ISSUE 8 SPRING

In this issue357

The Spectrum: inclusive to allAerospace with ambition: SharkbaitResLife group proposes community garden

MARCH 22 2016

// REBEKAH DUNTZEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

// NATHANIEL ASHTONSTAFF WRITER

Continues backpage

The inaugural Week for Water took place this week, where student organiza-tions came together to try to make a difference in clean drinking water initia-tives.

These events were to help raise money to pur-chase water filter kits for people who do not have access to drinkable water.

From a jelly bean guessing jar, to a raffle, to a whole surf competition, the Week For Water team raised awareness about this issue. The Week For Water team includes multiple fraternities, The Florida Tech Surf Team, Student Government, and the Inter-national Student Services

Organization. On March 18, these or-

ganizations partnered with Tijuana Flats, which gave part of the evening’s reve-nue to charity.

The goal of Week For Water is to purchase 20 fil-ters to send where they are most needed, recruit stu-dents to send the the filters where they’re needed, and raise awareness about this issue in the FIT and Mel-bourne communities.

On Saturday, the surf competition was held, and the winners of the raffle were drawn. The day start-ed of with clear skies and an expected turnout of over 70 surfers, with sponsors like Florida Discount Mu-

sic and Catalyst. All different types of

surfers, men and women, longboarders and short-boarders alike, prepared to hit the waves.

The contest started at 9 a.m. and continued throughout the day until around 2 p.m. Dark skies and rough surf started at about noon, making for large but not very consis-tent waves.

The contest raised money through contestants admission fees, but it was free and open to public spectators.

“There is a large prob-lem with clean water all around the world,” said Jean-Paul Martes, president

of the Florida Tech Surf Team, and co-founder of Week For Water along with Daniel Ata. “And everyone can help by just being more conscientious.”

This week is the first Week for Water, and the team hopes that it will not be the last. “I would love it to be an annual event; it’s a great way for our school to give back not only to the community but the whole world,” Martes said.

Martes chose filters made by a company called Waves For Water, and they can be purchased at a cost of about $50 each.

He chose them because of their lifespan. Properly maintained, these filtra-

tion systems can filter one million gallons of undrink-able water into bacteria and contaminant free, potable water.

Sunday, all fraternities had representatives walking up and down the beach, along with the rest of the Week For Water team, for a clean-up.

Monday is Menchie’s Monday, where part of the revenue will be donated to charity if you register online, and Tuesday is World Water Day, where they’ll host a round up party at Old School Pizza and announce a total of the revenues earned.v

Photo by Nathaniel Asthon

Ryan Jones accepts position in NCAA D-II GovernanceFlorida Tech Athletics

Director Bill Jurgens an-nounced on March 14 that Ryan Jones will be leaving Florida Tech to work as the Associate Director for all of NCAA Division II Governance.

His last day in Athletic Communications is April 27.

“It’s going to be a dif-ferent experience working in a national office,” said Jones with a smile.

Jones is excited at the thought of moving on to the next step in his career, and he believes he’s leav-ing Florida Tech in capable hands. He begins his new position overseeing athlet-ic communications at the national level with NCAA on May 9.

In his time at Florida Tech, Jones dedicated long hours and hard work to the marketing, promotion and publicity of Florida Tech’s 22 varsity sports.

Sitting in his office filled with sports memora-bilia, newspaper clippings and papers stacked high, Jones talked about what it was like to work at Florida Tech, but not before send-ing another couple emails first.

“I definitely pride my-self on a positive attitude,” he said. “Someone who’s always smiling, who’s always encouraging, who’s always willing to help any-one any way that I can.”

He helped plan and coordinate most of the Athletic department’s

major events, while also helping launch FloridaT-echSports.com, and making live streaming capabilities possible. He built a digital presence with the univer-sity’s athletic accounts, launching multiple Twitter and Instagram pages for every men’s and women’s team, and also worked the home football games that were broadcasted over ESPN3.

