The Alumni Association also will recognize former Denny’s president and CEO Nelson Marchioli (’72) with its Distinguished Alumnus Award, the highest annual award given by the Alumni Association, for his lifetime of professional achievement.

The Black & Gold Gala honors alumni for their professional achievements and dedication to serving the community.

Stott (’92), the first UCF graduate to fly aboard the space shuttle and live on the International Space Station, will receive a Professional Achievement Award from the College of Engineering & Computer Science.

Tosh (’96), the well-known comedian and host of Comedy Central’s Tosh.O, will receive the Michelle Akers Award for the global recognition that he brings to UCF.

Colombino (’08) earned the Community Service Award for creating REBUILD Globally, a nonprofit organization that creates jobs for Haitians making sandals from tires in an effort to help Haitians develop self-sustaining skills.

Karl Hodges (’82) will receive the Service to UCF Award for his service on several UCF boards and committees. Melissa Blette, an International Business major, won the Distinguished Student Award.

The recipients of other Professional Achievement Awards given by individual colleges were:

William J. Sheaffer (’75): College of Arts and Humanities, Orlando defense attorney and expert analyst for WFTV-Channel 9

Seth Jonas (’01): Burnett Honors College, research staff member, Science & Technology Policy Institute

Stan Horton (’73): College of Business Administration, president and CEO, Boardline Pipeline Partners

Gregg A. Buckingham (’02): College of Education, deputy director, Education & External Relations, NASA

Lawrence G. Walters (’85): College of Health & Public Affairs, founder, Walters Law Group

Dr. James McClelland (’95): College of Medicine, infectious disease specialist

David R. Hanke, (’81): College of Nursing, vice president of global accounts, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Yvette Gordon-Kanouff, (’88 and ’93): College of Sciences, president, SeaChange International

Tom Vogel (’89): Rosen College of Hospitality Management, president & CEO, Logan’s Roadhouse, Inc.

For more information about the UCF Alumni Association, call 800-330-2586 or visit www.ucfalumni.com.

All are welcome to attend Amadei’s speech, “Engineering for the Developing World: From Crisis to Development,” from noon to 1 p.m. in Room 101 of the Harris Engineering Center on UCF’s main campus.

The Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering within UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science is the event sponsor.

Amadei, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, believes that engineers must hold the public welfare above any other responsibility. His message and mission have inspired 12,000 people – many of whom are not engineers – to join EWB-USA since 2002. With 225 chapters, including one at UCF, the organization has provided aid in 41 developing countries, benefitting more than 600,000 people.

EWB-USA collaborates with local partners in developingcountries to design and implement sustainable engineering projects to enable residents to meet their basic human needs. Many of EWB’s projects involve improving local residents’ access to clean water.

Engineers Without Borders at UCF

UCF’s chapter of EWB-USA has a five-year commitment to provide ongoing assistance to the 300 villagers of Mare Brignol in southernHaiti.

“Their overwhelming need is for clean water,” said Andrew Ivey, chapter president and an environmental engineering major. The need became more urgent when a cholera epidemic caused by contaminated drinking water spread through the country after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010.

But EWB-USA is not a relief organization, Ivey noted. In fact, UCF’s chapter began assisting Mare Brignol in 2008, two years before the quake.

“Engineers Without Borders implements long-term, sustainable solutions to problems, and empowers local residents to help themselves,” Ivey said.

The chapter’s mission is to help people in the developing world make long-term improvements in their living conditions while transforming members into service-minded, internationally aware leaders with real-world experience.

During the chapter’s most recent trips to Haiti in May, UCF students worked with local Haitian businesses and laborers to purchase materials and install six cisterns (outdoor clay vessels that collect and store up to 800 gallons of rainwater) and 34 bio-sand filtration systems (boxes of special sand that remove disease-causing microbes, such as e-coli, from the water). The bio-sand filters require no power source or chemicals.

All at UCF are welcome to join Engineers Without Borders. The majority of the organization’s work is non-engineering related. Opportunities exist to raise money, do research, plan logistics, write grant proposals, contribute to group decisions, and much more.

“Engineering projects fail without the valuable contributions from people in other disciplines,” said Kaveh Madani, assistant professor of environmental engineering and the chapter’s faculty advisor. “We are all members of the same society and an international family.”

Read more about the work in Haiti by UCF’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. 

Hear a radio interview featuring chapter members produced by WMFE-FM.

“Haiti is very, very different from what I remembered at 8 years old,” the Industrial Engineering and Management Systems major said after her most recent trip in May.

“The nation is in shambles,” she added. “People are extremely poor, and what disturbed me the most was that it seemed like they were getting used to it.”

Hit with a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January 2010, Haiti continues to recover and rebuild. Many people, including Basquin, see opportunities to transform the country since last year’s disaster by empowering local communities to have a stake in their future.

