Aviation Maintenance Students steal the show
Congratulations to the team of students from Indian Hills’ Aviation Maintenance Technology program that competed in the 2017 Aerospace Maintenance Competition. The students captured first place in the school division at the international competition in Orlando, Fla., last month. The IHCC team competed with 21 other aviation schools, and alongside corporate and commercial companies like United Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Boeing and UPS. The Indian Hills team leader was Phillip Roush.
Team members included: Adolfo Flores, Nick Naumann, Taylor Powell, Nathan White and Leonardo Tenorio.
Indian Hills students compete at National BPA Contest
Twelve Indian Hills students competed at the Business Professionals of America (BPA)
National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month. The students
who attended the national conference are Computer Software Development, Accounting
and Office majors. Caleb Ekstrand (Pocahontas) was the top IHCC finisher as he was
awarded second place in JAVA Programming. He was also fourth in Fundamentals of Web
Design. Theresa Worrall (Fremont) finished fourth in Database Applications. Ryan Blakely
(Fairfield) was also fourth in SQL Database Fundamentals and seventh in Visual Basic/C#
Programming. Other students placing included: Luke McDonald (Ottumwa), fifth in JAVA
Programming and sixth in Visual Basic/C# Programming; Mikhail Kutsel (Chariton), fifth
in C++ Programming; Tyger Marshall (Knoxville), eighth in Fundamentals of Web Design;
Layirina Traore (Ottumwa), eighth in Database Applications; Clinton Davelaar (Curacao/Ottumwa),
eighth in JAVA Programming and tenth in Visual Basic/C# Programming; and Carmen Vance
(Ottumwa), ninth in Advanced Office Systems & Procedures. The IHCC students qualified
for the trip to the national conference by placing first or second in business-related
events at the state BPA conference in February.
Laser students learn about Biophotonics in Wisconsin
Six Indian Hills Laser & Optics Technology students, accompanied by Instructor Michael Shay and MPEC Director Greg Kepner, visited the University of WisconsinMadison this spring to learn about a variety of biophotonics (combination of biology and photonics) research projects. The goal of the trip was to provide a field experience for students in the applied use of lasers and optics in a university research environment. The IHCC group began their journey at the Morgridge Institute for Research and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
After meeting with a group of doctoral students and postdoctorate researchers from UW and Villanova University, the students toured the Skala Laboratory and the Huisken Laboratory to learn about multiple biophotonics applications. Next, they toured the Campagnola Laboratory where biomedical engineering research is taking place in orthopedics, neurology and regenerative medicine. Their final visit was to the Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation with Dr. Kevin Eliceiri, where they learned about 3D second harmonic generation microscopy for computer-based cancer diagnosis. The trip was sponsored by the Midwest Photonics Education Center and funded by the National Science Foundation.
Therapeutic Gardening
“A garden is a place where we can slow down and reconnect with the natural world the way our ancestors did all day, every day,” says Kristen K. Brown, author of The Happy Hour Effect: 12 Secrets to Minimize Stress and Maximize Life. Research has shown that spending time in nature can help restore your attention, relax your body and revive your mood. Occupational Therapists work with people of all ages to be independent in all aspects of their lives. Working in a garden has helped many clients in a variety of ways--from helping elderly residents of nursing home to reminisce to teaching clients to garden when they have physical limitations. This past year, IHCC’s Occupational Therapy Assistant and Early Childhood Development programs joined forces to develop an educational and relaxing deck garden at the Rosenman Video Conference Training Center. The garden included vegetable plantings that the children from the Child Development Center enjoyed exploring and eating. The garden also contained various herbs and sensory flowers for IHCC students and faculty to experience while they took a break during the day. Part of the “gardening experience” is sharing the bounty of one’s own garden. Planning for this year’s garden is well underway and they would love to have donations of flower seeds, garden trinkets or anything else you think would make this a peaceful place. Please join us on the deck this summer… bring your lunch and your sunglasses and take time to restore yourself!
Dental students competing
A team of Indian Hills Dental Assisting students placed second in an Iowa Dental Assistants Association competition in Coralville recently. The Indian Hills team of Riley Van Gilst, Shelby Selvy, Holly Milby and Becca Vos presented Table Clinics in competition against other Iowa community college students. Dental Assisting is a 12-month program at Indian Hills that began accepting students in the fall of 2013. Dental Hygiene is the newest addition to the Health Sciences division at IHCC. Core classes in that program started being offered at the beginning of the current academic year last fall.
IHCC awarded grant for Soccer Field Improvements
Indian Hills has been awarded a $14,927 grant from the U.S. Soccer Foundation, the national model for sports-based youth development programs in underserved communities. The grant will fund the installation of an irrigation system on the practice soccer field on the college’s North Campus. “The impact of this grant will be far reaching,” said IHCC Athletic Director Brett Monaghan. “It will have an immediate effect on approximately 75 collegiate soccer players and will enable IHCC to offer further soccer programming for area youth including camps, clinics and tournaments.” Currently, IHCC’s men’s and women’s teams share a competition soccer field and practice area on the main Ottumwa Campus. With limited space, the competition soccer field has been in high demand by both teams. The practice soccer field on the North Campus was added several years ago, however, it fell into disuse because of hard ground. By adding irrigation, the North Campus soccer field turf will become healthy again and safe for use by the IHCC soccer teams and others in the community.