Thursday, December 17, 2015

December & seasons greetings!

Hello,

Greetings and happy holidays from Purin Hall! We are very excited for the end of the semester and have already begun decorating our lounge/building with winter-themed items. With finals approaching I am happy to announce that I have seen a large increase in use of the study lounge on the third floor. The lounge contains a general area for students to sit and study together on their lap tops as well as a walled off quiet zone with access to wired internet. I have rewarded students who have utilized the lounge with small treats such as candy. I have also used positive encouragement to promote behaviors that will lead towards academic success.


For my last event of the Semester I will be facilitating an event related to finances. It is never to early to start investing I was once told by my financial adviser. The earlier you invest, the more potential for growth your investments have. I will be discussing retirement savings options such as Roth IRA's, general budgeting, different types of savings accounts, CD's, Bonds, and ways to invest in stocks (for those who can stomach the ever changing market). The material in this event applies to every student in my building. I hope that this will allow my students to take control of their finances and get a jump start towards financial security.

End of the Semester Wrap Up with the JAMS LLC

Greetings colleagues,

Stevan here from the JAMS LLC with an end of the year wrap up. There were a number of things that appear on the highlight reel with the JAMS LLC that are worth a mention. First I was one of three mentors to receive the Mentor of the Month Award for the month of December, I was chosen by my fellow peer mentors for this award, and I am extremely grateful for them recognizing my hard work this semester.

LLC related highlights include the class visiting a number of different media outlets to learn about how they each operate. These include visiting FOX6 (WITI-DT) and getting a tour of their facility by anchor and reporter, Katrina Cravey, to see how a TV station operates for those students interested in broadcast. They also visited ESPN Milwaukee to see how a radio station operates and see how a live radio talk show is conducted. Lastly, they stopped by the UWM Post to see how campus media puts together a news website for the UWM community. An additional event the students went on was the DiverCity Tour where they went to three cultural centers to learn about different cultures in the Milwaukee area.

The students also had members of the media come to them in the form of guest speakers such as, Victor Huyek from the El Conquistador Newspaper, Andy Tarnoff who started OnMilwaukee.com, UWM Journalism Professors Michael Newman and Marc Tasman, UWM Journalism Instructor and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Gina Barton, members from UWM Media Relations, and (on December 9) talk show host and radio anchor Dan O'Donnell from News/Talk 1130 WISN-AM. It is also good for the students to get journalism experience, not only because the LLC class instructor talks about it, but because the students write article for the JAMS Department's, student run news website, Media Milwaukee, so they get the writing experience. The students write about items ranging from the guest speakers to their class, to campus events.

I think the students really enjoyed being in the LLC especially on the trips because I think they were a good way for the students to really get to know each other in the LLC. Even though on campus events for the LLC, such as the Nightly News viewing night that we had a few weeks ago, where we watched NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and talk about it during the commercial breaks. Plus, the students really got a ton of experience seeing things in action with the media tours and a lot of information from a plethora of guest speakers.

Some of my favorite moments in the LLC was the Nightly News viewing night not only because I planned it, but because (like the instructor of the LLC class said) it's important for journalists to know what is happening in the world. Like I mentioned earlier Dan O'Donnell came to the class to talk about radio, is was a lot of fun, not only for myself but the students as well. I used to intern at News/Talk 1130 WISN in the summer of 2014 and Dan used to be my supervisor, and he is also a great friend of mine. So I can't wait to see him come to the class.

Overall, I hope the students got a ton out of the LLC by connecting with each other and learning a lot about the field of journalism/public relations by being in the LLC.


Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Art and Design LLC in November

Hello everyone this is Devin with just another update on what has been going on in the Art and Design LLC. First off, the 3D concepts class got a little taste of some collaboration work this semester. Some classes were tasked with an installation work for the first floor of the Arts Center hallway. The students were asked to think about their favorite song and then draw that song, which they soon had to transform into a three dimensional wooden box. The students had virtually complete freedom with the design inside the box and designs varied drastically. At the end of this process, as a class they hung up their boxes on the wall in certain patterns where they will stay as a permanent installation.


Now for the 2D students, they got to visit the special collections of the UWM Library. Here Max Yela, head librarian of the collection, gave the students a presentation about book arts. After this talk the students got to observe and play with some actual artist’s books to develop some ideas for their final project for the class. The 2D final project pushes the students to question the ideas and conceptions of what a book is and create an art form. The possibilities of book arts are endless, but the students are more then up to the challenge.


an example of Book Arts

The LLC has also had a busy month outside of class as well! We have been preparing T-shirt designs to represent our LLC and learn to screen print them themselves at the start of next semester.


