Earlier this year, IU Southeast received the Gold Award in the Pride of CASE V Awards for Excellence in Specials Events, Series of Events.
CASE stands for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and this award honored the many 70th Anniversary celebrations that were held both on and off campus last year.
Brady Miller, special projects manager, completed the award application for IU Southeast and was also in charge of many of the major events on campus.
Miller said he is proud of IU Southeast for receiving this award because it shows the university’s level of engagement with the community.
“I think [this award] speaks to how well so many people can work together to put on events like this,” Miller said. “I can easily think of more than 30 people who had some kind of critical role in executing these events.”
Chancellor Sandra Patterson-Randles said she agrees students should be proud of IU Southeast for all the hard work put into the 70th Anniversary celebration.
“For IU Southeast to receive a top-notch award like this, students should be reassured that they have chosen an academic home that is serious about quality,” Patterson-Randles said. “I hope all our students, faculty and staff share my pride in this achievement, since their efforts and support contributed significantly to its success.”
Miller focused primarily on four 70th Anniversary events held during the 2011-12 school year — the timeline and kick-off celebration for the first week of classes, Chancellor’s Medallion Dinner, Thing-A-Ma-Dig and a concert in Warder Park.
The theme for the 70th Anniversary celebration was Celebrating the Past, Shaping the Future. Miller said all of the events were chosen because they showed the past, present and future of the university.
Timeline
One important event Miller included in the application was a project that had been worked on during summer 2011. Miller said the timeline between University Centers North and South had been installed a couple weeks before classes started for the fall term.
“We wanted to have an event to celebrate the official reveal of the timeline and to encourage people to go see it, read it and learn more about the history of the university,” Miller said. “We also just wanted to let the student body know the importance of the year right from the start during the first week of classes.”
Chancellor’s Medallion Dinner
The Chancellor’s Medallion Dinner was on Oct. 27 and is an annual fundraising event the university holds to support students’ scholarships.
Miller said it is a large community event with several business leaders and community members in attendance.
Miller said normally guests are in attendance to recognize one or two community members with the Chancellor’s Medallion, which is the highest award presented by the university. The chancellor also recognizes a handful of students who have received the Chancellor’s Medallion Leadership Scholarship.
Miller said instead of having new honorees, 37 people who had been honored with the Chancellor’s Medallion since 1997 will be part of this year of retrospection.
In addition, Miller said the university almost reached its goal of a comprehensive fundraising campaign for the school.
Miller said the goal was to raise $11 million for the university. Currently, the university has raised $10.9 million and the campaign is supposed to continue into 2014.
Thing-A-Ma-Dig
The 70th Anniversary Thing-A-Ma-Dig was an event where 70 different groups of people — from the university and the community — came to plant 70 trees in seven hours.
Miller said so many of the events held referenced the history of the university, so an event was needed that was completely forward-looking.
“Our goals were to include all these members that are stakeholders to the university,” Miller said. “We had students, alumni, faculty, staff, elected representatives—the mayors of Jeffersonville and New Albany came— and state representatives involved and planting trees.”
Concert in Warder Park
The final event to close out the year was a reference back to the university’s roots in Warder Park in Jeffersonville. Warder Park was the university’s first permanent location in 1957.
The university partnered with Jeffersonville’s Concert in the Park series that takes place in Warder Park.
Four different music ensembles were featured, and more than 150 musicians came together to play.
Miller said this ended up being the largest of the 70th Anniversary events, with an estimate of 900-1,000 people in attendance. Miller said additional sound equipment was brought in to accommodate all of the musicians, and more than 1,000 pieces of birthday cake were also served.
“The idea was to give these people a concert that they didn’t know what they were going to hear,” Miller said. “They just knew it was going to be four ensembles. We tried to make the music very accessible.”
Miller said this award shows the students how committed the faculty and staff is to working for IU Southeast.
“We’re dedicated to what happens in the classroom, to how we present ourselves to the community, how we work together and to how we work with our students,” Miller said. “I think that students should recognize how dedicated we are to working together to make this university the best place that it can be. I think that they should feel confident and proud of Indiana University Southeast because of that.”
By KIM KERBY
Staff
kdkerby@ius.edu
