Best of the Month: November 2015

2015 TEDxFIU speakers exemplify perseverance

The fourth annual TEDxFIU event, “Always Forward,” was held at the Wertheim Performing Arts Center on Nov. 5 and featured eight talks centered around a message of hope and optimism.

The speakers exemplified this year’s theme, always facing problems head-on, no matter the challenges.

To read the whole story, click here.

Daniel Tabet takes first place at 2015 Walk on Water

As is tradition, Professor Jaime Canaves challenged his students to design “shoes” that would allow them to cross the 175-foot-wide lake behind the Green Library.

Daniel Tabet was the first student to make it across, winning $1,000. Everyone else who was successful received an “A” in Canaves’ class.

To read the whole story, click here.

Men’s soccer wins first C-USA title, earns NCAA Tournament berth

Senior Patrick Lopez’s goal in the Conference USA championship game gave FIU a historic 1-0 victory over the Marshall Thundering Herd, and the program its first C-USA title since joining the conference in 2005.

The win helped the Panthers earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2004, when the Panthers won the conference championship in their last season as a member of the Atlantic Soccer Conference.

To read the whole story, click here.

Africa bond: Student, mentor impact each other

Fiacre Bienvenu, FIU’s only current student from Rwanda, overcame a childhood of great poverty, survived the horrific genocide that traumatized his nation and persevered in the face of overwhelming barriers to study outside of his native land.

John Clark, a professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations in the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, played an instrumental role in the process and helped Bienvenu make it to FIU.

To read the whole story, click here.

Soon-to-be graduates fill teaching vacancies at MDCPS

Principals from 40 of Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ (MDCPS) elementary, middle, senior high schools and K-8 centers filled FIU’s Stadium Club on Nov. 19 looking to fill vacancies at their schools.

This hands-on approach was a marked departure from the typical information sessions the school district used to market itself to education graduates.

Instead of helping graduates understand the process for finding teacher vacancies and applying for open positions, district leaders worked with the College of Education to help fill vacancies immediately.

To read the whole story, click here.

Transforming news of violence to stories of resilience

The “Storytelling to Change the World” conference spotlighted restorative narrative: stories that focus on community resilience, restoration and hope.

Research shows that an onslaught of violence and despair in the news is associated with acute stress symptoms, triggers flashbacks and encourages fear mongering in viewers, and that the public is starting to gravitate toward more positive stories instead of the negative.

To read the whole story, click here.