We also went as an LLC to one of the Artist Now! Lectures held on campus. We saw Therese Quinn, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the Museum and Exhibition Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, give her presentation titled "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Arts, Education and Social Justice." Quinn's presentation brought up ways that art can aid social justice and called the audience to action with bringing more diversity and cultural understanding in both Art Education as well as museum and gallery spaces.

Flaunt It Grab
An example of Therese Quinn's work
-RA Joe

And That's A Wrap!



As Fall semester comes to a quick end the residents of the LLC are presenting their final projects for critiques. The photos below are from the Architecture 190 LLC required class presenting their final christmas card and ornament design to their professor, PHD student Sarah Keogh. This is the residents first opportunity to experience a real final critique. Overall, the critiques went well and everyone did a FANTASTIC job!



Monday, December 14, 2015

Health Professions LLC



Hello Everyone!

It is that time of year again... FINALS. Students are anxiously awaiting their first finals week. Students have been non-stop studying their hardest subjects including Anatomy. RA Shelby and RA Sydney have been busy making sure the students are less stressed and prepared for their exams. We even made cute, motivational treats!

It's Crunch Time, finals week treat: "Take a breath and do your best!" - Test Prep Idea - The Teachers' Cauldron:

RA Sydney and RA Shelby have also been hard at work planning fun events for next semester. There is even talk about having a Spring trip to Chicago!

Stay tuned for next semester to see what the Health Professions LLC is up to!

Until next time,
RA Sydney and RA Shelby.

Holla!

The Spanish LLC has been busy preparing for finals and the upcoming semester! For the next semester the Spanish House LLC class will take place in Cambridge 171 on Fridays at noon. One of the biggest components of the class is to have residents participate in Spanish influenced events, whether they be movies, dances, or trips! A lot of the Spanish LLC residents have been busy watching movies like El Orfanato and El Laberinto Del Funo for the Spanish LLC class.


I am busy planning events for the Spring 2016 semester! Once residents come back one of our first events will be to bring a representative from the Roberto Hernandez Center to talk to my residents about the different ways they can get involved with the Spanish community here at UWM. Another one of our events will be to volunteer at the 16th street clinic here in Milwaukee that mainly caters to the Hispanic community. We have a lot planned and hope that you will enjoy the updates that are coming your way!

Felices Fiestas,
RA Laly

Friday, December 11, 2015

Honors House 2 Gets Ready to Crossover

It's the end of the semester, so that means three things for the Honors House II:

  1. Signing up for the next semester of classes.
  2. Writing final papers and presentations.
  3. The much-anticipated Crossover Social!

That's right, as one of HH2's traditions, we'll be hosting the 3rd semi-annual crossover event!  Along with Honors House 1, we'll be playing board games, jamming in Rock Band 4, and making great connections within the Honors program.

The event will also give Honors House 1 residents a chance to check out the community in East Tower, and help answer any questions they have about living in HH2!  RA Hunter and I are really excited to be putting on today, December 11, 2015 at 8PM and hope we have a GREAT attendance!

As our last post for the semester, I'd like to invite you all to have a great break and enjoy the holiday season.  Safe Travels!

Dance LLC- Its that time of year!

This past month the Dance Foundations Living Learning Community has been busy with attending last minute performances, writing final papers, and learning their final dances for their dance classes.  In the middle of December the Dance LLC class will be preforming their work to the other classes and anyone else who wants to watch them. One thing we did as an LLC was attend a performance from Danceworks Performing Company called Footsteps, Shadows and Whispers at the beginning of November. The dance LLC members that attended this performance fell in love with the performance. It made for great discussion and connection with each other. As the LLC is preparing for winter break and their final projects I have planned little study sessions in the lounge for us to work together. We will be making stress balls and giving each other encouragement for our final week of the semester.

Another thing that we did in the month of November was we entered the first ever University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee Dance Marathon. This event was an amazing opportunity to raise money for children at a local hospital that are sick. One of the residents, Lexi Rios, raised $100, which was the highest amount someone raised on the Dance LLC. During this event we all stood and danced for ten hour to support those that can’t stand or walk. We were able to meet some of the families and children that we were supporting and hang out with them all night. This was an amazing way to support our community and a way for us to do what we love most…Dance.

