ANNUAL REpoRt 2010-2011 - Ithaca College

ANNUAL REPORT: 2010-2011
Last spring, Erin volunteered at the Tompkins County Public Library (TCPL) in its Youth Department.
This fall, she continues her service with the library working as its development intern
to help raise money for programming. Erin began her semester as a Community Plunge leader
and had an amazing time volunteering at a school downtown as well as at Finger Lakes ReUse
Center. On campus, she is a proponent for mental health with the advocacy group Active Minds.
She is delighted to have been elected president for this year and will also continue serving as a
Speak Your Mind panelist to provide a voice for mental health. Erin will also be helping the Community
School of Music and Arts with event planning through the Park Scholar service group
Megaphone Media Productions. Erin also loves to volunteer at various local events such as Judy’s
Day at Cornell Plantations and the Apple Harvest Festival. She is also a member of the United
Way Philanthropy Corps.
Jenna was privileged to spend her spring semester in Bolivia, experiencing the vivid Andean culture
through the lens of her program’s theme: multiculturalism, globalization, and social change.
She participated in a variety of community service projects wherever she traveled, and she spent
two weeks living in an indigenous community where she volunteered at the newly-implemented
local library. She is currently publishing a trilingual children’s book about her experience in this
library, which she wrote and illustrated. She works on local media projects through Megaphone
Media Productions, helps coordinate the annual Christians on the Road to Emmaus student
retreat through the Protestant Community, and helps develop and market student programming
through her job as a student leadership consultant in the Ithaca College Office of Student
Engagement and Multicultural Affairs (OSEMA). One of her favorite involvements is IC Intercambios,
a Spanish/English language exchange program. As the community match coordinator,
she handles all correspondence with Spanish-speaking community members to match them with
a student speaking partner from Ithaca College.
Erin Irby
Integrated Marketing
Communications
Statesboro, GA
Jenna Jablonski
Integrated Marketing
Communications
Lakewood, NY
Qina has returned to Ithaca College after studying abroad in London last spring. While in London,
she became the first four-month intern at The Tablet, an international weekly Catholic
newspaper, where she researched and wrote about spending cuts and the Personal Ordinariate of
Our Lady at Walsingham. She also volunteered with BTCV, a charity dedicated to environmental
conservation, and worked on building a “kitchen garden” in Waterlow Park. This past summer,
Qina was one of eight American City Business Journal interns throughout more than 40 publications
in the United States. She reported for publications based in her hometown of Buffalo,
New York, including Business First and The Buffalo Law Journal. Qina also continues to work as a
reporter for ICTV’s news program Newswatch 16 this fall. She is a writer for The Ithacan, Buzzsaw
magazine, and the Ithaca City School District; a newscaster at 92 WICB; and a member of the
Society of Professional Journalists. In addition to her media involvement, she volunteers walking
dogs at the SPCA of Tompkins County every week.
Qina Liu
Journalism
Kenmore, NY
Merdina Ljekperic spent her spring semester and summer in Córdoba, Argentina where she studied
the language, culture, politics, history, and economics of Latin America as a whole. She also
interned at a communications agency where she was able to participate in almost all firm activity
but focused mainly on her own project, creating a database of international donors for the agency’s
new mission plan to serve nonprofits and NGOs at little to no cost. Back on campus, Merdina
is a co-coordinator of Media Club, a Park Scholar group service project. She leads a group
of twenty-one volunteers in total, while focusing mainly on the program at New Roots Charter
School. She is also serving her second year as special events co-chair on the executive board for
Ithaca College Habitat for Humanity. In this position, she has organized all fundraisers for the
chapter. She is also involved in all major decisions and participates in builds in the local community.
Merdina also keeps practicing her Spanish with IC Intercambios, which pairs students
with native Spanish-speakers in the community and teaches English to community farm workers.
Merdina also writes for Buzzsaw magazine, expressing her humor in Sawdust and her love
of politics in Upfront. She is also a member of the Ithaca College Model United Nations team.
Merdina Ljekperic
Journalism
Staten Island, NY
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