Focus Shift: Legal obstructions cause VIP group to rethink goals

Hi everyone, this is Summy from the VIP group Beyond Tutoring on 12th Avenue blogging about the ups and downs of a semester and a half in Vanderbilt Interest projects.

When thinking over what our VIP has done for the past month, to be honest there's not a whole lot new to report. Various people in our group have continued going to tutor in the Edgehill community every Wednesday with the P-Team tutoring program from Crawford and Gillette Houses on the commons. As part of our group's vision to reach out to the underprivileged children and community of the Edgehill housing projects, we have signed up to volunteer with the Nashville Mobile Market. The Mobile Market is a Vanderbilt-student-run endeavor that launched last month aiming to provide fresh foods to "food deserts" in Nashville - places where residents can't get fresh food or produce and resort to eating unfresh, highly preserved, unhealthy food. Our group is anxious to get involved with the Nashville Mobile Market as soon as we can, which should be after Spring Break.

As for my reflections upon this year, VIP has definitely been a mixed bag for me. It has been great to get to know everyone in my VIP better and to work on group projects, improve our group dynamic, and learn about cooperation, leadership and teamwork in such a diverse group. On the other hand, it's been extremely frustrating for me to see our awesome vision at the beginning of the year left abandoned because of liability issues and legalities. We came into VIP with an action plan and a desire to form really close relationships with the children of the Edgehill community. We wanted to be positive role models, to provide a creative outlet every week for the children to learn about different parts of the globe and gain a broader perspective on the human experience. Instead, despite what I believe was a genuine desire to help and empower others, we haven't gotten to do these things. I hope that with the remaining few months we do have in VIP, we will work hard with the resources that we have to give back to Nashville. Even though my VIP experience didn't turn out the way we envisioned it, I believe that things worked out the way that they did in order to shift our focus into a different way to reach out - whether it's through the Nashville Mobile Market or going with a more established group during the week.

Food as Medicine: ITMFF February

              The past month has been an excellent one for the girls of In the Mood for Food. We’ve been exploring the idea of food as medicine and unpacking all that entails. I’ve been learning a lot about cultural practices around the world. Did you know that indigenous tribes in lowland South America believe that the body is literally composed of what they eat? For them, the body is a “social product,” intrinsically connected to the natural world through processes, like eating. To be a healthy and moral member of society, one must consume the correct food products. Our Western ideologies are definitely different from this, but there are interesting things available to us too. In recent years, the prevalence of healing foods, like blueberries and acai berries, has infiltrated the media. I can’t read a magazine or newspaper or blog without seeing an article on the nutritious benefits of certain food products. Is any of this true? Can food help you feel better? 
             We’ve discovered that it is, to a certain extent, a plausible way to deal with health. Alternative health practices may not be rooted in hard science, but they are tied to millennia of ritual and traditional methods. Our options have been a little limited, but we were still able to try several different types of food rumored to have healing qualities. The one I personally found to be the most effective was chamomile tea. Chamomile comes from daisies, and has been used for mainstream health benefits like reducing stress and assisting with sleep, and other more traditional benefits like wound healing. I tried the tea while I had a severe cold and it definitely helped me to feel better! Overall, most “food as medicine” rumors are just rumors. They generally lack scientific evidence, so eschewing medicine in favor of blueberries probably isn’t the greatest idea in the world. But in our society that tends to over-rely and over-consume medicine, looking into alternative practices (even as simple as changing the foods you eat!) can be a cheaper and healthier option. We can’t wait to continue our journey next month!

DEAR Vanderbilt February Blog

February was on of the the most exciting months for our VIP group because of the VIP Showcase that was in the Commons this month. Seeing the finished poster product and really being able to reflect on how this made our group not only bond more, but accomplish so much over one semester was really rewarding. My favorite part was looking at the posters of all the other groups and seeing what they did for their projects. I did not realize how creative my peers were! I have been living in the same hall as some very extraordinary individuals and I was not even able to interact with them because I did not think we would have similar interests. After interacting with some other VIP groups, I realized that we have some very similar interests that I was excited to share. As far as programming, our group brainstormed ideas for how we wanted to use our funds. Since our group is about trying to find ways to alleviate stress, we decided we wanted to do something that would help us alleviate stress from out lives but also incorporate a civic engagement component into our final project such as playing with animals at an animal shelter. We are very excited to be going into the last few months of the VIP program and really accomplishing a lot, but it would of course be a bittersweet ending because we have thoroughly enjoyed the VIP program thus far. 

