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M e r e d i t h
Instructor, Student Earn Awards in International Competition
ampus news
By Melyssa Allen
An Update on the Events and the People of the Meredith College Campus
Former Facebook Executive Randi Zuckerberg Delivers 2012 Woman of Achievement Lecture By Melyssa Allen
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andi Zuckerberg, former head of marketing for Facebook, presented Meredith College’s 2012 Woman of Achievement Lecture on February 27. The Woman of Achievement Award recognizes women who are inspirational role models. When presenting the Woman of Achievement Award, Meredith College President Jo Allen called Zuckerberg “an extraordinary woman who has modeled success and vision… a woman who is smart, successful, compassionate, driven and fun.” After accepting the award, Zuckerberg began her lecture by sharing stories from her nearly seven years as head of marketing at Facebook. “I have experienced the American dream first-hand,” Zuckerberg said of her time with Facebook. For Zuckerberg, an “a-ha moment” occurred after the Virginia Tech campus shootings, when Facebook users started changing their profile photos to black ribbons. “That’s when I realized Facebook was going to change the world,” she said. Her team leveraged Facebook’s power in social media in a variety of ways, including leading the company’s U.S. election and international politics strategy and launching the live streaming industry with her media partnerships around the U.S. presidential inauguration. Building on what she learned with Facebook, Zuckerberg shared social media trends, including the idea that individual people are now media platforms. “All of us are our own broadcasting platforms now – with a touch of a button you
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eredith’s fashion program made a winning impression in a design competition held at the International Textiles and Apparel Association, November 2-5, 2011, in Philadelphia. Fashion Design Instructor Eunyoung Yang won first place in a juried live gallery exhibition. Her design “Water in the Sky,” won first prize in the “innovation in fashion” professional category. “The design inspiration was a cumulus of creamy white and dark gray clouds with lightening piercing through a stormy sky,” Yang explained. “The purpose was to explore fabric manipulation and surface design to create the visual depth. This dress portrayed the form and feel of storm clouds using different textures of fabric.” Student Cori Spade, a junior earning a
Winning designs by Instructor Eunyoung Yang (left) and Cori Spade, ’13 (below)
degree in fashion design, was one of 12 finalists selected for the Paris American Academy Scholarship, with a design piece called “Igniting the Change.” The competition theme was “Fashion in
Green,” and Spade’s piece was inspired by the BP oil rig explosion off the Gulf coast. Portraying an oil drenched bird using recycled fabrics and hand-dyed feathers, Spade’s aim was to raise awareness about this issue as a way of preventing future environmental problems. She earned an honorable mention, competing against 49 entries from the United States, Australia, Israel and Mexico. Yang also made two presentations during the conference. Her presentations were titled “Technical Skills Needed by Fashion Design Graduates: Focus on Computer Skills,” and “Industry Knowledge Needed by Fashion Design Graduates: Focus on Merchandising.” Meredith’s fashion program prepares graduates for careers in design or merchandising. Recent graduates work for design companies including Michael Kors, BCBG and Coach.
Meredith Team Has Strong Finish in First NCICU Ethics Bowl By Melyssa Allen
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can reach hundreds or thousands of people,” Zuckerberg said. In August 2011, Zuckerberg left Facebook to start R to Z Media, a new type of media platform that will be launching in 2012. She was recently appointed to the United Nations Global Entrepreneurs Council, the World Economic Forum’s Global Council on Social Media, and the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors Commission on Innovation. “As an entrepreneur, I’ve had a crash course in all aspects of business,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m the CEO as well as the janitor of my company. That’s the most challenging
and also the most rewarding aspect of owning my own company.” Another trend is social media as a vehicle for charity and social good, which Zuckerberg called the most inspiring examples of social media. “If you can get tons of influencers to unify and share their voices in a coordinated manner, there’s nothing that can’t be accomplished,” Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg’s lecture was part of the Meredith College Presidential Lecture Series and in observance of the College’s annual Founders’ Day celebration. The lecture was sponsored by Wells Fargo.
eredith College’s team recently earned second place in its division in the first Ethics Bowl sponsored by the North Carolina Independent Colleges & Universities (NCICU). Meredith also hosted this inaugural competition, which showcased ethics as a hallmark of the student experience at Meredith and other independent colleges and universities. Meredith team members were Elizabeth Bodine, ’13, Mary Rawls,’13, Erica Rogers, ’13, Menjie Zhang, ’12, Mollie Schrull, ’14 and Saba Sodhi, ’15. Assistant Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies Steven Benko and Associate Professor of Business Jane Barnes served as faculty coaches. Director of Student Leadership and Service Cheryl Jenkins was the campus coordinator of this event. The Meredith team was one of 14 teams from colleges and universities across North Carolina that competed in the Ethics Bowl. Wake Forest University earned first place, and High Point University took home the second place trophy.
The teams competed in four rounds of debate, with each round involving a hypothetical ethical case. The teams prepared a five minute response to the scenario and presented their claim. The debates were scored by a panel of trained judges that include business and community leaders from across the state. The teams were evaluated on the quality of their argument, research, presentation style and moral theory. Benko believes the Ethics Bowl experience was beneficial for Meredith’s team. “The students gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about ethical theory and how to apply ethical theory to the deci-
sions that people in different types of professional jobs deal with every day,” Benko said. Barnes agreed that Meredith’s students gained many skills from the Ethics Bowl experience, including critical thinking skills and the ability to work with students from a variety of majors. “They had to think on their feet, in a stressful situation, and answer questions in an area, ethics in the work environment, with which many of them were unfamiliar,” Barnes said. “I also think that the students enjoyed the close relationship that developed between them and the faculty. As one of them wrote to me in a thank you note, ‘This has been exactly the kind of experience with my professors and fellow students that I came to Meredith College for.’” NCICU sponsored the event to provide an academic experience that increases awareness and discourse among students from NCICU colleges and universities about applying ethics in leadership, decision-making, interpersonal relations and other issues.
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