UTampa News Roundup, Week of February 9

Written by: Marketing and Communications Staff | Feb. 13, 2026

UTampa News Roundup, Week of February 9

Internship Week ... Students Compete ... Club and Kids Eat

The internship fair on Wednesday brought nearly 500 students and 50 businesses to the Vaughn Center to swap resumes and business cards ahead of summer internship recruitment.

Internship Week a Success

The Office of Career Services hosted UTampa’s inaugural Internship Week, Feb. 9-13, to get students prepared and excited to invest in their futures.

A pop-up boutique with racks full of donated professional business attire set the tone on Monday. “This way, throughout the rest of the week,” said Marissa Thompson, assistant director of internships, “(students) can show up feeling confident and comfortable without having to spend a ton of money.”

At the beginning of the shopping session, Monika Alesnik, coordinator of leadership and competency development, gave a brief seminar on the importance of dressing for success and broke down the difference between business casualwear and professional attire. A total of 97 students stopped by to look through the inventory, which they could wear to the internship fair on Wednesday or in any other professional setting. Thompson said one student wanted to rush a business fraternity last semester but didn’t have the right clothes, then left the boutique with three new outfits.

On Tuesday, dozens of students met one-on-one with area employers to get resume tips from professionals in their desired fields. Thompson said that not only were students able to network with recruiters that were going to be at the fair the next day, but they met contacts in industries that they might not have planned on visiting at the fair.

Almost 500 students packed the Vaughn Center’s ninth floor for the internship fair, the week’s big event which hosted more than 50 employers, like the Dalí Museum, the Florida Aquarium, PulteGroup construction, BlueGrace logistics and others. Alumna Michelle Figura ’24, a financial analyst at PulteGroup, was there to talk to students. Figura said she met with several impressive candidates and was surprised to see how many first-year students and sophomores showed up to the fair. “I told them, ‘You are already steps ahead of what I was doing at that age.’”

Student Attends Event to Tackle Florida’s Key Issues

UTampa student Diego Cordova ’26 was one of 70 college students who recently participated in a statewide public policy summit at the University of Florida. The three-day event, titled “Designing Tomorrow: Florida’s Growth and Development,” invited students to develop public policy solutions that address overtourism, infrastructure, sustainability and cultural preservation.

Cordova and a team of students from other universities focused on urban sprawl. They pitched to the judges a rural tax policy that creates a grant program for first-time homebuyers in urban areas.

Cordova and his team placed third out of 10 groups.

Cordova, an applied sociology major who is minoring in political science and leadership, said his team was made up of students from varied areas of study, from mathematics to urban planning. “It really helped put into perspective how important an interdisciplinary approach is when fixing real world issues,” he said.

This is the second year in a row that a UTampa student has been chosen for the Future of Florida summit. Last year, Elizabeth Parisot ’25 attended.

AKPsi Students on Top at National Competition

Teams from UTampa’s Phi Upsilon Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, a professional co-ed business fraternity, took first and second place in a national case study competition last weekend in Chicago.

The case study, “Step into the Future: Gen AI” had students act as advisers to a logistics company. Students were tasked with determining whether the company should accept, reject or modify a suggestion made by its AI system.

Over several days, four teams from the UTampa chapter competed against groups from Texas Tech, Stetson and Trinity University. Students conducted in-depth research; formulated strategic recommendations; and delivered their findings to a panel of judges.

First place was awarded to a team comprised of Joseph Dibacco ’26, Emma Zayas ’26, Claire Coates ’26 and Lorena Lopez ’27.

Another UTampa team tied for second place with a team from Stetson University.

This is the second year that the UTampa AKPsi chapter had teams awarded first and second place at the competition.

Planting Seeds of Change

Students involved in the Student Environmental Action Coalition club shared food and taught sustainability lessons at a nonprofit after-school program this week.

During their visit to Cornerstone Kids, UTampa students brought donated food from the University’s dining hall to share with the elementary-aged children and taught the children about sustainability and food waste through activities and games like charades.

Marine science-biology major Evelyn Schaefer, president of SEAC, has been attending club events like this for the last two years.

“I just love seeing their faces light up when we walk into the room, and how excited they are to do stuff with us and learn about what we have to talk to them about,” Schaefer said. “It literally takes, like, your worst day into one of your best days.”

Schaefer hopes the lessons will inspire the kids to be more conscious about how actions impact the environment, because they were taught about it at a younger age.

“I think the lessons and things that we teach them and the activities really stick in their minds, because sometimes I'll come back a couple weeks later, and they'll be like, ‘I really love this activity that we did last time,’” she said.