• An Expedition in Paleontology
  
• Art Worx!
  
• Campus Craftsperson Collaboration
  
• Carolina Letters
• Documentary Interest Training Organization (DITO)
  
• Doing Well, Doing Good
  
• Grow
• Student Theological Forum (STF)
• VoraciTee

1. An Expedition in Paleontology
Modern paleontological excavations use biology, geology, ecology, and GIS to develop a better understanding of not only ancient plants, but the paleoenvironments in which plants occurred. This project proposes to assemble a team of undergraduates with varied backgrounds and interests in order to plan and execute an excavation of Miocene sediments of the El Cien Formation in Baja California in order to gain a better knowledge of the principles and practices involved in modern science. In preparation for the expedition, the participants will learn the basic premises of plant biology, paleobotany, sedimentology and stratigraphy. Throughout the semester, we will also visit an excavation site in Sanford, NC, for practice. The specimens we will collect will be donated to the UNC Herbarium so that they may be available for further study.

2. Art Worx!
As our world grows ever more technologically intricate and developed, it becomes increasingly difficult to define the role of art and creative expression in our daily lives. However, without the arts, we begin to lose what characterizes our individuality and the culture in which we live. This project will work to revive artistic and creative expression within the community, especially among the students themselves, through various approaches. We will host events such as a series of forums and debates in which students, professors, and even local elementary school teachers gather and debate issues such as art’s place in the world today, and student art workshops in the pit, where students would be free to join at any moment and take part. We will also collect artwork from students across campus for an exhibition in Cobb. We will also create and maintain a web site that features our mission statement, upcoming events, and photos and commentary on projects already completed.

3. Campus Craftsperson Collaboration
The goal of the Campus Craftsperson Collaboration is to create a campus community of committed artisans and craftspersons. This community will focus on fashioning items of form and function (door handles, candle holders, weather vanes, small tools, furniture, and etc.). We will follow our passions and hope to start with a small blacksmithing operation. While some members will focus on the physical creation, others will research aesthetic styles, plan out the creations, or even explore a history of southern craftsmanship. We will also have a wing devoted to spreading our skills throughout campus by holding forums on campus to teach others skills we will have acquired.

4. Carolina Letters
Carolina Letters will make an archive of high-quality recordings of UNC-Chapel Hill lectures and speaking events available online for public access on university servers. Every year, our university hosts hundreds of lectures and readings by local and guest speakers, so many it’s almost impossible to experience them all. Through Carolina Letters, students, professors, and other members of the Chapel Hill community will be able to attend every single one. People outside Chapel Hill—students at other universities, listeners in other states and even other countries—also will have access to our wonderful lectures. The program will give our university’s professors a chance to take their lectures beyond the classroom. At its inception, Carolina Letters will focus on authors and creative writing speakers on campus. Using this preliminary phase as a foundation for future endeavors, Carolina Letters can expand without limits. Listeners near and far should have the opportunity to enjoy Carolina’s rich and dynamic arts scene. Thanks to Carolina Letters, no one will have to miss a word.

5. Documentary Interest Training Organization (DITO)
DITO will engage group members in serious reflection, helping them document an on-campus or personal issue that is important to them. This will be followed by a more in-depth treatment of their interest area: interviewing related subjects, reconsidering their own experiences, and working with other students and campus organizations. Ultimately, these documentaries will be compiled in a single website, as well as made available to relevant departments and on-campus groups for web use. We will also work with the Study Abroad office and the Beasley Center to help students more effectively document, reflect upon, and share their valuable experiences, and over the course of the year, DITO will present lecture and documentary skills workshops outlining basic documentary methods: web design, blogging, podcasting, and photography.

5. Doing Well, Doing Good: A Student's Guide to Social Entrepreneurship
Running a business fosters leadership in the Carolina community: today’s student entrepreneurs are the successful UNC graduates of tomorrow. Student entrepreneurship, especially social entrepreneurship, provides positive publicity for the University among students, applicants, and the local community. However, Social Entrepreneurship is a difficult proposition in an environment where students must balance schoolwork with extracurricular and social activities, and the majority of students do not know what starting a business entails. We plan to write a guide book targeting university students, detailing what starting and running a socially responsible business would involve. This guidebook will cover topics important to starting any business, but with a unique university-environment focus. These topics include: how create a business plan that targets and fulfills a student need in the community, how to write proposals for grant money, how to develop (and stick to) a budget, and how to advertise and market a product successfully. We will also try start our own entrepreneurship venture in order to investigate firsthand what exactly starting a student-run business entails.

6. Grow
Grow will reach out to the community to increase environmental awareness and appreciation by developing a garden with the students at a local elementary school. We hope this garden will facilitate the incorporation of nature into the daily lives of students, teachers, and parents. As the garden grows, so does the children’s intimate care for the environment. In addition, the garden can be used as a tool for experiential learning; participation in the creation and maintenance of the garden can be used in lessons particular to the school’s science curriculum. The kids will feel a sense of responsibility and connection to the garden, which will hopefully transcend to appreciation for the environment. Ephesus Elementary has already demonstrated interest in collaboration, and this garden would be designed as half a sensory garden (to benefit autistic classes), and half a pollination garden (easily incorporated into the science curriculum). We will also initiate other fun and educational activities—such as nature walks through the nearby trails at Chapel Hill—that focus more on environmental conservation, and we hope to analyze and then implement more efficient recycling and composting procedures. Overall, our project will develop an opportunity for all to be outside and peacefully appreciate our environment.

7. Student Theological Forum (STF)
The primary goal of STF is uniting people of many different religious and philosophical backgrounds, serving as an arena for meaningful discussion and personal growth. The group will strive to find undercurrent themes across all sorts of different traditions, perhaps leading to new perspectives for daily life as a student here in Chapel Hill. The organization will host a lecture series, bringing in religious leaders from the area to offer insight into specific belief systems and their corresponding cultural contexts, as well as how they pertain to a politically globalizing 21st century. As a culminating event, STF will bring in a prominent, contemporary religious figure to address a larger campus audience. STF will also examine different spiritual practices (which may include fasting, community service, meditation, prayer, etc.), and at the end of the year, will sponsor a student-funded trip to a prominent pilgrimage site.

8. VoraciTee
VoraciTee will use t-shirts as a catalyst for cultural awareness and tolerance by showcasing artistic designs created in response to a social issue and inspired by a unique cultural characteristic of a certain country, region, or population. VoraciTee will act as an umbrella fund whose additional profits left after production, shipping, and other aspects of management like advertisement, will be allocated to different non-profit organizations. All members of the UNC Chapel Hill community (students, faculty etc.) will be able to individually or collaboratively submit their work online via e-mail or by physically delivering it to the VoraciTee mailbox. A panel of judges will decide in this preliminary round which ones will be posted on the website to be voted upon. Then, by a certain date, the voting stops. The top vote-winner will be printed. Those shirts will be sold and profits from sales of the t-shirts will go to nonprofits that provide assistance to those affected by the issues that inspired the designs.

View the 2006-2007 Projects