Those are just a few of the things Jones was able to achieve in the six years he spent here as a Panther, with the help of his depart-ment behind him.

“The close-knit, family environment that we have here, how supportive we are at the university, it’s wonderful to be a part of,

and that’s something that I was looking for when I was interviewing with the NCAA,” Jones said. “And I was curious about that family work environment. But at FIT, we have that here. And that’s one of the things that makes FIT so great is that strong, family supportive environment, where people know you. And that’s what I love about FIT.”

He mentioned how he’ll be overseeing the social media for all of Division

II, as well as coordinating with the media and select-ing what is newsworthy to promote as national news. He’ll also be the prima-ry liaison to the National Division II Student Athlete Advisory Committee. There are 500 employees in the national division, so he said it might be a big change.

Representatives of fraternities and Week for Water showed up on Sunday to clean up the beaches.

OPINIONS 2ISSUE 8 MARCH 22

CAPS PSA Mental Health 101 When you hear mental

health you may really not know exactly what that means.

We often hear a lot about our physical health, but not mental health.

Mental health simply means “a person’s condi-tion with regard to their psychological and emotion-al well-being.”

The truth is there are a lot of misconceptions around mental health and also mental illness. We will cover a few of these!

People with mental health difficulties are delicate and weak:

Mental health has nothing to do with who is stronger or weaker.

In fact, there are a lot of factors that can affect men-tal health that a person may have no control over such as brain chemistry, genet-ics, physical illness, injury, abuse and trauma.

Many people need to reach out for help to get better.

People with mental health difficulties are violent and unpredictable:

The majority of those who struggle with a mental illness are no more violent than those who do not have a mental illness. Only 3-5 percent of violence can be attributed to mental illness and often only applies to those with serious mental illness. In fact, those with severe mental illness are 10 times more likely to be a victim of violence than the general population.

People with mental health difficulties are less pro-ductive and accountable:

Those with mental health problems are able to be just as productive as those without mental health

concerns. Those who struggle

often maintain good atten-dance, punctuality, motiva-tion and work ethic.

Mental illness does not always mean less produc-tivity or even visibility of a struggle; you may not even know someone is strug-gling!

Going to see a therapist is way too expensive:

If you are a student at Florida Tech, there is good news! The student counsel-ing center offers free thera-py services to students who feel like they are in need.

No matter what you feel is going on, there is help or resources are available to you for free. See below for contact information.

The majority of people with mental health difficul-ties live on the streets or are in mental hospitals:

Over two-thirds of Americans who struggle with mental illness live pro-

ductive lives in the commu-nity. If someone does go to the hospital, it is usually for a brief time to ensure that they are safe and well taken care of.

And, some people with mental illness do live on the street and could greatly benefit from treatment and services. However, most people are not hospitalized or find themselves home-less.

Mental health only re-volves around mental illness:

While mental illness plays a big part in mental health, everyone can take care of themselves mentally and emotionally, so they can feel healthy!

Making sure you take care of your body physi-cally, take time to de-stress and relax, and maintain good social support are great ways anyone can be mentally healthy.

In fact, make sure to check out CAPS’ Emo-tional Fitness Group that meets every Thursday from 6 - 7 p.m. in Crawford, room 407! It is a great way to keep yourself mentally healthy!

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, don’t be afraid to ask for help by contacting the student counseling center (CAPS)!

To request services, call 321-674-8050 or walk into the center, which is located next to the student health center, on the corner of Country Club Road and University Boulevard.

Also, check out CAPS’ groups and other outreach events on the website at www.fit.edu/caps, as well as other helpful links on a variety of college issues. CAPS is just one of many resources at Florida Tech that supports maintaining a happy and healthy you! v

// KENDRA BARTELCAPS OUTREACH COLUMNIST

3ISSUE 8 MARCH 22 CAMPUS LIFE

// JORDAN SYMONDSCONTRIBUTING WRITER

THE SPECTRUM: inclusive to all types of peopleA spectrum: an array of colors

not visible to the eye.Many student organizations at

Florida Tech are based on major, an activity or interest, or national-ity. But there is one organization that brings students together based on traits that can’t be seen at first glance.