VIP Poster Showcase Slideshow

And the winner is...

With 76 persons voting, our official VIP logo contest breaks down as follows:




















Congratulations! Based on popular demand, we're adopting the logo on the left.

VIP Showcase - TRIUMPH!

Wow! The VIP groups pulled together this year to deliver a wonderful and impressive showcase. After viewing, picking-up, and delivering those large posters, I felt amazed to see what each has learned this year through trial and error by doing their own execution of events, learning about group dynamics, and analyzing data. So I thank each VIP participant for his or her contribution not just the showcase night but for placing VIP as a priority during their hectic academic and personal schedules.

A bird's eye view of the Showcase. Sustainability Through Food is conversing with Randy Tarkington, OHARE's Senior Director of Residential Education in this shot.

Anyways, the actual event was filled with many VIP students, their peers, people searching for dinner, faculty, and administration. If you were able to attend this event, thank you so much for supporting the VIP program and more importantly its students. At the event, each group highlighted their project with a large presentation poster and discussing their project with the public. Also, because of the excellent work of Vanderbilt Catering, we were able to have equipment set-up and delicious desserts for our audience. In the cafeteria, the Common's Staff set-up a screen for a VIP promotional presentation to be shown as well as a television in the Commons Center Atrium for public viewing of our groups' commercials. Plus, I really enjoyed hearing everyone's opinion on the new VIP logo (results to be revealed soon)!

D.E.A.R. Vanderbilt pause for a picture during the Showcase.

Overall, I believe this Showcase allowed for the public to understand what VIP has been doing throughout the year and the opportunity to ask students questions, regarding their projects. However, with only a few months left, I know that this year's VIP participants still have more menus to create, myths to bust, cans to recycle, and so much more!

Poster + Outings + Schedules + A New Year

Hey there y’all,

So January has been kind of a busy month for our group with the he craziness that goes along with the start of another new semester. Because of this we haven’t gotten to do much this semester as far as organized group outings etc, but that does not mean that we haven’t got some great things in the works for the upcoming semester. We all met up this month and put together an amazing poster display of what our group is all about to be presented at the annual VIP poster showcase at the Commons. It should be an exciting opportunity for us to get to explain our project and the Living and Learning community in general. We all had a great time putting it together and are really looking forward to the possibilities for this new semester.

That’s all for now!!

Sara, Evyn, Lexi, Alex, Abby, & Liesel 

Building an Ethical Identity

Nelson here, with some updates about the Building an Ethical Identity VIP project. Thus far, this semester has meant a lot of retooling of our project. The time commitment has been really rough lately for all of us, as we've taken up quite a few more responsibility in terms of more rigorous workloads, jobs, volunteering, and extracurriculars. We were very close to withdrawing from the project, but after meeting with Shawn and discussing a few things, we were able to work something out, restructuring our project to fit our scheduling better. This was expressed in our poster that we are to present tomorrow, which focuses not as much on specific issues, but honing the ability to think ethically, a skill that in such a competitive world is greatly overlooked.

Looking forward to seeing everyone else's posters,
Building an Ethical Identity

Global Perspectives in January

Hello and greetings reader!
On behalf of Global Perspectives, I would like to apologize for the tardiness of this blog. I'm sure you were all biting your fingernails, wondering what became of Jeremy and his intrepid gang of intercultural friends, but alas, alack, with classes beginning and all of our awesome programming, things got busy. The month of January was undoubtedly a good one for Global Perspectives. We kicked off 2010 with a screening of Ip Man, a martial arts tour de force from director Wilson Yip. The audience of 40 or so starry-eyed movie fans was spell bound by the incredible fight scenes and the free Chinese food. After this very successful event, our group moved on to bigger and better things. Specifically, the design of our 3x4 poster for the upcoming exposition. I won't comment further upon the subject lest I spoil the surprise and wonderment our poster will surely create, but needless to say it is INCREDIBLE. We have great things planned for the month of February, so keep posted and thanks for reading.


