Award Nominee Profiles - ACCED-i

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CC: • Established a Level One – Incident Command Center on foothills campus; • Housed an average of 250 firefighters daily on main campus, totaling 3,800 bed nights; • Housed some evacuees on campus, totaling 63 bed nights; • Red Cross set up a Disaster Recovery Center on campus to assist victims; • Daily communication sent to families of student staff; • Provided snack pack care packages for firefighters, coordinating with local vendors for donations; • Provided basic supplies like linens, towels, laundry cards, and coffee in the halls; • Coordinated with youth camps and students to create “thank you” signs for firefighters in the halls; • Worked with catering to provide coffee service and reusable bags for evacuees and staff at the disaster recovery center. • Housed evacuated employees, students and contractors and their families, totaling 100 unexpected guests that stayed up to one month; • Custodial turned vacated rooms immediately to maintain available inventory ; • Updated website daily with news and air quality readings; • Constant communications and daily updates with future conferences; • Kept precise records of conference guests and summer session students locations and contact information; • Daily emergency meetings with the Emergency Planning Team and President, provided daily number of guests and contact information; • Information also shared with FEMA; • Provide and tracked meal cards distributed to evacuees; • Cancelled sightseeing trips scheduled for conference groups; • Moved outdoor sports camps to indoor locations due to poor air quality; • Oh, and then two weeks after the fire was contained, received 4 days notice to make arrangements to host President Obama on campus. <strong>Nominee</strong>: Florida Institute of Technology Over the summer of 2012 Florida Institute of Technology became the home of a Space Studies Program called International Space University (ISU). Celebrating the 25 th anniversary of the ISU program, and only the second time this international conference has been held in the United States, Florida Institute of Technology joined forces with the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and the ISU steering committee to make the 9-week summer program a huge success. ISU’s mission is to provide education featuring experts, scholars and space professionals from around the world and covering all aspects of space programs and enterprises. The ISU program in 2012 consisted of 5-7 days per week of classroom instruction plus over 100 additional events (both on- and off-campus) sponsored by various companies such as Visit Florida, Boeing, Space Florida, Lockheed Martin, Disney, Melbourne Chamber, Ricoh, NNDS, and the Marriott. With so many aspects of the program taking place simultaneously, logistics played a key role in the successful implementation of this program. The proposal to host the ISU program at Florida Institute of Technology and the Kennedy Space Center was initially submitted by a university professor in August 2010, with the hope of hosting the program at our university in the summer of 2013. In 2011, Florida Institute of Technology / Kennedy Space Center were selected to be a future host of the ISU Space Studies Program. However, the ISU committee asked that Florida Tech/KSC host the program in 2012 instead of the anticipated 2013. With less than one year’s notice to coordinate and organize this multi-level program, we had to work fast. Initial preparations at the university included working with the University’s Registrar’s office to reschedule more than 20 summer classes, to accommodate ISU’s need to have exclusive use of 15 classrooms and 2 computer labs on a 24/7 basis for the duration of their program. Additionally, the overseas shipment of a very large POD container with ISU’s central office staff’s entire library and supplies had to be coordinated with U.S. Customs and our shipping/receiving department. Office furniture for 33 ISU central office staff had to be acquired and set up to their specifications. Over 300 sets of bed linens and towels had to be purchased and placed in each room, which were cleaned and prepared in record time by the facilities operations and housekeeping departments, and a location to hang their huge ISU banner had to be found. On May 28, 2012 the 33 advance ISU central staff members arrived and the move in process began.