The Florida Tech Spec-trum, formerly known as the Gay Straight Alliance, provides an environment for students to learn, support one another, and educate their peers about LGBTQ+ issues.

“We’re an inclusive group,” said Shane Mar-cus, the senior President of The Spectrum. “Our mis-sion is to help promote the advocacy and help educate the community.”

The group’s name was recently changed from Gay Straight Alliance to The Spectrum to represent their inclusiveness. Marcus said that people used to think they had to be gay in order to get involved, and that he hopes that with the name change, all different types of people would feel includ-ed.

Shannon Brown, a freshman member of The Spectrum also said it’s important for people to realize that anyone is welcome to attend their meetings. “You don’t have to know a lot about the LGBTQ+ community, but if you just come

and share some opinions, that is what we really want.”

LGBTQ+ is an acronym that originated in the 1990’s to replace the phrase, “the gay community.” The acronym was created to be more inclusive of diverse groups

and stands for les-bian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, plus a mul-titude of existing identity terms.

“You can be bi-sexual, pansexual; you can be any-thing to join,” said Marcus who joined The Spectrum his freshman year because, “I felt like I needed to help people who didn’t have a

voice, because I didn’t have a voice growing up.”

The Spectrum advocates for the LGBTQ+ commu-nity by educating people on campus through advertising and promotional events for National Coming Out Day (October 11), National Aids Awareness Day (March 10), and Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April).

Darby Proctor, The Spec-trum’s faculty advisor and co-chair of the School of Psy-chology’s Diversity Commit-

tee, says her role is to help the stu-dents determine where they want to go and what they want to do. With her experience in diversity-related issues, Proctor hopes to contribute to expanding The Spectrum and working to end intolerance.

Brown said that getting the word out is a main obstacle the club faces. “Our big issue right now is not that we aren’t doing something important, it is that we are doing something important that nobody knows about.”

Amanda Sava, a junior in meteorology, had heard of the club formally known as Gay Straight Alliance, but admits that she always hurriedly walks by most

booths – including The Spectrum’s occasional table - that are outside the SUB located on campus.

With student’s busy schedules, The Spectrum struggles to be heard, but members say they will continue to participate in the group because of the friendships they have made and the desire to advo-cate for the LGBTQ+ community.

Florida Tech Spectrum is on Facebook, and also has information posted on Orgsync. v

“I felt like I needed to help

people who didn’t have a

voice, because I didn’t have a voice growing

up.”

4

// MARY KOZAITISSTAFF WRITER

ISSUE 8 MARCH 22

// SVETA WARRENSTAFF WRITER

CAMPUS LIFEUniversity hosts speaker from General Motors

Learning is an ongoing process in this world. It never stops. Our institute cultivates this by making sure that their students have the opportunity to learn from the best and most ex-

perienced professionals. Last week we had the

pleasure of welcoming an amazing woman to our campus to share about her expertise on research and development.

Susan Smyth, a Chief Manufacturing Scientist and Director of Manufac-turing R&D for General Motors is responsible for bringing new ideas that will benefit the company as well

the automotive market. According to trade.gov,

she oversees innovation and implementation at GM and has been recognized as one of GM’s key strategic technology leaders.

She has shown that any-one can rise to a high-status position and achieve their goals with great determina-tion.

Smyth has been part of many automotive discov-eries such as her work with the aluminum to steel resis-tance spot-welding pro-cess. This process allows two aluminum parts to be welded together for better support and movement.

In the past, there was no way to weld aluminum without compromising the material which resulted in defects. Yet this wasn’t the only thing that Smyth instigated research for. In the past there was no way for a battery component to

be completed in one sec-tion; it had to be moved to different stations every time. Smyth saw the need for change, so once again she went to her superiors and pushed for research to be done.

