Student Scoop – March 1, 2023

Student Leadership Awards Nominations Due this Friday!

Submit your nominations for the Student Leadership Awards!

Nominations are due by noon this Friday, March 3rd for the:

  • President’s Award for Leadership
  • Award for Bravery and Kindness in Service to Others
  • Dean of Students Award for Possibilities
  • William and Josephine Balconi Community Service Award
  • Percy Julian Award

Nominations are due by noon on March 17th for all other awards, including:

  • Clair M Donovan Award
  • Outstanding Future Alumni Award
  • Exceptional Enthusiasm as a Student Leader
  • Exceptional Leadership in Student Governance
  • Rising Star of the Year
  • Student Employee of the Year
  • Student Organization Advisor of the Year
  • Exceptional Civic Engagement Award
  • Exceptional Program of the Year
  • Most Improved Student Organization
  • Student Organization of the Year

Please visit the Student Leadership Awards website to read the award descriptions, review the requirements of each award, and access the nomination forms. Several awards include a financial reward to the recipients.

The 29th Annual Student Leadership Awards celebration will be held on Friday, April 14 at 6:00 PM and nominators will be invited to attend.


Ukraine: War and Resistance Photo Exhibition

Ukrainian students on campus kindly invite you all to attend the photo exhibition by American and Ukrainian artists “Ukraine: War and Resistance” on the second floor of Van Pelt & Opie Library (the corridor which leads to the Rekhi bridge). The exhibition will be there from 02/20/2023 to 03/03/2023.


Athletics & Recreation

You don’t have to win, you just have to TRI! Michigan Tech Recreation is hosting an indoor triathlon for MTU students and SDC Access Pass Holders (minimum 1-month)! Unlike a traditional triathlon, which covers fixed distances of swimming, biking, and running, indoor triathlons challenge competitors to race the greatest distance with a fixed time frame. Beginners and seasoned athletes are welcome to participate in the 10-minute swim, 15-minute bike, and 10-minute run! Transition time is provided between events. Event capacity is limited.

Open to MTU students and SDC Access Pass Holders (minimum 1-month) with a valid MTU student ID or SDC Access Pass. Must be 16 years of age or older to participate.

Cost to register: IT’S FREE (but you must register to participate!)

Registration opens March 8, 8:00am EST. Registration closes March 29, 2023, 11:59pm EST.

For more information, visit Rec Indoor Triathlon.

SDC Spring Break Hours

The Student Development Complex, Gates Tennis Center and surrounding facilities will observe reduced hours over spring break beginning Friday, March 3, through Sunday, March 12. Visit SDC Spring Break Hours to view the schedule.

The SDC will return to regular business hours Monday, March 13.


VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY – Camp STAR

Camp STAR is a bereavement camp for children ages 8-17 that have experienced the death of a loved one. It is a free weekend-long camp held at Bay Cliff Health Camp in Big Bay, MI. There are traditional camp activities along with grief support and education for children. Camp will be August 10th – 13th. 

Please contact us directly if you need an application printed or mailed to you or if you have any questions.

Visit our site here STAR Children’s Bereavement Services – No child grieving alone (starcbs.org)

Apply here Get Involved – STAR Children’s Bereavement Services (starcbs.org)


School Swap – Student Run Non-Profit

School Swap is an educational non-profit focused on providing educational materials to impoverished international students. We’re currently working with a community in Fronterizo, Guatemala, to create packets on typing and basic computer skills – resources that would improve these students’ lifelong opportunities.

 To create these packets, we need support from passionate students like yourselves! We have two main teams:

– A creation team with students that have coding and tutoring experience, potentially with majors or minors in CS, ECE, PSY, or HF

– A translation team with students who read and write Spanish fluently with cultural understanding. 

 In addition, this video linked here goes more in-depth on these two roles, along with School Swap as a whole.

 If you’re interested in joining these teams, reach out to us at schoolswap501c3@gmail.com by March 3rd. We’d love to have you, and letting us know by March 2rd allows us to catch you up to speed and hit the ground running immediately after spring break.


Battle of the Bands

Sigma Pi is hosting Battle of the Bands at the McArdle Theater in the Rozsa Performing Arts Center. Try to keep your socks on as musicians compete for the best rockers of Houghton! Who will emerge triumphant? The bands playing are Boiler Room Bastards, Goodie, Lupine, Cheblord, and Bouquet! Tickets are $5 and available at the door or on the Rozsa Event Page. 


Rozsa Center for Performing Arts

Sō Percussion with Shodekeh Talifero

7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 2

The adventurous percussion group Sō Percussion is joined by groundbreaking beatboxer Dominic “Shodekeh” Talifero. The contemporary music program will include a diverse range of repertoire from contemporary “classics” to new works in an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker).

Journey into new worlds of sound with this intriguing collaboration. 