Twice in May, Basquin and 15 other UCF students made trips to southeast Haiti to help the village of Mare Brignole secure safe, clean drinking water with a project that also aims to create a sustainable business for residents.

These trips were the culmination of several years’ worth of work by UCF’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. In 2008, the nonprofit group launched a five-year commitment with this village of about 300 people to improve its quantity and quality of water.

“Haiti is a graveyard of failed water projects,” says Andrew Ivey, the organization’s president and a senior Environmental Engineering major. “To really succeed, you need to use local products and technologies that people have expertise in and that they can utilize when we leave.”

This summer, students finalized construction on a rainwater collection system. It consists of a rooftop water catchment specially designed to keep out bacteria-carrying debris, such as pollen, twigs and leaves, as it channels rainwater into

Six 6-foot-tall, 800-gallon cisterns that store the rainwater were installed near the village’s school and center of town. The system includes a tap located near the street that is accessible to all.  

The group also helped build 34 bio-sand filters that residents use in their homes to purify the water after they draw it from the public tap.

They simply pour water into the filter — a waist-high box of special sand that removes disease-causing microbes from the water – leaving the water clean and safe for drinking. The bio-sand filters require no power source or chemicals.

Simply built and easy to use, the new process is a vast improvement over the village’s previous method of gathering water – a six-mile round trip trek to a small spring that served as a water source for the village and neighboring communities.

Reaching the spring was a time-consuming and treacherous ordeal, with women and children traveling nearly all day. Animals frequented the spring, which was also used for washing clothes and bathing, contributing to the spread of disease.

“We strived for something sustainable,” Ivey says of the rooftop catchment, clay pots and bio-sand filters. “Residents can go home with these locally available supplies and build their own.”

Mare Brignole’s residents have been involved with the project since inception. Ivey said one of the engineering group’s most important goals was to enlist the help of the community to educate residents on operating, maintaining and reproducing the catchment system and bio-sand filters.

“Almost every Haitian person has a cistern in their house – they just weren’t the right kind,” Basquin said. “They are deep and unsafe, and they tend to collect a lot of bacteria.”

Unlike the typical cisterns found in villagers’ homes, the 800-gallon public cisterns have lids that keep the water protected from debris and insects during storage.

“My hope is that people learn to use our cisterns and bio-sand filters properly and then try to build them themselves,” she added. “I want to see a full flourishing of the entire village.”

UCF’s Engineers Without Borders chapter was established in 2007 to develop students into internationally aware engineers by involving them in projects that improve disadvantaged communities through sustainable engineering.

The group hopes to recruit more UCF students this fall – engineering and non-engineering majors – to help with the Haiti venture. All skills are needed, including students with backgrounds in fundraising, research, education and health.

“Engineers Without Borders’ doors are open to everyone who cares about humans,” says Engineering Professor Kaveh Madani, the group’s faculty adviser. “In fact, having students of different backgrounds and disciplines in the organization can help the group develop more fruitful projects.”

To learn more about UCF’s Engineers Without Borders, visit http://ewbucf.org.

To contact the group, email ewbucf@gmail.com.

He took medical histories and watched doctors treat rare illnesses.

“When you work with a patient in the field, you think, ‘Wow, I’ve learned a lot.’ The learning makes more sense,” Abrahan said.

But most importantly, Abrahan helped save lives.

He trained Haitian midwives and doctors in a procedure to help resuscitate babies born with breathing difficulties, giving them a better chance of survival. It’s a new technique developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization especially for rural communities where professional healthcare can be 50 miles away or farther.

In June pediatrician and College of Medicine mentor Dr. Tom Lacy and a University of Florida medical student joined Abrahan in his effort.

“We strongly believe in sustainable healthcare,” said Lacy, who helped establish the nonprofit Hands Up for Haiti. “All the doctor volunteers in our group treat, but we also educate because we want to help people take care of themselves.”

The infant mortality rate in Haiti is high – with 70 out of 1,000 babies dying compared to the U.S. rate of 16 out of 1,000.

Kits needed to resuscitate babies are expensive — $220 each — and they can’t be found in Haiti. So the Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children donated money to Hands Up for Haiti, and volunteers bought kits. Thirteen Haitian midwives and doctors were trained and can go back to their villages and teach 10 more providers.

This was not the first trip for either student or mentor.

Now a second-year medical student in the College of Medicine, Abrahan has been traveling to Haiti since he was an undergraduate at UCF. In fact, he is the volunteer coordinator for another non-profit organization – Haiti Village Health.

Lacy began his trips in 2010 shortly after a tremendous earthquake crippled the country and injured and killed thousands. It was that experience that made Lacy start Hands Up for Haiti. The group, which includes physicians from New York and New Jersey, has six trips planned for 2011.

