PiratePulse - March 2009

Groundbreaking of East Carolina Teachers Training School, 1907

ECU will celebrate its final year of her Centennial during Founders Day on Thursday, March 26. Alumni and friends are welcome to join the campus family in recognizing this auspicious occasion. Festivities will begin with the dedication of the Trustee's Fountain at Wright Circle (this event is tentative) at 10:00 a.m., followed by Centennial Founders Convocation in Wright Auditorium at 10:30 a.m. Evening activities include a one-person exhibition of paintings and drawings by Professor Michael Dorsey titled "A Perception of Events" in the exhibition area of the second floor of Joyner Library, followed by the Centennial Oral History Project with focus on first generation students at ECU in Joyner Library. Come home to ECU to remember her history and celebrate her future.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District III awarded the East Carolina Alumni Association with its prestigious Grand Award for Overall Alumni Relations Program during the recent CASE III conference. This is the second consecutive award in the same category for the Alumni Association. “This just lets the world know what we already know, East Carolina and her Alumni Association are true to our mission of service. We do what we do because our alumni deserve the best, awards just validate that others are watching and approve,” said Paul J. Clifford, president and CEO of the East Carolina Alumni Association.

Other finalists in the category were the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill General Alumni Association and the University of Virginia Alumni Association. A Special Merit award was also given for the Alumni Association’s collaborative program Pirate Career Calls.

ABC's Emmy-award winning hit reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is coming to northeastern North Carolina Sunday, March 8 through Saturday, March 14. East Carolina University is a proud partner of this life-changing event. Volunteers are needed to work the intense one-week build of a new home for a deserving family in the Albemarle area. Join host Ty Pennington and his team for this "Heroes Helping Heroes" edition.

Volunteers are needed for food service, site check-in, material management, shuttle, clean-up, and safety. Times are available in four or eight hour shifts, and volunteers must be 18 years of age to be allowed on the construction site. Skilled subcontractor teams are being assembled through Edenton Builders and the show.

Spectators are welcome Monday, March 9 through Friday, March 13 with the donation of one canned food item. The famous "Move that Bus" day is Friday, March 13. Contact Edenton Builders to register for this service project and extraordinary tribute to special heroes.

Roll up your sleeves and lend a helping hand in your community, for a neighbor, or for someone in need. April is Service Month for the East Carolina Alumni Association and we are asking every Pirate to participate! Visit our Web site for ideas on how you can live the University’s motto Servire during the month of April.

Here are a few ideas:

Help beautify your city
Volunteer as a museum guide
Run or walk in a charity race
Help at your local animal shelter
Spend time with an elderly neighbor
Offer to babysit for a friend or relative (free of charge)
Help a friend with a home improvement project
Deliver meals to homebound individuals
Pick up litter in a local park or along a highway
Plant flowers at a city building

Live in the Greenville area? Then join the East Carolina Alumni Association's Relay For Life® team on April 3 and 4 at Bunting Field on East Carolina's campus. Help raise money and awareness tosupport the American Cancer Society in its mission to eliminate cancerand save lives. You can walk, make adonation, or purchase a luminary in honor of a loved one. Yoursupport, as a participant and/or donor will help the East CarolinaAlumni Association team reach its goal of $5,000 toward the overallRelay goal of $40,000.

Other service projects taking place throughout the Pirate Nation include:

Habitat for Humanity® in the eastern shore area of Maryland and Delaware on April 4
Volunteering with KEEN, Kids Enjoying Exercise Now, in New York City on April 4
Collecting nonperishable food items for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina on April 16 in Durham, NC

Want to hold your own service project? The Alumni Association will be happy to help promote your activity to alumni and friends in your area. Contact Kendra Alexander to get started.

The 2nd Annual Pirate Alumni Road Race and Fun Run is scheduled for Saturday, April 18 in Uptown Greenville, and begins at 9:00 a.m. Our 5K race is a USATF certified course that travels along historic Fifth Street, and the mile fun run follows a portion of the same route. All runners and walkers are welcome to participate, and proceeds benefit East Carolina Alumni Association student scholarships. Prizes will be given to the first three male finishers overall, to the first three female finishers overall, and the top three male and female finishers in each of six age categories.