With her detailed and precise organization skills, she was able to get fund-ing for this program. This led to better assembly line where a component could be finished in one place without having to be transferred. Even though she has instigated all of this different research, she made sure to recognize that it was a team effort. This shows that even though there are brilliant people in the world, there is still so much we can discover. v

Photo by Sveta Warren

Downtown Melbourne celebrates St. Patrick’s Day

If you think that St. Patrick’s Day, a day of traditionally celebrating Irish heritage and the pa-tron saint of Ireland, is no big deal, then you thought wrong.

Florida Tech students and Melbourne residents alike celebrated the holi-day this past Thursday by wearing green, hanging out with friends, and eating and drinking Irish-inspired cuisines.

Downtown Melbourne

was the popping site for celebrations. The weekend before St. Patty’s Day, the town showed their Irish spirits by holding a street festival on Main Street. There they had bagpipers, Irish step dancers, and it was just a fun place for many locals to come and hang out.

Meg O’Malley’s, being an Irish restaurant all year round, located on Main Street in the downtown area, was a particular place

of interest. They served their regular

traditional menu on March 17, along with green beer. On the evening of St. Pat-rick’s Day, they hired a live band the played traditional and modern Irish music. The crowd was loving it.

“It was definitely very successful,” said Meghan McQuillen, who has worked at Meg’s for almost 10 years. “This was the most [amount of people] I’ve ever seen,” she said.

McQuillen also ex-plained that they sold an extensive amount of corn beef and cabbage on the holiday, a traditional Irish meal dating back centuries ago.

“Many people ordered corn beef and cabbage to-go,” she said. “It was a good year.”

Florida Tech students also see the enthusiasm the public has for St. Patrick’s Day.

“I’ve never experienced it as crazy as here,” said Thomas Larkin, a junior originally from England. “I’m just amazed at how crazy it has got. There are parades in London, but nothing comes close to here in the U.S. I certainly don’t think it could be celebrated any more.”

It is entirely surprising to some people that a country like the U.S. celebrates St. Patrick’s Day so intensely, although Ireland is not a part of our continent.

“I feel like a lot of Amer-icans don’t understand the

true reasoning as to why we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,” said Khalil Harrison, who has lived in both Ger-many and the U.S. “I think most of us think of the day to get drunk and wear green,” Harrison said.

It is true that St. Pat-rick’s Day was originally created by the Roman Catholic Church to honor St. Patrick on the day he died, March 17, 461.

What many people do not know about the hol-iday, however, is that St. Patrick was not even Irish — he was born in Britain. He eventually travelled to Ireland and spread Chris-tianity throughout Europe, and is simply the patron saint of Ireland.

So whether you are Brit-ish, Irish or American, it is appropriate to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Let the festivities continue on. v

Photo by Mary Kozaitis

// AUDREY GANGLOFFSPORTS EDITOR

CAMPUS LIFE 5ISSUE 8 MARCH 22

A member of Sharkbait shows the controller of the drone.

AEROSPACE WITH AMBITION: Senior design team constructs hybrid air-water drone

Team Sharkbait, one of this year’s senior design groups, is working on a hybrid air-water vehicle that, if successful, could revolutionize the world of aviation.

The purpose of this project is to design a plane that can fly, land on the water’s surface, submerge and act as a submarine, and then resurface and take off again into flight.

“It’s not something that’s ever been done before, at least not the way we’re doing it,” said team member Jake Watson, an aerospace student.

The idea first came to life over a late-night brain-storm session when three engineering students started talking about what they wanted to do for senior design.

As the idea snowballed, Morgan Steinert, project manager, soon had a full team of students pitching their idea to their junior design class.

“The requirements for flying and diving are at exactly opposite corners of the picture,” said Markus Wilde, the aerospace professor overseeing the project. “If we can get it going, especially with a student team, that would be very impressive for Florida Tech.”

Team Sharkbait has spent the past year re-searching and designing their project. This semester, it is finally time to turn their sketches into a work-ing prototype.

“The coolest thing is being able to have an in-novative idea, and within a year and half, being able to go through the process to where we are now, seeing it come together and a month from now, seeing it actually work,” Watson said.

