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Campus, Community
Members Volunteer at UIS Cares
By Heather Shaffer
On a gorgeous early spring morning, members of
the UIS and Springfield communities joined forces with staff of
Washington Middle School for a day of beatification and cleaning
during UIS Cares on Saturday March 27, 2004.
UIS Cares is a half-day community service event in
which UIS students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends take on a
community service project in partnership with a community-based
organization. This year UIS partnered with Washington Middle
School, 2300 E. Jackson.
Volunteer projects
included: picking up garbage, clearing and trimming brush, raking
“gumballs”, and shoveling and raking woodchips around muddy areas.
Karin Cotterman, Coordinator of the Office of
Student Volunteers and Service Learning and Coordinator of UIS
Cares, was thrilled that over 100 people participated this year.
“The turnout was split half and half
between UIS folks and community members, but that line blurs
easily because community members attend classes and work at UIS,”
she said.
Cotterman said, “Last
year we had 80 participants and I think the increase this year can
be attributed to the number of groups and individuals committed to
Washington Middle School. They were a great organization to
partner with,” she said.
 “It
is a gorgeous day out here. I think this day is great. I love
the idea of landscaping. The environment is an important part of
school and everyday life. If the environment looks like trash
then it can make it much harder to work around it,” said Rica
Stiner, Freshman Capital Scholar and Vice President of the
Volunteer Club.
Volunteer Nicole Jones said that is
was a nice day and she enjoyed helping out.
UIS gets Cabin Fever
By Jonathan Meyer
Many UIS students
have been staying indoors most of this winter due to the cold
weather. However, last Saturday, they had a chance to get out and
enjoy the warming weather. On this date, UIS celebrated its
second annual Cabin Fever Games.
Freshmen Samantha Bullig and John
Kelly, Sophomore Jennifer Davis and Junior Chris Wyant organized
the event and served as judges.
Freshmen, sophomores, juniors and
seniors formed eight teams of four or five persons each before the
day’s events and participated in six events. First place in each
event received eight points, second place seven points, third
place six points and so on. After all the activities, all the
points were added up and the top places received prizes.
The first task the teams were given
was to create a boat out of paper, tape and a few other
materials. After the specified amount of time, each boat was
placed in water and weight, in the form of pennies, nickels, dimes
and quarters, was added until each boat sank.
 The
boat to hold the most weight was the winner. While waiting to
test his team’s boat, Sophomore Dan Duffy of the MidKnights said
he “felt confident” in their engineering design. Several boats,
including the one built by the MidKnights, held all the change
available. All those teams received eight points.
The second event was tricycle
races. A stop watch was used as teams raced along the course two
at a time. Team Off In Da Closet won first place in this event.
This balanced out their last place showing in the boat contest.
A pie eating contest was also in
the works. One person from each team was asked to participate.
The first person to finish their pie was the winner. This year,
Tyson Roan of team Ramrods won first place.
A person was not declared finished
unless the entire pie, within reason, was gone. This caused
problems for Brad Ward, as much of his pie had become more apple
sauce after a while.
While most of the events only saw a
few members of each team participating, all team members had to
take part in the relay race. All teams raced at the same time.
While this allowed the event to
begin and end faster than the others,
it also created a certain amount of
controversy. This occurred because there were not enough judges
to watch every player the entire time. Some competitors from the
Pirates felt other teams were not obeying the rules.
While nothing could be done
retroactively for that event, the judges tried harder to avoid
such problems later. Fortunately, the Pirates were not asking for
a redo. They mainly wanted to prevent similar incidents in the
competitions to come later in the day.
Another game was dubbed “The Condom
Game.” This activity required one participant from each team.
The players were each given a condom and asked to put it over
their heads and blow it up. The first person to pop the condom
using nothing but exhaled air was the winner. Competitors were
told several times to cover up only their nose as covering up the
mouth too might cause suffocation.
Sophomore Kelsey Dennis of team
Pirates received first place with Jeremy Wiburn of team In The
Closet came in second.
 The
last event of the competition was sumo wrestling. Participants
dueled one on one. The first person to have both feet outside of
a designated area was the loser. The winner of the best two out
of three matches won and advanced in a bracket-style, double
elimination tournament.
Off In Da Closet came in first
place for this event and the Ramrods got second. This final
outcome resulted in Off In Da Closet coming in first for all the
events combine, The UIS Drinking Team came in second, and the
Ramrods and Pirates tied for third.
“Today has been a lot of fun,” said
Sophomore Matt Wallace of Off In Da Closet. “I’ve really enjoyed
it and I think most others have too.”
“I think this year was a lot of fun
for everyone,” said John Kelly, one of the day’s organizers and
event judges. “There have been a few small problems, but we’ve
worked through them and will be even better prepared for next
year.”
Samantha Bullig echoed this
sentiment. “I think things went smoothly for the most part. I
really enjoyed helping with the organization and watching the
competition. I’m definitely looking forward to next year.”
The Life of Dr.
Chadalawada
By Jonathan Meyer
For the past three months, Dr. Usha
Chadalawada has been attending classes at UIS. She is enrolled in
medical classes on campus. She is a native of India.
“Obtaining a degree from the West
will help distinguish me from my colleges in India,” she said.
Chadalawada’s long-term goal is to help set up official medical
schools in her native land.
 She
said very few places like that exist in India at present.
However, with a population of one billion, the need for such
facilities is pressing. If more health officials can be educated,
Chadalawada hopes this increase in manpower will help cut down on
India’s heath problems.
Chadalawada was educated in
India. Beginning school at the age of three years, she progressed through
primary and secondary education. Later on, she passed her college
entrance exams and obtained the Indian equivalent of an MD.
Because of India’s large
population, Chadalawada believes an important aspect of improving
overall health is to focus on prevention. She also focuses her
work on other issues of social health such as poverty, literacy
and malnutrition.
Before coming to UIS, Chadalawada
participated in some work at the SIU School of Medicine. While
there, she observed how medicine is studied in the United States.
After this process concluded, she decided to pursue her goal of
obtaining a Western degree at UIS.
Chadalawada decided to come to UIS
because the faculty here seemed nice and receptive. “This is
really what I need,” she said.
She is in the U.S. by permission
from the government of India. “I really feel like I’m a
representative of my state. I try to keep them informed in terms
regarding what has been going on so if I go back, I can stay a
part of what is going on back there.”
In developing this program,
Chadalawada puts a great deal of thought into long-term
sustainability. “I’ve been going to school since I was three
years old. I want to see my education and experiences used to
help people and the only way to do that is to make it happen
myself.”
Developing a more comprehensive
medical education program back in India is going to take a lot of
“team spirit,” she said. “I can’t do it alone.”
One possible way to achieve this
goal is to develop institution collaboration. This allows
universities in different locations to assist each other to the
degree that both greatly benefit.
Currently, the SIU School of
Medicine collaborates in this way with the University of
Health Sciences, the only
institution for higher education devoted to medicine in India.
“I have gained a lot from my
experiences in the U.S.” said Chadalawada. She said she had
learned a lot from both formal as well as informal education and
continues to be exposed to new things every day.
Overall, of her experiences in the
U.S. she said, “I really like the U.S. I don’t care for the food
too much, but I love the attitude of the people everywhere.
Everyone always seems so positive and optimistic. That gives me
energy and encourages me.”
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