Month: July 2017

New England Institute of Technology offers dual enrollment to Providence juniors

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — New England Institute of Technology is offering conditional early acceptance to eligible Providence Public School juniors, allowing them to earn credits toward college graduation while still in high school.

The program is open to all juniors enrolled in the Providence public schools who have at least a B average at the end of their junior year and, through school attendance and behavior, have proven the maturity necessary for college success. Students must also meet NEIT’s admission procedures for the programs to which they are applying. NEIT will waive all application fees, according to Providence schools spokeswoman Laura Hart.

Students can take up to two courses per quarter, with a maximum of four courses per calendar year. These courses are free and allow students to earn credits for high school and college simultaneously, Hart said.

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JWU’s ADTEAM Wins the 2017 National Student Advertising Competition

6/12/17 | JWU Providence’s ADTEAM has won the 2017 American Advertising Federation (AAF) National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), held in New Orleans. Their historic first-place win surpasses their previous best — a second-place finish at Nationals in 2015.

JWU’s 31-member team, made up of students in the university’s advertising and marketing communications, marketing, graphic design and media communication studies programs, placed first in the United States over 7 other finalists:

  • The University of Kentucky
  • Florida State University
  • Oklahoma State University
  • University of Central Oklahoma
  • Webster University
  • Grand Valley State University
  • South Dakota State University

All teams gave presentations before a judging panel that included executives from Tai Pei, this year’s NSAC corporate client. The first-place finish also came with a $3,500 grand prize.

All college teams that competed created an advertising campaign for this year’s corporate client, Tai Pei, which offers over 10 varieties of single-serve, takeout-style entrées, an assortment of Asian appetizers and a full line of family-sized products. The campaigns included each element of advertising: television, radio, social media, and print.

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Author/journalist Harriet Rubin offers perspective at crossroads of art, society, business, leadership

Author, editor and journalist Harriet Rubin spent a week this spring partnering with faculty to bring her unique experience to their classes and discuss art, society, business and leadership with students. Bringing a lifetime of experience mixing business and the creative arts to campus, she inspired students to achieve big goals and helped them identify the tools they need to do so.

“There is a maturity here that I’ve noticed in the students, and an unambiguous desire for success,” says Rubin, senior writer and columnist for Fast Company and the author of the international bestseller The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women. “They seem to be thinking about how they can make their lives most useful to the world at large. There’s something about the Bryant culture that encourages the expression of that.

“I think the Bryant students are standouts — in their focus, in their sense of what they can do, and in the sort of work they can do,” she said.

Rubin was at Bryant as a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, a program offered through the Council of Independent Colleges.

The drive to be the best

Throughout the week, Rubin visited courses ranging from a history class on trends in modern thought to a management class on power and influence. In a Marketing for Competitive Advantage class, she discussed the concept of “competitive edge” and explored how companies like Apple and Google strive to reverse-engineer why their strategies worked and discover the “secret recipe for success.”

“Harriet Rubin’s visit definitely made an impression on the students,” says Associate Professor of Marketing and Global Supply Chain Management Michael J. Gravier, Ph.D. “She helped them understand how so many companies strive to be the best, and why only a few succeed.”

Inspiring others

Rubin also aided The Workshop in Creative and Critical Practices students with developing their artist statements. Using her expertise in editing and writing, she helped them explore their goals and identity as artists.

“Harriet guided the students to think through how to talk about how and why they create,” says English and Cultural Studies Professor Terri Hasseler. “She asked students powerful questions about their lives and the motivations behind their work as artists, musicians, performers. The class learned so much just watching her work through the examples. It was a really fantastic opportunity.”

It was amazing how she was so invested in my work after just meeting us,” says Nicholas Wilkinson ’19, one of Hasseler’s students. “She’s passionate about her work and wanting people to be invested and confident in their work. Her guidance helped give me a clearer vision and direction for who I am as an artist and what that means for my future.”

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NaloxBoxes put lifesaving overdose drugs within ready reach

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — On the night of Saturday, June 3, just six days before Amos House installed six “NaloxBoxes” — wall-mounted kits with doses of the opioid overdose reversing medicine naloxone — a resident nearly died of an overdose.

In that case, the affected woman, who was found on the floor of a bathroom, survived because fellow residents happened to have their own naloxone and were ready to act, said Eileen Hayes, director of the homelessness and recovery services center on Pine Street in Providence. But now there are NaloxBoxes arrayed strategically around the center’s main building and residences so that the medicine will always be within reach to residents and staff alike.

“It’s crucial that we educate people and make it available,” Hayes said. “We’re a recovery program, and we’re working with men and women who are really working hard to be in recovery, and yet that doesn’t mean that relapse doesn’t happen.”

NaloxBoxes are the creation of professors Dr. Geoff Capraro of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Claudia Rébola of the Rhode Island School of Design. Capraro, a Lifespan emergency medicine physician, had the idea that naloxone should be made readily available in public places where overdoses may occur. Through a connection he made at Brown Hack Health, he brought the idea to RISD, where Rébola has ultimately led the boxes’ design.

What they’ve developed is an emergency kit with the same goals as a fire extinguisher or an automated external defibrillator — to enable anyone in the wrong place at the right time to save lives. Nationally, drug overdoses are rising sharply, mostly because of opioids like heroin or prescription painkillers. The epidemic is especially severe in Rhode Island, where 336 people died from overdoses in 2016 alone, prompting a series of programs and actions by the governor including an executive order signed just today.

“There’s no publicly available naloxone,” Capraro said. “It’s all by prescription or pharmacy dispensed. So we saw potential for putting this medicine in the hands of bystander good Samaritans so they could give it quickly. The time to deliver the medicine matters.”

With grant support from the Rhode Island Department of Health and the Preventing Overdose and Naloxone Intervention program at the Miriam Hospital, Capraro and Rébola produced 48 boxes this spring. They have begun to install them this summer, conducting trainings in opiate overdose recognition and rescue in conjunction with the installations, beginning at Amos House and continuing at least 12 other community facilities such as shelters within the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless.

Simple and smart

The boxes, not much bigger than a ream of office paper, contain four injectable doses of naloxone, printed instructions for how to administer it and a mask for providing rescue breaths (in an overdose, people stop breathing). The boxes are also being outfitted with cellular electronics that send a simple text message to their host when they are opened. That way, whoever is responsible for the box is alerted when someone has used it, so that the possible emergency is documented and any taken naloxone can be refilled.

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