MSC FLI Goes Barefoot to Support Soles4Souls

MSC FLI hosted its first Soles 4 Souls campus-wide shoe drive on November 3-7. This community service project collected new and gently used shoes for the global not-for-profit, Soles4Souls, which benefits victims of natural disasters and children in orphanages in the United States and overseas. The mission of Soles4Souls is to fight the devastating impact and perpetuation of poverty through two methods. The organization distributes shoes and clothing directly to people in need as well as sells these items to micro-organizations that create self-sustaining jobs to generate revenue for communities in need. This year 150 pairs of shoes were donated at drop-off boxes in the Memorial Student Center and Commons. Representatives of MSC FLI took the donated shoes to a drop center in Austin, TX over Thanksgiving break.

Halloween Party hosted by MSC Hospitality welcomed over 350 attendees on Thursday, October 30th. The Halloween Party event has been put on by MSC Hospitality for over 20 years and has helped MSC Hospitality maintain a strong relationship with the A&M campus and community at large.

Eyes Wide Open Week of Awareness

MSC FISH hosted its annual Eyes Wide Open Week of Awareness on October 13-17 to educate Texas A&M students on important topics that many students are unfamiliar with. This service project provides support to non-profit organizations while opening Aggies’ eyes to substantial issues and causes in the local community and around the world. Each FISH committee hosted a day during this week-long event and around 200 Texas A&M students participated each day.

Whoop! for Troops Returns for its 14th Year!

Executive Director of Community Service, Jessica Lochte ’15 from Fredericksburg, Texas, is heading up MSC LEAD’s Whoop! For Troops this year. This community service project is special to her because “it gives [her] the opportunity to do something great for troops during the holidays when they are away from their families.” Started in 2003, Whoop! For Troops sent 4,000 cards and 120 care packages overseas last year. Lochte hopes Aggie will help MSC LEAD send even more cards and care packages to troops this year!

In Memory of A.P. Wiley, Major Benefactor of MSC Wiley Lecture Series

We are sad to announce the passing last week of A.P. Wiley, Jr. '46, who in 1984, along with his brother James Wiley, Sr. '46, established an endowment to support a new student programming committee at Texas A&M University's Memorial Student Center.

At the time that new committee had just hosted their first lecture, which featured former U.S. President Gerald Ford, former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, and former British Prime Minister Edward Heath as guest speakers.  The two Wiley brothers were so impressed with "how these young people were able to put it all together" that they volunteered to endow the organization, which was named the MSC Wiley Lecture Series in honor of the brothers' generosity.

The committee has continued to hold true to its motto to "bring the world to Texas A&M University" by hosting lecture programs featuring prominent speakers. This past April the organization hosted former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice and historian Dr. Douglas Brinkley. In November, 2013 the committee hosted a panel discussion on the future of the U.S. military featuring General Stan McChrystal, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, New York Times Foreign Correspondent David Sanger, and General Montgomery Meigs.

Of course Mr. Wiley's philanthropy and service extended to many other endeavors during his lifetime. We invite you to read more about Mr. Wiley's accomplishments.

MSC FLI’s Annual Donation Drive Benefits Houston’s Burmese Refugee Community

For the past three years, MSC Freshman LeadershipInternational (FLI) has developed a relationship with Life Cycles, (or on facebook) a non-profit organization in Houston that helps refugees build new lives in the Bayou City. In previous years FLI members have conducted a bicycle drive, collecting used bicycles and bicycle parts, which they then delivered to Life Cycles founder Jeremy Howell. With the help of some of the members of the Burmese refugee community, Howell would repair the bicycles and distribute them to community members. 

The bikes are important, says Alex Heinze ’16, Assistant Director of FLI’s International Service and Outreach subcommittee, because the refugees would use the bikes to get them to and from work. “They can barely afford food, much less buying a car,” she says. When a member of the community receives a bicycle from Life Cycles, she says that means “either the kids can get to school or the parents can get to their jobs in a way that isn’t economically expensive.”  The refugees, Heinze says, “want to be successful, and they want to support their families. They’re using these bikes to support themselves.”