Throughout the semester we focused a lot on building friendships, building connections, attending performances, and figuring out how to get through the first semester of college. A lot of the dance LLC members are first year students beside a few second year students. A lot of the first year students look up to the second years for advise on classes and they lean on each other if they are struggling with any classes. The Dance LLC has become very close in their classes and as a community. They have build great connections with each other and have become very good friends..


As an LLC we have had a lot of fun getting to know each other these past three months. I am very excited to see what next semester holds for us and to see what we will do as a community.


Here are some fun pictures of some of the Dance LLC members doing site specific work:

















Business Panthers' are Love; Business Panthers' are Life

As the semester comes to a close we begin to pack up for Winter Break. Residents have begun taking their final exams, which sadly means Business 100, among other classes, are coming to an end. Additionally, the Resident Assistants have been putting on a multitude of events, including and Admirals game, a holiday party, and several social gatherings. 

When we return at the start of spring semester we will continue where we left off. The Business LLC Residents will be taking Business Ethics together; which is taught by the same teacher that instructed Business 100. However, there will be one major change to our community. Resident Assistant David Wolfe will unfortunately not be returning to our community for the second semester. Instead, he will be replaced by another RA, whom will proudly represent the Business LLC for the remainder of the year.

This month the LLC took its trip to a Milwaukee Admirals game. Together we took the Milwaukee Public Transit System to the game and cheered on our local hockey team.  




Another event that took place was a Channukah Party on the third floor. Here residents played and ate traditional Channukah games and food. We played dreidel, ate jelly donuts, and gambled with chocolate. Additionally, we talked about the differences between religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.




Thursday, December 10, 2015

Transfer Community: Wrapping Up the Semester

Welcome to the next installment of the Transfer Community blog update!





Right now we're all getting ready for Final Exam season. Since this time of the semester gets so hectic for everyone, there's been less programs. Katie and I want to make sure that residents have adequate time for class, sleep, and social lives! However, my floors just had their Decorating Eleganza Extravaganza! After very difficult deliberation, they decided that they wanted the decoration theme for the next two months to be Superheros. They were so enthusiastic about the brainstorming portion of the event that we barely even started the decorating process. By the time it's finished though, it will look amazing!


Residents working hard on Superhero decorations
      We do have a few events coming up. South Tower is hosting a relaxation/stress relief event for students during the campus-wide study day. We want to give South Tower residents an outlet for relieving stress as they prepare for final exams and final projects. I'll be taking residents to a local coffee shop for a "Sip and Study" next weekend. RA Katie will also be having a Donut Race event. We've had a ton of great activities and adventures throughout the semester and we all look forward to next semester! Hopefully any and all vacancies in our community will be filled with new transfer students hoping to find their own amazing UWM experience!

Thank you for tuning in to our last installment of the Transfer Community Blog for the Fall semester! There will be more updates from RA Katie and me starting next semester!

-RA Paul

November in L2G

Hello All!

November went by very quickly in Local to Global. The biggest event we had happen was the visitors that came to Cambridge! We were fortunate to have Dria and Meghan from the Center for International Education come and speak. They talked about study abroad opportunities, how to financially make it work, and the professional benefits of spending time abroad. In addition, they talked about opportunities for credit within global studies majors and minors. The residents had wonderful questions anywhere from where to find scholarships to concerns about adjusting to life abroad. Our guests did a fantastic job of being honest and informative.
Since I studied abroad (Spain, Spring 2015) I was very engaged in the conversations and totally forgot to take any pictures, so sorry!
As a fun, stress-free event before finals, my entire community and the community that includes the Spanish House will be having a gingerbread house-making competition! We are excited to see the creativity of the teams, and our international students are particularly excited to see a stereotypical American tradition unfold.

Happy Studying,
RA Brigitte

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Elevate Event!

Hello All!

For this month we had an exciting event that took place. This was an event for the residents involved with the LLC to be able to practice Elevator pitches. For those that may not know what an Elevator pitch is exactly it is basically a 25-35 second pitch to get a connection or whatever may be the persons goal. The reason behind it being 25-35 seconds is because hence this pitch is done in an elevator. For example, lets say you see a CEO of a company in an elevator you would want to have a pitch practiced, to lets say get an in, into the company. It takes practice to get an elevator pitch down.

Our event took place on Friday on the 5th floor lounge where we had some of the LLC Residents pitch to a couple staff members. Some staff members that they pitched to were, Demetria Anderson Res. Life Coordinator, David Clark Associate Dean, Demetrius Williams Res. Life Coordinator, and Shelby Fritsch Res. Life Coordinator. Overall this was a great event for the students. I believe they got a lot out of the event and David Clark did an excellent job and teaching and mentoring the students beyond what they had learned from class. Below are a few photos from the event.