Aaron Landis

Poster and the Bitter Cold

Dear Vanderbilt,

            For the bitter cold month of January, we set the mood to distress with a few tunes. January acted as a month of experimentation and preparation. We chose to study the effects of music on our mental health and overall attitude. Music has been boasted to increase the intelligence of babies, improve concentration, promote awareness, and inspire people all over of the world. Our group concentrated the effect music had on our stress levels and how much it alleviated the daily tensions of student life.

            We started by playing music at different genres of music during different occasions. Sometimes we would play music when we were studying in the room. Another time we chose to play music when there was a more relaxed atmosphere. We even tried listening to it when we were sleeping! Well, Amishi was the one that tried that. (Apparently Vivaldi had her snoring in no time.) We took notice to what type of music we preferred and during what setting. Typical results occurred. On average, we preferred slower music with softer beats when we were studying. While in a more relaxed setting, the music often was more upbeat and we listened to a greater variety of genres.

            For the month of February, we plan on mixing up on our usual music choices and see if they have any affect on how we feel. We also will share our knowledge with our academic advisor Professor Barz and North House residents. Luckily, Professor Barz specializes in music and its place in cultures all over the globe. With his knowledge and our experience our showcase at North House will definitely be a great one!

Al Coda,

D.E.A.R. 

Sustainability Through Food!

With the new semester came a new change for Sustainability Through Food. This semester, our group is missing one member because Lydia is studying abroad at the University of Leeds in England. Although we only have four people in our group now, we are still committed to learning how to cook sustainably!

We can’t believe how fast January flew by! It seems like the first day of classes for the second semester was yesterday, and yet it’s already February! This month, our group focused on continuing our efforts in learning to cook healthy, sustainable meals. We had plans to attend a cooking class at Whole Foods as well as cook on our own, but unfortunately red tape and scheduling conflicts prevented us from doing so. As a result, the group put all of their energy into making our poster for the VIP Showcase! Everyone in the group had a hand in the design, content, and layout of the poster. Even Lydia took time to send us the pictures that she took of our group last semester, and she is currently in Europe! We’re all very happy with the finished product, and we can’t wait to show it off at the VIP Showcase later this February.

Sustainability Through Food is looking forward to what the rest of the semester will bring. We’ve already planned our first project for February: cooking a three-course meal!

Indoor Training

Beginning in late November, the team put away our boats for the winter and headed indoors to hit the ergs. What is an erg? Well, in short it is what might more commonly be known as a rowing machine, but ask any rower and you might get a slightly more negative description of what an erg is that may or may not include some cursing. From the end of November to the middle of February the erg becomes the center piece of every competitive rower's life. If I were to compare an erg to something it would probably have to be a screaming infant. It pretty much consumes your life, it gives you hell everyday, exhausts you until you think you can no longer function or keep it together, but at the end of the day you have no choice but to embrace it and be thankful that it's there because the payoffs it gives are incomparable. So essentially, it's what I would call a love/hate relationship and depending on the day, the love or hate may triumph. (Maybe the infant comparison wasn't the most appropriate but it's what came to mind so I decided to go with it.) 

This year's winter training has taken on a new component. We were lucky enough to be given a racquetball court that is front in center in the rec. And when I say front and center, I'm not exaggerating, and if you've been in the rec even once this year you know what I mean. Our newly claimed erg room is the first thing you see when you walk in the rec, a small rectangular room with 2 glass walls that holds nearly 30 ergs in it. If you get the chance to see the room when not in use it looks almost pristine; however, come by the rec anytime from 4-7:00 Monday-Friday or 9:00 on Saturday morning and it transforms into a giant sauna as the sweat dripping of each rower's body starts making the whole room so humid that the glass walls begin to fog. Add in sliders, which connect the ergs together to simulate rowing in a boat, and you soon draw a crowd of at least 4-5 people that just stare for a good 5 minutes before continuing on. We essentially sweat in a giant fishbowl for over an hour a day that the entire campus can come observe and joke around saying, "man, I'd hate to be them." 

