly 6pm student masses at). The President of RU Father Curran did the homily and the RU choir did the music for the mass. It was a very well done mass.

            Back to why I didn’t get to writing this until now… I had to turn in my final project for my nonprofit fundraising and development class (it is an accelerated class so this week is our last class already!) and I also had a Honors Christianity II Exam Thursday and a presentation in another class Thursday so it was a busy week and midterms are coming up soon… (fun stuff I know J ).

Okay so one of my hobbies is running so this week a picked a running quote from a famous runner… “You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement. Steve Prefontaine

The picture blow is on this huge chair that got put up outside the upperclassman hall (XL) This is a picture of me and my sister Hannah (the one who took the tour).

Have a fantastic week everyone!