Category: Athletics

In late March, Halmos College Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) traveled to Orlando, FL to attend the HOSA State Leadership Conference. There the Halmos College’s HOSA was recognized for contributions to HOSA’s National Service Project with the Cancer Foundation. NSU’s HOSA was also listed as the largest post-secondary chapter in Florida for the second year in a row.

This three-day conference allows students to participate in the Competitive Events Program. This program is designed to motivate HOSA members and provide a system for recognizing the competencies developed by members through Health Science and Biomedical Science class instruction, related job training, and HOSA related activities. While there, Halmos College’s HOSA students had 10 first-place winners, 3 second-place winners, 3 third-place winners, 2 fourth-place winners, and 1 fifth-place winner. With 19 winners, this is the greatest number of prizes the NSU HOSA chapter has ever received. Students placing in the top three of each category automatically move to the International Leadership Conference which will be held June in Orlando, FL.

NSU’s HOSA took pride in winning and placing in many of the conference’s competitions. Below are the list of NSU student winners. Congratulations!

*Signifies membership in the Farquhar Honors College

1st Place Winners and their topics:

• Clinical Specialty: Taalia Azharuddin*
• CPR/First Aid: Cherrise Diaz & Rahul Gorjavalu *
• Dental Terminology: Brandon Valerio
• Extemporaneous Writing: Daniela Pinzon
• HOSA Bowl: Jeena Zacharia, Hailey Jaramillo, Osman Azharuddin *
• Prepared Speaking: Wilford Miranda *
• Researched Persuasive Speaking and Writing: Alexa Albanese

2nd Place winners and their topics:

• CPR/First Aid: Hailey Pollman & Alice Tran
• Extemporaneous Health Poster: Sobia Khan

3rd Place winners and their topics:

• Health Education: Priya Rajesh*, Saajan Patel* , Kriya Shah

4th Place winners and their topics:

• Medical Terminology: Jessica Hallett *
• Prepared Speaking: Vivian Dang *

5th Place:

• Medical Reading: Vidhi Raval *

HOSA is an international student organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Health Science Education (HSE) Division of ACTE (Association for Career and Technical Education). HOSA’s two-fold mission is to promote career opportunities in the health care industry and to enhance the delivery of quality health care to all people. Halmos College HOSA Organization’s advisor is Biological Sciences faculty member Omar Eldakar, Ph.D.

James Doan, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Literature and Modern Languages in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), was the co-producer, with Christopher Harrington, of the play, The Weir, by Conor McPherson. The South Florida Irish Theatre and ACT of Davie hosted the play on March 15 and 16, 2019, in Davie. The Weir is about a group of men drinking in a bar in rural Ireland and swapping ghost stories. A woman from Dublin arrives and weaves a tale of her own.

Doan is a co-founder of the South Florida Irish Theatre and is actively involved in the theatre community in South Florida, having written and directed plays for Actors Community Theatre (ACT) in Davie. His research interests include the legend of King Arthur; late Renaissance English drama; Irish and Celtic literature; the figure of the vampire in myth, legend and film; and the supernatural in general.

Last month, Halmos biology faculty member Santanu De, Ph.D., was invited to the Resident Assistant Program on Sexual Health which was held at Rolling Hills. There he addressed diverse taboo topics of concern to all students. These included information on reproductive health and performance, and was aimed to spread awareness about safe physical relationships based on key perspectives in reproductive anatomy and physiology such as menstrual cycle, pregnancy, birth control and sexually transmitted infections/diseases.

Twenty five students attended Dr. De’s talk, where the program coordinator and students asked relevant questions.

On Wednesday, March 20 NSU’s American Association of University Women (AAUW) sponsored the 14th annual International Women’s Day Colloquium in the Carl DeSantis Atrium. The theme for 2019 was Balance for Better and nearly 100 students, faculty and staff attended this event. Student organizations participated by displaying their research posters that focused on gender equity issues in their chosen fields.

Randi Sims, President NSU-AAUW, welcomed all in attendance and discussed the history of the women’s movement and posed the question of what this generation will do for future generations of young girls and women. Maureen McDermott, Vice-President of Membership NSU-AAUW, then introduced the eloquent speaker.

Ivelices Thomas, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of RH & Beyond gave a poignant and heartfelt speech on Creating Your Own Path to Parity. Ms. Thomas discussed her personal journey and the challenges and obstacles that she discovered along the way. She learned invaluable lessons such as being as advocated for yourself by demonstrating you are the right person for the role. Additionally, all women need internal advocates for times when you aren’t in the room to represent yourself. She emphasized forming relationships with colleagues at all levels of a business. She also recommended becoming involved in organizations that matter to you and your company. Women helping other women was also stressed. She shared her personal experience of getting to a top position and hiring women. At first she worried about doing this but then realized this is how the positive change happens.

Afterward undergraduate student Sarah Goltsman, winner of the USS-AAUW award, shared her powerful spoken word poem Masterpiece. This thought-provoking poem incorporated women’s right and suffrage as well as sexual harassment and abuse. The main theme is that a woman’s body can stop being her own. Throughout her art, she invokes other women she admires in her life showing women are so much more than their bodies. Her poem can send chills through one’s body as it was so real and relatable. It ended with hope that through open discussion and unity a difference can and will be made.

This is the link for her spoken word poem: https://vimeo.com/groups/183597/videos/262089482

This event concluded with closing remarks by Rose Llanos-Almeida, Director of Programs NSU-AAUW, where she invited everyone to become part of the AAUW and push forward on our path together.

AAUW-NSU wishes to thank the Office of Orientation & Commuter Engagement and The Women’s Success Series for partial funding of this event.

The team at the Office of Innovation and Information Technology charged forward to put on a Health & Wellness program for our employees.  We brought in our juicers and blenders and jumped right in to make healthy drinks for our coworkers!  There were four stations set up for this event.  Mike Taylor was in charge of the first station where he made a strawberry and banana smoothie.  Zach Hollman manned the second station where he juiced an amazing carrot, apple, and ginger juice.  Jaime Gentile attended the third station and made fresh squeezed apple juice.  Eduardo Scheinkman was at the fourth station and made a refreshing watermelon juice.  The event was a great success and our employees enjoyed the healthy and refreshing drinks.