The latest trip wasn’t just about saving babies, Lacy said. It’s also a learning experience he highly recommends for students who can afford it. Because of a U.S. Department of State travel warning, Florida medical schools cannot send students to Haiti. So students interested must use their vacation time and pay their own way. But it is well worth it.

“It’s such a tremendous experience,” Lacy said. “From a clinical point of view, they see pathology in four days which they wouldn’t see in a whole year of medical school.”

Students get to practice what Lacy calls “pure medicine.”

“In some countries, like Haiti, you have to rely on medical histories and exams,” he said. “There are no labs, no x-rays, they just don’t have access to them. There’s no back up, so students are forced to use the clinical skills they learn.”

When he graduates, Abrahan said he plans to do international work to help those without access to medical care. He says it’s a way to give back for all the learning he’s received.

For Lacy and the second medical student, his daughter, a third-year medical student at the University of Florida, the experience has been life changing.

“There is a great feeling of fulfillment,” Lacy said. “There is more than just donating money happening here, we’re helping others save lives.”

UCF has made a long-term commitment to help Haiti recover from the earthquake through volunteer and research projects and the creation of Task Force H.O.P.E. (Healing, Outreach, Partnership and Education), which is made up of students, faculty and staff members and administrators from across campus.

For the next several weeks, Task Force H.O.P.E., with support from Volunteer UCF, will be collecting cell phones to support a mobile technology project managed by UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training. Along with micro-financed mini projectors and education software, the phones will become mobile training centers for Haitian teachers and farmers to instruct others in the classroom and in the field.

All phones will be accepted, although smartphones are preferred. Older phones that are not suitable for the mobile technology project could be donated to UCF Victim Services.

You can drop off phones at four UCF locations:

Millican Hall, Suite 243, Room 247

Student Union, Office of Student Involvement, Room 208

Central Florida Research Park, Orlando Tech Center, Suite 301

College of Medicine, Admissions Office, Suite 115L

Phones also will be collected at the Hearts for Haiti benefit concert featuring the Plain White T’s on Friday, May 13. The concert starts at 6 p.m. at The Beacham on Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando.

UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training is one of the sponsors, and concert proceeds will benefit The Foundation for America’s Blood Centers, which has been providing disaster relief to Haiti since the earthquake.

For tickets and more about the concert, go to http://www.thebeacham.com/.

For more information on the cell phone drive and other ways that UCF is helping Haiti, visit http://www.ucf.edu/haiti or e-mail haiti@ucf.edu.

The 2008 grad was in Port-au-Prince volunteering at an orphanage when he felt the ground violently shake. The quake, which killed more than 220,000 people, destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. That’s why Schurke co-founded Lespwa Means Hope. He has been helping organize other volunteers on the ground and even recruiting students from across the United States to help Haiti reconstruct.

Schurke will be at UCF from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. Thursday, March 31, in the Ferrell Commons Auditorium to provide updates and talk with students about ways that they can get involved. This event is sponsored by Cru at UCF, which is partnering with Lespwa on its efforts to raise awareness.

Schurke and his group also are working with Mission of Hope in Haiti, raising money for a sustainable agricultural school and coastal farming land to help villagers learn new techniques and secure their own food supply.

Learn more at Lespwa Means Hope.

For more about how the UCF community is helping Haiti and for ways to get involved, visit Task Force H.O.P.E.’s website.

Fauriol spoke to nearly 75 people at his presentation, which was organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office as a feature of the Haiti Speaker Series. He also presented at events in the community.

Fauriol’s speech focused on the elections in Haiti and political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. According to Fauriol, the United States has a great stake in the successes of transitions in Haiti, North Africa and the Middle East.

Fauriol said that, objectively, all democratic transitions have a chance of success if they follow the necessary steps, such as having open and fair elections, making sure electoral laws are crafted to encourage inclusiveness and ensuring the laws are administered with transparency.

Most importantly, he said, democratic transitions have the greatest likelihood of success when free and fair elections become routine, allowing people to develop a trust in them.

Fauriol said political reforms alone are not enough to make democracy work.

Economics play a key role, and democracy has to deliver, or else people become disillusioned, he said. In some circumstances, that means demonstrating in the streets and risking lives to generate change, similar to what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa.

For Haiti, Fauriol said, the challenge is that each political event seems to trigger another political crisis. The country demonstrates that failed transitions can create conditions of instability, and, coupled with the nation’s bad luck with natural disasters, severely hamper Haiti’s economic and governmental development.

However, the candidates in Haiti’s most recent election represent a break from the past, a change that Haiti hasn’t seen in more than 27 years, Fauriol said. With a focus on the future, the candidates pledged reconstruction, reform and development.

In addition to Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners included UCF Task Force H.O.P.E.; the UCF Haitian Studies Project; the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program; the UCF Political Science Department; the UCF Diplomacy Program; the UCF Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program; The Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship Program; the UCF International Services Center; UCF LIFE; the Orlando Rotary Club; and the Global Connections Foundation.

