The OLINformer

So my eyes are STILL broken, but I shall forge on…

Now, where was I? Oh yes…

Last Thursday brought the Ignite Clean Energy (ICE) Competition. While I was in no way involved in the activities, it seemed pretty cool that we were able to host the semifinals at Olin AND we even had a participating team! The idea behind the ICE is to build the clean energy business cluster in Massachusetts (and regionally) by working with entrepreneurs to crystallize their business concepts and helping them produce a compelling ten-minute investor pitch. By getting entrepreneurs in front of investors and others in the sector, the ten finalists got some great exposure.

The highlight of the day for me, however, was Trivia Night - sponsored by the Class of 2007. It was emceed by Chris Morse (our Chemistry prof and resident QuizMaster) and scored by Adam “Joe” College ’07 (who was banned from playing because he could beat every team there by himself!)

Professor Rebecca Christianson, David ’07 and Jeff ‘07 chat prior to the evening’s trivia smackdown.

There were about 10 teams, several of which included faculty and staff members.

Apparently Carol Kelley, Assistant to the Dean of Student Life, didn’t want me to take her picture.

Chris Morse distributes the answer sheets, while Alison Black, Assistant Dean of Student Life, discusses strategies(?!) with teammates Alison ’07 and Tiana ’08. And yes, they are wearing boas!

So my team, Four Eyez – Katherine ’10, Ellen ’10, Jon ’08, Teresa Kelleher from the Admission Office and me - held our own through 5 rounds… despite being down one person for the first and last rounds! In between the question rounds, Lindsay ’07 lead some fun games for extra prizes (most donated by Class of 2007 parents… yes, our parents rock too!).

In this “game” we all had to choose whether two coins would land on heads (put both hands on your head), tails (put both hands on your bum) or one of each (one hand on head, one hand on bum – statistically speaking, the best odds and as you can see in the picture, the choice most people opted for).

Team Four Eyez member Katherine ’10 marvels at her newly won prize, donated by senior Ben Hill – a really cool blinking Slurpee cup filled with gold-painted army men (there’s a story… but it’s best to ask an upperclassman about that)

Sadly, Team Four Eyez crashed and burned in the last round (we were a respectable 3^rd place for most of the game yet ended up 6^th overall) but I can happily tip my hat to Team Medusa for moving into 1^st place (and winning) by just a handful of points.

Team Medusa – Kristen ‘07, Alison ’07, Professor Debbie Chachra, Asst. Dean of Student Life Alison Black and Tiana ’08 – gleefully show off their boas and the $100 check for a team dinner at a restaurant of their choice.

What do you give the guys who know everything?? Lindsay (left), Lily ’07 and Yrinee ’07 thanked Chris and Joe by presenting them with books full of more useless knowledge!

Friday brough another large information session (see my last post) and an opportunity for me to attend a Strategic Planning Meeting. So we have a Strategic Planning Committee that has asked all members of the Olin community to start thinking about what we’d like Olin College to be in the future, say in 10 years. As a result, they scheduled several sessions for different portions of the community (faculty, staff or students) to share ideas amongst themselves and additional sessions for mixed groups - that’s one that I attended. I’ll admit that it was a bit overwhelming, all those big ideas floating around! But a small group of us ended up chatting afterward (including a mix of students and Professor Mark Somerville) and that was definitely the highlight for me - somehow, that impromptu conversation helped me wrap my little brain around some interesting observations/ideas and was exactly the kind of dialogue that I hope to continually engage in while at Olin!

It’s storming outside my window in Atlanta and I’ve got an early trip to the airport in the morning… err, a few hours… so that’s it for now. My first FIRST experience will be posted soon…

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/