The entry fee for the 5K Road Race or Mile Fun Run is $15 until March 31 and $25 thereafter. Race day registration will be held from 7:30-8:30 a.m. Register now!

Thereis more to a job than money, but salary is one of the most importantaspects of your employment. Learn how to gauge your salary expectationsand work towards your compensation goal with advice and negotiationtips from a career specialist. Register now for March's Pirate Career Call "Salary Negotiations"on Thursday, March 5 from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. This Pirate Career Call will be conducted viateleconference with accompanying PowerPoint materials.

March's Pirate Career Call:

"Salary Negotiations" - Thursday, March 5 from 12 noon - 1:00 p.m. ET

April's Pirate Career Call:

"Career Changers" - Thursday, April 2 from 12 noon - 1:00 p.m. ET

Pirate Career Calls are a complimentary service of the East Carolina Alumni Association, the ECU Career Center, and ECU Human Resources. Audio and PowerPoint presentations for past Pirate Career Calls are available online.

A Pirate's Life for Me!is the Alumni Association's 30-minute radio program that highlightsalumni achievement and brings you news from the Alumni Association. Inthe spring we're on the air the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month at10:00 a.m. on Pirate Radio 1250 & 930 AM in eastern North Carolinaand streaming live anywhere in the Pirate Nation onPirateRadio1250.com. March's guests are:

Saturday, March 14: Mark Kemp '83, music critic/journalist and author of Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South
Saturday, March 28: Bonnie Perry Britton '82, '92 Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center Chief Nursing Officer and United Nations presenter

Missed an episode? We archive A Pirate's Life for Me! on our Web site. Sign up for our podcast to ensure you'll never miss a show!

The Alumni Association's new series Deans on Deckprovides alumni and friends informal opportunities to talkwith many of the University's deans about hot topics that affect oureveryday lives like the economy, healthcare, and national security. Youcan also learn more about the University's colleges and schools and howthey continue to grow, add new programs, and ways you can get involved.

Our next Deans onDeck event will be held Thursday, March 19 at 6:00 p.m. at Renaissance Charlotte SouthPark Hotel in Charlotte. Our featured deans will be Dr. RickNiswander, dean of the College of Business, who will discuss our current economy, and Dr.Judy Siguaw, dean of the College of Human Ecology, who will discuss how thecollege is changing the lives of people through a broad range of uniqueefforts.

Deans on Deck are the perfect opportunity for professional development and career networking. Register today for a Deans on Deck event near you!

Join former Environmental Health Science classmates on Friday, March 20 for a reunion and mini-symposium. The mini-symposium topic isApplication of Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry in EnvironmentalAnalysis and Food Safety. There is a full day of activities planned forthe mini-symposium and we will end the day with a tour of the EHS Lab andan alumni reception and dinner, followed by ECU baseball. Register now for this unique reunion and mini-symposium.

Alumni are welcome to attend the ECU Career Center's Spring Career Fair on Thursday, March 26 from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. at the Greenville Convention Center. Searching for employment? The Spring Career Fair is the perfect place to talk with businesses that are hiring. Be sure to bring plenty of copies of your resume to hand out and dress as if you're on a job interview.

Are you a business owner or company recruiter? Register your business to participate in the Spring Career Fair to recruit ECU alumni and students.

The Alumni Association's student service organization ECU Ambassadors has planned its second Special Populations Prom. This evening event is for those in the Greenville and Pitt County community who have mental and physical handicaps that may have prevented them from participating in dances or proms previously.

Interested in helping out? Donation of funds, goods and services, and time are needed. Please contact Prom Chair and ECU Ambassador Leslie Wheeler or Assistant Director for Alumni Programs Dan Frezza for how you can make a difference for a special group of young people.

Learn more about the ECU Ambassadors and the Special Populations Prom.

Professor Stephen Clucas of Birkbeck University of London will present "Thomas Harriot: New Worlds of an Elizabethan Scientist" as part of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series. The East Carolina Alumni Association is proud to be a sponsor of this lecture series and invites you to attend on Thursday, April 2 at 7:00 p.m. in room OC-307 of the Science and Technology Building on ECU’s Campus. Tickets are $10 each and can be obtained by contacting the ECU Central Ticket Office at 252-328-4788. Learn more about the Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series.

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