“Promoting Democracy in Haiti and Beyond” will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 17, in the Garden Key Room of the Student Union. The presentation, organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office, is a feature of the “Haiti Speaker Series.” The event is free and open to the public.

Fauriol was previously director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. At CSIS, he was the senior scholar specializing in issues affecting the Western Hemisphere.

Fauriol also worked with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the U.S. Information Agency and the Inter-American Development Bank. He is the author and co-author of several books and more than 50 other publications.

In addition to Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners include UCF Task Force H.O.P.E.; the UCF Haitian Studies Project; the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program; the UCF Political Science Department; the UCF Diplomacy Program; the UCF Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program; The Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship Program; the UCF International Services Center; UCF LIFE; the Orlando Rotary Club; and the Global Connections Foundation.

To learn more about the Global Perspectives Office, visit http://ucfglobalperspectives.org or follow the office on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UCF_Global.

Robert Maguire, a leading expert on Haiti, spoke at UCF about the country’s need to transcend its past problems while trying to rebuild its future.

Maguire is the director of programs in international affairs at Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C.  Since 1990, he has served as chair of Haiti Advanced Area Studies at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute.

He spoke to an audience of nearly 125 people at his presentation, which was organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office as a feature of both the 2010-2011 “Haiti Speaker Series” and the “Global Peace and Security” theme.

He said that demographic, social and economic imbalances, in addition to struggles with international relations and development policies, are some of Haiti’s greatest challenges when it comes to rebuilding itself.

Haitians have been continually migrating to the capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving behind the rural areas and becoming vulnerable to natural disasters, he said.

Maguire said Haiti was once self-sufficient in food production, but immediately before the earthquake, the country was importing most of its goods and food.  A socio-economic imbalance means that 80 percent of Haitians live on just $2 a day, while one percent controls more than half of the GDP, he said.

Due to Haiti’s cheap labor and dictatorial governments of the past, there has been very little foreign investment in development and education, Maguire said. The rest of the world considered Haiti a nation with cheap labor.

Maguire said that in the 1980s, Haiti “was supposed to become the Taiwan of the Caribbean.” He argued that there needs to be an opportunity in Haiti for its population to increase its talent.

“We need to find a way to invest in the Haitian people and their involvement in the world economy,” he said.

But the nation faces obstacles, including the inhibition of the political leadership in decision-making, the tendency of the Haitian elite to benefit itself rather than the country and the exclusion of the voices of poor people from the decision-making processes.

Maguire made several recommendations that he thinks would bring balance to Haiti.

First, he said, there needs to be meaningful decentralization, since 85 percent of the economic activity is concentrated in Port-au-Prince. Next, according to Maguire, there should be a creation of a civic service core.

He also suggested reconstituting Haitian institutions to help support their ability to be present in the lives of the population, especially the poor. He argued for the creation of a conditional cash transfer program, such as those implemented in Brazil and Mexico, where families receive money as long as their children are sent to school daily and frequently attend health clinics.

In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners of Maguire’s presentation included UCF’s Task Force H.O.P.E.; the UCF Haitian Studies Project; the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program; the UCF Political Science Department; the UCF Diplomacy Program; the UCF Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program; The Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship Program; the UCF International Services Center; the UCF Office of Internationalization; UCF LIFE; and the Global Connections Foundation.

Maguire’s presentation, organized by the UCF Global Perspectives office, is part of the “Haiti Speaker Series,” and it will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, in the Cape Florida Ballroom of the Student Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Maguire is the director of programs in international affairs at Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C.. He has been involved with Haiti since the mid-1970s through affiliations with the Inter-American Foundation; the U.S. Department of State; and Johns Hopkins, Brown and Georgetown universities.

Since 1990, Maguire has served as chair of Haiti Advanced Area Studies at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute.

He was previously the Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. While at the institute, Maguire conducted research on how decisions regarding international resources have affected stability in Haiti, including why international efforts have had trouble achieving and sustaining success there.

In December 2001, Maguire received Rockefeller Foundation support for his work on Haiti at Trinity College, allowing him to extend his work into issues related to Haitian diaspora populations. He previously directed the Georgetown University Haiti Program, which served as a vehicle for the sharing of information and analysis on issues linked to Haiti and to U.S.-Haiti policy.

In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners include UCF’s Task Force H.O.P.E.; the UCF Haitian Studies Project; the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program; the UCF Political Science Department; the UCF Diplomacy Program; the UCF Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program; The Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship Program; the UCF International Services Center; the UCF Office of Internationalization; UCF LIFE; and the Global Connections Foundation.

For a full list of upcoming events or to learn more about the Global Perspectives Office, visit http://ucfglobalperspectives.org or follow the office on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UCF_Global.