The concept of a hybrid air-water vehicle was tried two years ago by another senior design team. Their project failed.

Prominent innovative organizations such as the Naval Research Labora-tory, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and other technical universities have also been working on projects with similar concepts.

Rutgers University has successfully tested an air-water quadcopter, and Boeing has designed a plane that can shed its wings and tail to become a submarine.

Watson said Boeing’s design is different from theirs, as Boeing’s is a “one-time use only” deal.

Steinert said that their design is more functional, reusable and will be faster and easier to manipulate

than others being tested.“The fact that we have

the opportunity to do this as college students and we

were given the resources to be able to build something like this, you can’t really ask for much more,” Wat-

son said. Steven Gilbert, a Flor-

ida Tech student, said it would be huge for technol-ogy if Team Sharkbait is successful, not just for FIT, but for the world.

“Now you’ve created a different means of transpor-tation and security,” Gilbert said. “To be able to control the water and the air, simul-taneously if you had to, is pretty cool.”

Despite the hype, Team Sharkbait’s story is not yet one of success. They are currently in the building phase, 3D printing parts and forming carbon-fiber shells.

The team has a long way to go before they can say that their idea has worked.

“We’ve had to come up with creative solutions and make compromis-es between what suits a submarine and what suits a plane,” Watson said. “That’s been challenging, but I think we’ve been suc-cessful making the proper compromises.”

The following month will be crunch time, as the team puts an exponential amount of hours into the

project leading up to testing deadlines at the end of March.

Smiling, Watson said that the team is working hard to stay on schedule, but if it comes to the point of late nights, they’re ready for it.

Once Team Sharkbait surmounts the challenge of building a viable proto-type, they must overcome the hurdle of testing their design. In an effort to be as successful as possible, the team is seeking FIT approv-al to test their design in the Florida Keys.

“Stability wise for our vehicle, we really need the calm water to be able to take off, and clear water helps with being able to see it underwater,” Steinert said. “We also designed it for salt water so, we can’t go to a lake or inlet to test it.”

At this stage in the game, Steinert said she is simply happy with how close her team has become, especially since they spend so much time together. v

“It’s not some-thing that’s ever been done before, at least not the way we’re doing it.”

- Jake Watson

Members of team Sharkbait stand in the Senior Design Center at their station.

6ISSUE 8 MARCH 22 NEWS

// CHRISTOPHER PANGALOSSTAFF WRITER

Google’s autonomous cars make progress but still need improvement

Will cars that drive themselves lead to a future of safer roads, or create even more hazards?

Since 2009, Google has been working on their autonomous car project, which aims to create fully self-driving cars that can travel on normal roads without requiring user intervention.

While these cars could potentially prevent acci-dents by keeping better track of their environment and thinking faster than

humans, there are still questions of whether or not they’ll be able to adapt as well as a human can in different scenarios.

Google explains that their car works by using a variety of sensors to detect objects around it and clas-sifying them by size, shape and movement pattern.

The car uses both map and sensor information to determine its position on the road at a given time. It uses software to predict possible movements of the

objects around it such as pedes-trians or other vehicles and then determines its own upcoming speed and trajec-tory based on this data.

According to Engadget on March 11, Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self driving car pro-gram, sent a letter to the Department of Transportation outlining the pro-cess of bringing

autonomous driving tech-nology to the public.

Google is pushing for the creation of a permitting system where auto man-ufacturers that can show they meet federal safety standards can petition regu-lators for permission to sell their cars.

On Feb. 14, Google’s car had its first significant traffic incident, hitting a bus while driving in auton-omous mode. According to

the California DMV acci-dent report, Google’s car was a Lexus model with a test driver present though, it was driving autonomous-ly. It signaled to make a right turn and moved to the right side of a lane to pass traffic.

It ran into an issue due to sand bags placed around a storm drain, which blocked its path. Google’s car moved back toward the center of the lane to pass the sand bags, while a pub-lic transit bus came up from behind.