This wraps all of our events up this semester and we all are looking forward to next semester's events and activities!

Best,

Kyle


It's the end of the semester! Time to recap!




This semester in the S'mores LLC has been a great one! So many great things have happened and so many more to come!


Recapping this semester, we've been busy! 
 We've had so many events and activities for the S'mores to do, it was great to take a break from school work and get to know our floor better. 


One important message that the S'mores LLC learned was from the Career Planning and Resource Center! We had a representative come right to our floor and teach us about the importance of declaring a major and finding ways to find the right major for you. We had pizza, fun, and a great turnout for that event!

Our biggest hit was our event "Would you Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?". This was were we went through a choose your own adventure of different scenarios you could choose. Some choices had dire consequences and some choices helped you survive! It was great fun and brought lots of laughs. 

One of my favorite traditions on the S'mores floor is to have our game nights! Many of the residents come out and we stay up late playing Catchphrase, Headbands, Charades, and Pictionary! 


With finals coming up things are starting to get hectic around here for everyone. The semester is winding down and we're all ready for a nice winter break! Looking forward to another great semester in the spring!

Social Justice LLC class: Multicultural America 150

As the peer mentor for the Social Justice LLC it has been a great experience being able to observe and interact with the students this in class. Multicultural America 150 has been a class in which the students have been able to freely express their ideas and knowledge. As well as teaching the students how to critically question history and its relevance that it plays in today society. Multicultural America 150 consisted of looking at history through the experience of immigrants, the poor, and those fighting for their rights.

Professor Smith does an excellent job in creating an environment where the students seem to feel comfortable in wanting to participate. There is always room for the students to express their ideas, and ask questions. This course prepares students to have a sense of how a college course is and how to develop a more analytical way of thinking, reading, writing and questioning. The dynamics of the course, students, and Professor Smith is truly unique.
      
Professor Robert Smith

Another special component of this course is that it has service-learning. Service-learning engages students in community projects that are related to the course content, and then reflect on the experience in class discussion or through written work.  All of the students have selected their service-learning locations to be a places such as The Black Holocaust Museum, Americas Civil Liberties Union, and the Jewish Home and Care Center among many other service-learning opportunities that the students volunteer their time.
  

Professor Smith encourages students to push themselves, not only in his course but as a person. He emphasizes the importance of their academics, but also as a member of the Milwaukee community. Encouraging them to get to know Milwaukee and its history and current state of being in order for them to make it a better Milwaukee.

-Yoselin Colorado 





Monday, December 7, 2015

Scene One, Take Four: That's a Wrap!

Scene One: Take Four:That’s a Wrap!

The semester is ending and RA Shannon and Lea could not be more proud of their LLCer’s as they close out the semester. Especially excited to announce the LLC residents have completed filming for the Film LLC video!  They are moving into the editing portion of the process and will soon have a finished film. RA Shannon and RA Lea are impressed with the initiative each individual took with the video. RA Shannon and RA Lea were the for support but the project was executed by the residents contributing their talents to the project. In honor of all of their hard work, RA Shannon and RA Lea are throwing them a Wrap Party with ice cream on the last day of classes.
Plans have already been put in place for next semester for some amazing events. On the horizon is the LLC’s Traditional 24 hour Film Festival. Residents are given a prompt, which they then have 24 hours to film and edit a five-minute or less film using the themes and prompts given to them.  The excitement is buzzing, but it could just be for winter break.
Stay tuned for next month’s blog and more information on the exciting things happening next semester!

We're making all the movies! 

A Year In Review In Pictures













Happy Holidays from the Career Quest LLC

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the winter weather in Wisconsin. The Career Quest LLC has been very busy this past month. With finals coming up, the holiday season, and registering for classes, these students have been extremely busy!

In the LLC class students went over how to meet with advisers, set up appointments, and register for classes. This can definitely be a stressful process, but the students in the class were very grateful that this was a section that was discussed. We went over how to log into your PAWS account to be able to select the term for registration and how to add classes (as depicted below)!!


In addition, students have been spreading holiday cheer around our community in Housing. The residents came together to decorate for the holidays! They got to learn about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and other holidays coming up this month. Not only was this a great learning experience, it was an awesome stress reliever with finals coming up! Please check out the amazing pictures below of the Career Quest LLC House!! Happy Holidays everyone!