Heinze says that as a freshman last year she was moved by the refugees’ stories of the persecution and violence they had left behind. For example, she recounts the trials of Kai, a Burmese refugee that Howell and his wife, Laurie Stone-Howell, who Heinze says is really “the soul of Life Cycles,” adopted.  She says that Kai and his brother had been forced to join the national army as pre-teens. When Kai and his brother escaped the army and returned to their village, the villagers expelled them out of fear of retribution from the army if they took the two boys in.

Learn About Careers in Public Service at Aggie Vision

Students interested in making a career out of public and community service—or just have a strong passion for and want to learn more about community service—have a great opportunity to learn about the non-profit industry at MSC LEAD’s inaugural Aggie Vision program on Saturday, April 26^th.

According the Jessica Lochte, Community Service Director with MSC LEAD, the purpose of the program is to give students the chance to listen to speakers who are already leaders in the non-profit industry and then give them a chance to spend an afternoon working with and learning about a specific non-profit organization.

Lochte says that the day will begin with a free breakfast and a presentation by Gabriella Medina, who is the Executive Chairwoman of the George Bush School Public Service Organization. After the speaker, program attendees will travel to a local non-profit where they will be able to meet with staff members there, learn about the non-profit’s mission, and contribute service to the organization.
Participating non-profits include:

• Adopt a Senior
• ChildreNinos
• Keep Brazos Beautiful
• Population Media Center
• Prison Entrepreneurship Program
• Project Unity
• Single Moms Create 4 Change
• Twin City Mission
• Voices for Children CASA

The program is free but advance registration is necessary. The deadline for registration is April 18. Student interested in participating should visit the Aggie Vision web site for more details.

Kyle Field Day Brings Service and Fun to Blue Bell Park!

“Lend a Hand, Make Your Mark!” That’s the motto for MSC FISH’s Kyle Field Day, an event that gives students the chance to give back to the community at the same time they’re enjoying a day out in the fresh spring air. The fourth edition of Kyle Field Day, which will take place this Sunday, April 13 from noon-4pm, will be a little bit different than past editions because the event’s namesake is currently undergoing a massive renovation. As a result, Blue Bell Park will be the temporary home for Kyle Field Day 2014.

In addition to the new location this year’s event will be bigger than it has ever been with over forty campus and community organizations hosting service and awareness booths.  According to Brittany Witt, a Kyle Field Day organizer with MSC FISH, SAS has donated 200 pairs of shoes, which will be decorated and distributed in Mexico “in areas where shoes are a rare commodity.”  

According to Katy King, advisor for MSC FISH, attendees are also encouraged to bring canned foods to Kyle Field Day. “We typically collect over 700 pounds of food,” she says, adding that “this year we have made plans to donate what we collect to the 12th Can,” the organization that operates a food bank for needy students, staff, and faculty here at Texas A&M University.  

Other organizations at Kyle Field Day will provide information about and opportunities to serve in the areas of global outreach, animal abuse prevention, youth outreach, environmental preservation, and disabilities and special needs.

The day’s activities will also include games, food, and entertainment.  To learn more visit MSC FISH’s web site, their Facebook page, or follow them on Twitter. We’ve also posted some photos on our flickr page and a video on our YouTube page.

MSC Sending Students South for Spring Break Service

Instinct and tradition lead students south during spring break, especially when weather patterns make College Station feel like the icy Upper Midwest. While students across Texas will be hoping for beach weather temperatures on South Padre Island, Will Hughes '16, the Travel Coordinator for MSC Freshmen Leadership International (FLI), has his sights set lower--on the map, that is. The sophomore Geology major from The Woodlands is coordinating MSC FLI's annual spring break service trip to Costa Rica, where the weather will certainly be warmer than it is here.