On June 2, 2012 Florida Tech welcomed the 130 young professional participants of the ISU program to campus. These participants represented 31 different countries, with an average age of 25-30 and most holding a master's degree. The opening ceremony took place in Florida Tech’s gymnasium where part of the room was setup theater style with seating for 390 and a stage. The other side was setup reception style with heavy hors d’oeuvres and a bar. A parade of nations, complete with flags from every country, was followed by a rousing welcome given by the Director of NASA Kennedy Space Center, Robert Cabana. Entertainment was provided throughout the event to showcase America and its culture, including a Native American Creek Tribe performance of an amazing ring dance and a local artist playing his guitar for ambiance. The ISU program had a constant flow of faculty members (112 to be precise) checking in and out of campus throughout the 9 weeks of the program. The university also provided three meals a day throughout the week and two meals on weekends to all of the participants and staff of the program. During the day, participants occupied up to 17 out of the university’s 37 classrooms. During evenings and on weekends, special activities were scheduled including visiting the Brevard Community College Planetarium, taking a tour of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, attending a workshop at Walt Disney World (followed by a day of fun in the Disney parks), attending a Soffen Memorial Panel, and attending an International Astronaut Panel featuring Robert Cabana, Kent Rominger, Jim Voss, Nichole Stott, Winston Scott, Chiaki Mukai, Garrett Reisman, and Ken Bowersox which are all current and former astronauts. Although outside the scope of “regular” duties, the staff of the Conference Services Bureau at Florida Tech was actively involved in planning and executing the logistics for all of these off-site activities. Arrangements also had to be made to have all ISU participants, staff, and faculty badged for security clearance to go onsite at the Kennedy Space Center. As the participants were from all over the world, this was not an easy task. In the end, the KSC representatives came through and ISU was able to have some of their events onsite including a private tour of the Vehicle Assembly Building (where the Space Shuttle Atlantis was being housed at the time), a tour of the Orbiter Processing Facilities (where Space Shuttle Endeavor was being processed), attending a Delta rocket launch and also an Atlas V launch, participating in the very first ISU rocket launch from the KSC Pad 39-A (the pad that launched shuttles), and they were also able to have their closing ceremony and reception at the KSC. Even through these events took place off-site, Florida Tech was actively involved in the logistics behind the scheduling of these events. At the university, meals still had to be served, transportation had to be arranged, cleaning had to be done, and rooms still had to be locked and unlocked. Holding the ISU program, and accommodating their special requests, posed its own unique challenges. For example, how many universities have been asked by a group if they could setup a Space Habitat on campus? How many people, after being asked that question, would have to Google to find out what a Space Habitat would look like? Well, it happened to Florida Tech this summer! After much logistical conversation and changes to the plan, the tent-like Space Habitat was set up in the heart of Florida Tech’s campus where ISU participants performed experiments throughout their stay. Additionally, the ISU program wasn’t complete without its weekly culture night. Six culture nights took place on Florida Tech’s campus. At these events, three different cultures each evening were given the opportunity to present to all the participants of the program about their culture and share some of their culture’s unique food and drinks. Other on-campus ISU special events included the Space and Media Panel which took place in Florida Tech’s Gleason Performing Arts Center. Florida Tech provided venue, audio, lighting, decorations, and technicians for this event. Florida Tech also coordinated ISU Robotics Competition, which took place in our Clemente Center (gym) where a special floor had to be put down in order for the robots to work correctly. Another event was the ISU Open Mike Night; this event gave the participants the opportunity to show off their talents (or lack thereof). The university was also honored to be the host of the world premiere of the documentary Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope, the Inspirational Story of Columbia Astronaut Ilan Ramon. During ISU Alumni Weekend, Florida Tech welcomed 60 additional participants, all participants from previous Space Studies Programs, Florida Tech provided housing, meals and venues to hold their additional events, including special speakers and a football (soccer) game of alumni versus current participants. During Alumni weekend, the grandest event was the Space Masquerade. This year’s masquerade took place inside Florida Tech’s gymnasium. The room was set up with a dance floor in the center of the room with table and chairs surrounding the dance floor. Food was provided by Florida Tech Catering, cash bars was provided by an outside vendor, and a DJ provided up-lighting that set the stage for the outer-space theme. However, the event really came together when people started arriving dressed up in their space-themed costumes. There were people dressed as aliens, Star Wars and Star Trek characters, many variations of astronaut outfits, and
Page 1 and 2: Association of Collegiate Conferenc
Page 3 and 4: Nominee: Mandy Volpe, Georgia Insti
Page 5: Outstanding Institutional Achieveme
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Page 11 and 12: volunteer orientation, business mee
Page 13 and 14: (40) rounds with ten chairs each. T
Page 15 and 16: 24.73% of their classmates. In 2011
Page 17 and 18: dorm maintenance, and dining servic
Page 19 and 20: Outstanding Individual Achievement

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