2015 Grads Seek to Serve

Seniors Bobby Starks and Jarrett McIntyre know what it means to serve. The two were Navy Search and Rescue Swimmers, Starks for seven years and McIntyre for six, before coming to UT.

Together the two veterans launched M.A.D. House of Tampa this semester, a business to help big corporations better utilize their veteran employees as well as working directly with veterans in career counseling and job placement services. They hope to continue to foster its growth after Saturday’s commencement.

“I’m able to connect the dots faster,” said Starks, explaining that the standard zigzag of starting a business alone was made more streamlined with the help of his professors and the UT Entrepreneurship Center. “My zigzag would have been 10-fold. We’re getting there in a shorter sense.”

The two came up with their idea at the end of January and in just under a month, they had launched their website.

“UT has had a big impact on us, probably more than we realize,” McIntyre said.

Starks and McIntyre will join the 1,187 other bachelor’s degree and 245 master’s degree candidates in UT’s May commencement on Saturday, May 9, at the Amalie Arena.

Starks and McIntyre help to translate the corporate world for graduating veterans thereby helping them better network and express their military-gained experiences into jobs that better utilize their leadership and problem-solving skills. They are an example of the UT graduates using their experience to serve others.

Kelly Fitzgerald ’15 has been awarded a 2015-2016 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Indonesia. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Beginning in August, Fitzgerald will spend one academic year at one or more host institutions where she will serve as a language-learning assistant to English teachers. Though she doesn’t know exactly where she will be placed in Indonesia, Fulbright ETAs are usually placed outside of capital and/or major cities where they can reach populations that typically do not have access to native English speakers and may not have interacted with individuals from the U.S. before.

Leanna Wade ’15 (plus two alumni, Lisandra Gonzalez ’14 and Edward Bloom ’76) is joining the 2015 teaching corps with Teach for America, “a selective, national nonprofit that places college students and recent graduates in high-need classrooms across the country. In the classroom, our teachers work in partnership with communities to expand educational opportunity for children facing the challenges of poverty,” said Dana Croyn, director of campus communications for the organization.

Shani Bennett ’15 will be serving the next 11 months with the nonprofit City Year, a program of AmeriCorps working to increase graduation rates by helping at-risk youth graduate on time with individualized support.

These students exemplify the mission of The University of Tampa to develop students to become productive, engaged and responsible citizens.

For more on commencement, including a schedule of events, please visit www.ut.edu/commencement.