Trip Planning Since School Started
Hughes and his team have been working on trip logistics and making travel arrangements since mid-September. "Most of my fall has been involved in sitting down and working out the budget, flights, hotel rooms, and getting pricing figured out,"  Hughes says, but he and his team also conducted an applicant review and selection process, began fundraising for the trip, and strove to communicate as much information about the trip as early as possible to the twenty-two freshmen selected to participate .

"That was a big thing I focused on. Last year, when I went home for Christmas break I told my family that I was going on this trip but I wasn't able to give them many concrete details because I didn't really know any," Hughes says. He wanted students to be armed with more details about the trip, so at pre-departure meetings this fall Hughes says "we were able to give a couple of presentations and we had a really good handout, a rough itinerary and a general overview of the trip--where we’re staying, what we’re doing, where we’re going."

U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Whoop back at MSC LEAD

Each fall for the past six years MSC LEAD, the Memorial Student Center’s sophomore leadership organization, has conducted Whoop! For Troops, a care package and greeting card donation drive to benefit U.S. troops serving overseas.  Local schoolchildren once again created thousands of greeting cards, and thousands of Texas A&M students signed them with expressions of good wishes and gratitude for the sacrifices U.S. soldiers make throughout the year.  For several weeks in November and December LEAD members once again collected donations of shirts, toiletries, non-perishable food, calling cards, and other care package items.

According to Taylor Smith ‘15, Director of MSC LEAD’s Community Service subcommittee, which led Whoop! For Troops, this year’s efforts resulted in a record amount of donations.  In early December the group was excited to discover that they had collected over $5,000 of donations—over 120 boxes of merchandise and over 2,000 greeting cards—to send to Support Our Troops, a national non-profit organization that coordinates care package shipments overseas.  “It was the biggest shipment we’ve ever made,” said Smith.

She attributes the group’s success, at least in part, to some new collaborations the group was able to form this year.  “The biggest difference for us this year was in our outreach to vendors,” Smith said.  “Aggieland Outfitters especially helped us by donating a lot of t-shirts,” she says, also noting that Aggie Moms clubs also made significant contributions to Whoop! For Troops.  The group also experienced great success when they informally teamed up with the student chapter of Patriot PAWS, an organization that trains and provides service dogs for American veterans.  According to Smith, “having the service dogs with us at our resource tables attracted a lot of attention. Everyone wanted to pet the dogs, so while people were waiting, we could ask them to sign a card and make a donation for the troops.  It helped Patriot PAWS let people know about their organization too.”

Even more exciting than collecting a record amount of donations was the response those donations generated.  Shortly after the care packages were shipped, MSC LEAD received a handful of thank you messages from the 831st DDST and the 2nd Anglico Marines stationed at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan.  The full text of those thank you messages are included below.

MSC SCONA Speakers Share Their Experiences Working in the Middle East

Shannon Sedgwick Davis, who currently leads the Bridgeway Foundation in its efforts to fight violence and oppression and promote peacemaking in the world’s poorest countries, has also played an important role in the campaign to capture Joseph Kony, the Ugandan man wanted by the International Criminal Court for abducting tens of thousands of people for conscription into the Lord’s Resistance Army. Stuart Bowen served as the “taxpayer’s watchdog” in Iraq for nine years in his role as the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. General James Mattis, USMC, commanded assault battalions in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and also commanded Marine forces during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dr. Andrew Natsios led efforts to deal with the Darfur crisis as the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and is currently Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs.    

These four speakers will all be on campus this week Thursday and Friday, February 20^th and 21^st, as part of the 59^th MSC Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA).  The title of this year’s SCONA is “Caught In the Sandstorm:  from Persia to the Sahara,” so all four speakers will share with conference delegates their experiences and expertise working in the Middle East.  These speaker programs are also free and open to the public as part of the MSC SCONA committee’s ongoing effort to provide students with access to diplomats and national affairs professionals and the knowledge they can provide. 