The car’s test driver saw the bus but expected it to stop or slow to allow the car through. Google’s car hit the side of the bus while moving a 2 mph while the bus itself was going 15 mph. The car suffered some damage to its body, wheel and sensors though no inju-ries were reported.

According to Wired, Google originally predicted their cars to be road-ready by 2020. Chris Urmson has said Google’s goal is to make a car that drives

better than humans can. “You need to be very

thoughtful in doing this,” Urmson said, “but you don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good …We need to make sure we can get that out in the world in a timely fashion.”

In a recent speech at South-by-Southwest in Austin Texas, Urmson ex-plained that it may actually take as long as 30 years for self driving cars to become available. According to Spectrum IEEE, Urmson suggested that early com-mercial versions may be limited to specific geogra-phies and weather condi-tions since they function better in sunny weather and wide open roads.

“If you read the papers you see maybe it’s three years, maybe it’s thirty years,” Urmson said. “And I am here to tell you that honestly it’s a bit of both. v

ResLife Sustainability Committee proposes community garden in Quad

The Residence Life Sustainability Committee (RLSC), a group composed of about 16 Resident Assis-tants, is working on a series of proposals to present to the University Sustainabili-ty Council on April 25.

A community garden is one of the green initiatives that the committee is work-ing to design and proposing to be built in front of Evans Hall in the Residence Quad.

The project is meant to mark the beginning of various green renovations throughout the Residence Quad area that will even-tually become the planned home of the Sustainability

Living Learning Communi-ty (SLLC).

“The Reslife Sustain-ability Committee strives to set the vision and direc-tion of sustainable living in Florida Tech residence halls,” said Zachary Eich-holz, the committee's president.

“We want to educate residents on sustainabil-ity-based topics ranging from human-induced climate change to urban agriculture,” Eichholz said.

In order to do this, the group is designing the school’s first sustainabil-ity-based living-learning community, or SLLC, pronounced ‘slick.’

“The community garden is just one aspect of this larger project,” Eichholz explained.

Currently, Evans Hall in the Quad is the focus of this transformation.

According to the com-mittee, the garden will serve as a platform for sustainable education, provide a conversation highlight for campus tours, allow residents the chance to become self-sufficient in food cultivation skills, and become the catalyst for larger sustainability based movements around campus.

The proposed area of construction in front of Evans Hall measures 56 feet by 39 feet. The plan is to build 33 raised beds, complete with fencing, irri-gation, benches, and stor-age areas, where students can go to be immersed in an environment they have a hand in creating and main-taining.

“The concept is neat, but that took lots of drafts,” explained Residence Life Coordinator Jacqueline Hetherington, who formed The Reslife Sustainability Committee in 2014. “The garden is designed to be an

enjoyable place to sit and be outside, but also to be around something you grew yourself.”

ResLife’s hope is that the garden fencing, irriga-tion and bed will be built by July 2016 in preparation for the Fall 2016 Semester.

While the project has already secured funding of $7,876.50 from the Student Sustainability Collective’s “The Green Initiative Fund,” the garden and as-sociated initiatives need ap-proval from the University Sustainability Council and other university entities.

The construction and management of this stu-dent-driven community garden is just one phase in the committee’s plan to cre-ate a greener, healthier and more sustainable campus experience for both stu-dents and faculty at Florida Tech.

The Reslife Sustainabil-ity Committee is broken down into three distinct task forces, all named after various shades of green, designed to manage these various projects.

Task Force Jade is in charge of planning and designing the community

garden and infrastructure for Evans Hall. Task Force Myrtle is working to rede-sign the old campus ser-vices room on the first floor of Evans Hall by the Black Kats Kafé. Task Force Em-erald is in charge of future SLLC programming and education for residents.

According to the com-mittee’s president, the proj-ects have a great deal of faculty backing. Students also seem receptive to the idea.

Junior Suzanne Beims said she thinks a communi-ty garden is a great idea.