And what is all this winter training for? The even more celebrated or cursed, 2k! Spring racing is considered sprint season, but when was the last time you sprinted for 7-8 minutes straight? A 2k is the ultimate testament of athleticism and after pulling your first one, you can add in insanity. You start off the first 500m thinking, hey this isn't so bad, then you hit 700m and as the lactic acid starts building up in your legs, you start to question how you can't even be half way done yet. Once 1000m comes you don't know how you will continue, but somehow you pull each 100m with each stroke hurting more than the last. Legs burning as the lactic acid keeps building up you come to the last 250m and you have to sprint it out for one last minute. As soon as you think the entire room is going to close in on you as your vision starts going you've reached the last 5 strokes and  somehow regain some sort of energy to finish strong only to be able to collapse when the monitor hits zero. And then as the lactic acid pulses through your body you stand up from the erg barely able to walk as your legs shake underneath you. Oddly enough after completing 8 minutes of hell, your also full of pride because you realize what all the training was for. And that's just on the erg, the payoff of spring racing is still to come. 

Megan

Bust A Myth!

Hi guys. Sorry for the late post. As you all know, we had to work on our posters for our VIP showcase at the Commons on Feb. 15th. So last weekend, some of us got together and took pictures around campus, and that has been pretty fun. The weather was gorgeous, which also helped.

For our poster, we initially used Microsoft Publisher but it was very difficult for us to select a design that we really liked (including color scheme, font, font size etc.) And it wasn't until later when we realized we could actually use Microsoft PowerPoint and manipulate the size. Anyways, we finished the poster and it looks pretty awesome!

I guess one of the more difficult things our group has faced so far is really trying to get everyone get together at the same time. Because there's the nine of us, it is incredibly difficult to have a time when all of us are available. Despite these difficulties, we have finished our poster and we'll try to do better in prioritizing our work next time!

P.S. If you want some to see some of the pictures we took last weekend, ask Daniel as he has the photos!

Bust A Myth

Tutoring of Twelfth looks forward to the new semester!

After the winter break, it’s always hard to get back in the swing of things at school, but here at Beyond Tutoring we’re doing our best! I feel like I have learned a lot about poverty and its implications on children throughout the past year. By going to the weekly tutoring sessions and reading a few books covering the hurdles of people low on money and resources, I have a better idea of the challenges they face. It’s easy to ignore the terrible conditions of some public schools, and it’s incredibly difficult to come up with solutions that actually work. One of the things I’ve come to see about these children is that they lack not just formal education, but someone who believes in them and appreciates them. Without this, kids often have no motivation to try harder. Then they end up dropping out of school and getting stuck in the cycle of poverty. That’s one of the reasons having a school with teachers who care a lot about their students is so important.

Our group plans to continue attending the tutoring on Wednesdays through this semester, and we plan on completing more volunteer projects. We want to get involved with the Nashville Mobile Market, which is a food truck that comes to the Edgehill community (where we tutor) to provide healthy and fresh food to the people who live there. The hope is that it will encourage people to buy more healthy food because it will be more convenient to obtain. Our group is very excited about continuing our project throughout the spring semester!

Bridging the Gap: A New Year!

Since we have gotten back from break, my group has been trying to find a good time to meet on a regular basis. We will have our first official meeting tomorrow to discuss plans for this semester, recap things from last semester, and work on the poster for the V.I.P Showcase. Being in V.I.P has really helped me grow in so many ways. There have been many things that have caused minor setbacks, yet we were able to reassess all issues to build a more cohesive product.  This evening, our group had dinner with Traci Ray.  Through a hearty meal and stimulating conversation, we gained a new perspective of our Vanderbilt Interest Project.  We discussed what self-discoveries we have made throughout this journey thus far.  The group came to conclusion that this project not only affords an opportunity to develop leadership and work towards a common goal, but also to foster a sense of friendship and support that is vital to college and life in general.  We are more excited than ever about the new revelations and successes to come.

January

The month of January was a very productive month for Green Girls. We held
multiple planning meetings and decided that our next activity was going to be taking a
tour of the power plant. We are so excited to be able to go on a guided tour and learn
about the energy usage of Vanderbilt. From this, we are hoping to find ways to help the
whole Vanderbilt community become more green. Our event will be taking place on
February 23 and for the next few weeks our efforts will be focused on publicizing the
tour. We will do this by emailing and posting flyers (printed on recycled paper of course!
) We are hopeful that many of our peers and friends will be interested in attending this
event and are able to learn a lot from it.
In addition, water conservation has continued to be a main focus for our group.
We all have pledged to take shorter showers and have purchased reusable bottles, and
encouraged our friends to do the same.
Thus far, Green Girls has been a very successful project for all of us. We all have
continued to work well together and provide suggestions to keep improving Green Girls
as the year goes on.


Kiara and The Green Girls