Learn More | Reserve Free Tickets


BE BRAVE with Brandon Tatum

Join TPUSA at MTU to hear Brandon Tatum speak about how to BE BRAVE in today’s culture war. This event will take place on March 21st (Tuesday) at 7pm in Fisher 135. This event is open to all Michigan Tech Students and community members. Use this Link to RSVP on Involvement Link. For a faster check-in process, MTU students should bring their tech id to the event. If you have any questions, please contact tpusa@mtu.edu or cmglenn@mtu.edu . 

Brandon Tatum’s background information can be found below:

“Brandon Tatum, a former Tucson Police Officer, co-founder of BLEXIT, author of Beaten Black and Blue: Being a Black Cop in an America Under Siege, and host of the nationally syndicated The Officer Tatum Show and Podcast, has become one of the most prolific speakers and exciting personalities on social media after making a Facebook Video that got over 70 million views. Brandon was also an All-American high school football player out of Fort Worth, Texas, who was featured in the US-Army All-American Game. Brandon accepted a full athletic scholarship from the University of Arizona in 2005. Brandon played at Arizona for 5 years and entered the NFL Draft in 2010. God had other plans for Brandon, and he joined the Tucson Police Department a year later. Brandon served 6 years with the Tucson Police Department. During his tenure, Brandon became a SWAT operator, field training officer, general instructor, and Public Information Officer.”

To learn more about Brandon Tatum, click here


MUB Board presents

March Madness Bracket Challenge

Join our MUB pool starting March 12th and compete to win a prize! The student with the bracket of the highest amount of points will earn a college basketball jersey of their choice! The link to join will be added to our linktree in our instagram bio (mubboard) soon, so follow us for updates.

Euchre Tourney

Prove you’re Michigan Tech’s best Eurche team! The winning team will receive a custom-made trophy for each player, and the top three teams will have their pick of board games for each player.

Location: MUB Commons

Date: Saturday, March 18th

Time: 2-5 pm


Headshots from Career Fair to be Emailed Soon

Attention students who took advantage of the free professional headshots offered by The Office of Alumni Engagement during Spring Career Fair: we are happy to share that your photos will be emailed soon! As promised, Emily Ruonavaara, a member of the Alumni Engagement staff, will email each individual’s photos to the email address given that day. Please keep an eye out for those to arrive in your inbox soon.


Center for Student Mental Health and Well-being

Board Game Group

Do you love board games? So do we! Come hang out and play board games with our student staff and a counselor on March 3rd from 6-8 p.m. We will be located in the Wads Annex, G11.

Health Hut

The Well-being Advocates will be hosting another Health Hut today! Stop by the library exhibit space today (Wednesday) from 12:00-2:00 p.m! Learn more about options for staying active and getting outside during the winter in the UP. Also, learn more about becoming a Well-being Advocate

Cookies and Coloring

De-stress with an afternoon of adult coloring and find out more about what the Center for Student Mental Health and Well-being has to offer! Cookies and Coloring is an informal place for students to connect with professional counselors and student professionals from our center! 

If Cookies and Coloring is not for you, you can always drop in to our low-stress, confidential consultations via our Let’s Talk zoom link! Learn more about the time and date availability for Let’s Talk on our website! Let’s Talk is especially helpful to those who are unsure about whether counseling is right for them, or if they are concerned about a peer and would like advice!


Massive Earthquake in Turkey & Syria Fundraiser

Two massive earthquakes (7.8 and 7.6) struck Turkey & Syria and caused devastating destruction causing more than 45,000 deaths (and estimated to reach +100k). At Tech we have five professors and three graduate students from Turkey and with the support of Dr. Sarah Green, we started a fundraiser through a reliable NGO. Because the destruction was so massive, the recovery will take months, and any support, and awareness is appreciated. 


Hoya Workshop hosted by the Plant & Gardening Club

Plant & Gardening club will be hosting a plant workshop on the genus of Hoya on March 16th, 18th, and 19th at 5pm in the Bubble Greenhouse on the main campus. The cost for this workshop is $10. Tickets must be pre-ordered so the correct amount of plants are available for everybody. Attendees will receive a 4in Hoya carnosa in a 4in a terracotta pot with species-appropriate soil, and a printed care instruction sheet!
During the workshop, we’ll plant the plants in their new pot and soil, treat any pests, etc., and give attendees more information on this awesome genus of plants!

If anybody is interested we ask they fill out this google form to pre-order tickets (: Last day to purchase will be March 7th.


Winter Carnival Survey

We hope you all had an amazing Winter Carnival! Everyone at Blue Key saw thousands of students, faculty, and community members enjoying the warm yet wonderful winter weather throughout the week.

With Carnival concluding for this year, we want your opinions! Not everything can go smoothly each year but we want to see how you all thought things went. With that, we ask that you fill out this form to help us get a better sense about what we could improve on or what we should continue doing for next year’s Winter Carnival. It should only take about 5-10 minutes to fill out but it would be greatly appreciated!


Intramurals


The Student Leadership and Involvement office will be closed from 12:00pm to 1:00pm during Spring Break (March 3-10). We will resume our normal hours starting March 13th.