“Being able to take care of something, being able to grow something, is very relaxing and beneficial,” said Beims. “It is some-thing to take care of outside of school, and that is really rewarding.”

“I think it would be a great place for the stressed student to go and relax, so yes I’m all for it,” remarked computer science major Ezra Perry.

The committee is open to all suggestions and ideas regarding the community garden and the SLLC. v

// LINDSAY ISAACSTAFF WRITER

Photo illustration by Lindsay IsaacMembers of the RLSC in front of Evans Hall

NEWS 7ISSUE 8 MARCH 22

Florida Tech Martial Arts Association traveled to Lake Wales, Florida for the Battle on the Ridge Invitational Karate Tournament on Saturday, taking home multiple first and second place titles.

Competing against other martial arts schools serves as an important learning experience, said Evadne Malone, a graduate student in applied behavior analysis.

In addition to the students’ peers, respected senseis from other dojos are present at the competition. “It was humbling to receive the recognition of the various martial arts masters present,” Malone said.

The Tournament, hosted by Main Street Dojos, was open to all styles of Karate, Kung-Fu and Tae Kwon-Do. Florida Tech MMA’s

faculty adviser and Sensei, Mark Laderwarg, instructs students in

both Karate and Jiu Jitsu.

Malone, first degree black belt, Katarina Vuckovic, probationary black belt, and Beatriz Saldana, brown belt, competed in the day’s events, earning seven awards between them.

With six, seven, and six years of experience, respectively, Malone, Vuckovic and Saldana are the three most experienced students in MAA.

Malone and Vuckovic both competed in the All Black Belt Kata, All Black Belt Weapons Kata, and Women’s Black Belt Kumite, with Malone earning the first place title and Vuckovic earning the second place spot in all three.

Attending tournaments is rewarding in more ways than one, said Saldana, a senior in Astrobiology. “I had a lot of fun,”

she said. “I love watching what the other martial artists can do and how they have improved since the last tournament.”

Saldana came home with a second place trophy in the All Brown Belt Weapons Kata category.

Laderwarg, who has very high standards for his students, said, “I’m very proud, but not surprised,

of my students’ victories.”The Florida Tech Martial Arts

Association has information posted on OrgSync, and is also on Facebook.

Martial Arts students win big at local tournament

// ALEX COULTRUP SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR

“I love watching what the

other martial artists can do and how they

have improved since the last tournament.”

8SPORTSISSUE 8 MARCH 22

// REBEKAH DUNTZEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Jones is a firm believer in these words: hard work pays off.

“Yeah, there’ve been a lot of different things I’ve done,” he said. “And there’s been a lot of hours I’ve put in. But at the end of the day, it’s so personally rewarding

for me because I know at the end of every single day I can tell myself: I’ve made a difference today. I’ve made a difference in the overall department, or with a student-athlete, or a team. It’s extremely self-reward-ing to know I’ve made a difference.”

His favorite part of working at Florida Tech was being able to be a men-tor to the student-athletes, and to be able to have that day-to-day interaction. He said it’s definitely some-thing he’ll miss.

It wasn’t so long ago that Jones was interning at Louisiana Tech in 2009 be-fore he took the position in

Athletic Communications full-time.

“At the time, Florida Tech was looking for its very first full time Athletic Communications Director,” Jones said. “And I inter-viewed, everything went great. And I’ve been fortu-nate enough since 2009 to really grow in our depart-ment and grow in my po-sition.” He said he wasn’t afraid to make an impact, to make it his own.

After Jones leaves in late April, the position will likely be given to one of the three assistant directors of athletic communications, according to Jurgens.

Jurgens said he is still

evaluating but that the three have a great working relationship in the depart-ment, and he doesn't want to hire from the outside, since there’s opportunity for growth.

“Who knows where Ryan will be in years,” Jur-gens said. “He’s so fond of Florida Tech, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up back here in the future. But I am happy to have had him for six years.”

Ryan Jones, Athletic Communication

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Photo by FloridaTechSports.com