The speaker schedule is as follows:

Stuart Bowen – Thursday, February 20 at 9am in MSC Gates Room

General James Mattis, USMC – Thursday, February 20 at 2pm in Rudder Theater

Dr. Andrew Natsios – Friday, February 21 at 9am in MSC Gates Room

Shannon Sedgwick Davis – Friday, February 21 at 2:30pm in MSC Gates Room

Complete speaker bios are available after the jump.

MSC Wiley Lecture Program Examines Texas' Political Future

Last Wednesday the MSC Wiley Lecture Series hosted "A Swing in the South: Texas' Future in American Politics." Guest speakers included Phil Shackelford, former Democratic field representative; John Jackson, a Republican Party staff member; and Dr. Harvey Tucker, Professor in the Political Science department at Texas A&M University. You can read The Battalion's coverage of the program here.

Places in the Plaza Brings the Global Village to Rudder Plaza

MSC Freshman Leadership International (FLI), with the help of MSC Town Hall, MSC Hospitality, and the MSC Jordan Institute for International Awareness will be bringing the world to Rudder Plaza this Friday, February 21st from 5-8:30pm for a brand new program they are calling Places in the Plaza. This cultural festival will feature organizations representing cultures, religions, and international service projects from all over the world.

Each organization staffing a booth will bring games, food, and stories from the culture they represent, and event organizers from MSC FLI see this event as an incredible opportunity for students of Texas A&M and residents of the Bryan/College Station community to increase their cultural knowledge base and expand their global horizons. Alex Hager, a coordinator for the event says that "everyone from kids to adults will find something to pique their interests at the festival, and our aim is for everyone to learn in a fun and interactive atmosphere."

MSC Aggie Cinema Offers FREE Movies All Semester Long

Movie fans of all stripes should find something to like on the film schedule MSC Aggie Cinema has put together for this spring semester.  "Ender's Game," based on the sci-fi young adult novel by Orson Scott Card, kicks off the semester tonight at 7pm in Rudder Theater.  Other highlights of the semester include Oscar-Award candidate "12 Years a Slave," a Valentine's Day zombie double feature screening of (spoiler alert) "Shaun of the Dead" and "Zombieland," and the documentary films "Born Into Brothels," which will be screened during Social Justice Week, and "Girl Rising," which will screen right before International Women's Day.  Perhaps the best thing about the upcoming schedule is that all the movies are free.  Visit cinema.tamu.edu for a schedule and to see trailers, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

Click the image below to download a schedule of your very own. Print it. Hang it on your fridge. We'll see you at the movies.

Dark and Fantastic Images Subject of New Exhibition in MSC Reynolds Gallery

The Memorial Student Center Visual Arts Committee (MSC VAC) opens its spring schedule with an exhibition of etchings by Spanish artist Francisco Goya and illustrations by Spanish-American artist Federico Castellón.  The exhibition, titled “Fear and Folly,” opens on Tuesday, January 14 in the MSC Reynolds Student Art Gallery on the 2nd floor of the MSC.  An opening reception will be hosted by the student members of the MSC VAC on Thursday, January 16 beginning at 6:30pm in the Reynolds Gallery.  “Fear and Folly,” which is organized through the Kalamazoo Institute ofArts (KIA) with generous support from Mary and James B. Crawley ’47, will remain on exhibit in the MSC through March 15.

According to the exhibition program produced by the KIA, the Goya prints in this exhibition, taken from his last major series, los Disparates (roughly translated as the follies), “are some of his darkest, most enigmatic creations.”  The author notes that “nearly thirty years earlier he (Goya) was painting lighthearted scenes of leisure activities to be made into tapestries for the royal palaces.  In los Disparates, some of Goya’s earlier subjects reemerge as disturbing and even diabolic images.”