Welcome to the February edition of the Warrior Family Association e-newsletter! Since this is our first newsletter since last semester, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope your holidays were filled with love and laughter.

Our administrative team required that all students return to classes this spring with proof of a recent negative COVID test, and we appreciated that our students complied with this request. We held a testing clinic on campus during our first week of classes for students who were unable to be tested at home before returning. Of our nearly 1,500 students, only four students tested positive for COVID during the return-to-campus testing period. Since these four students were all asymptomatic, we were able to avoid further spread of the virus by getting them into isolation right away. We are grateful to be continuing with in-person classes this spring, and we know this is a result of the commitment of our entire community to being safe and healthy.

Here on campus, the semester is underway! Students have been attending classes for two weeks and from what I have heard, they are glad to be back. Our winter athletic teams are competing and doing well complying with the many restrictions still in place due to the pandemic; and the student events calendar is filled with upcoming socially distant activities.

My favorite event so far this semester has been the Top Chef Challenge. Since our men’s and women’s basketball teams were on campus before classes started, our awesome Tech Fresh chefs provided the students with a cooking competition. Each team was split into two groups. Each group created a four-course meal that included planning, shopping, chopping, cooking and serving! Unfortunately, Karl and I were away for the women’s competition, but we enjoyed the opportunity to be judges for the men’s team. The food was all fantastic! The students did a wonderful job and they had fun doing it. We hope to make this a regular opportunity that many different student groups can take part in.

To commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of unity and service, Indiana Tech’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion chooses to celebrate his birthday—every year—by providing faculty, staff and students opportunities to engage in service for the Fort Wayne community. We look at it as a “day on,” rather than a day off.

On Monday, Indiana Tech partnered with the Oxford Community Association to assist with indoor cleaning projects at its association building. Over 25 volunteers from Indiana Tech, United Way of Allen County and the Oxford community came together to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through service. United Way of Allen County provided a dumpster and volunteers worked in different rooms of the building to clear out unusable items, clean up debris and reorganize the space for future community use.

The Oxford Community Association community building has fallen into disrepair through the years and only has a handful of people trying to bring it back to its full potential. Goals for the association building are to offer leasable office space, a functioning community center, and meeting spaces for community planning. 

“When Ms. Diane called me the following day, she expressed how grateful she was for the help and how it gave her renewed sense of energy for revitalizing the building,” said Gabrielle Parsons, assistant director of the Office of Diversity & Inclusion. “I’m so proud that Tech was able to help a small, local organization in such a big way.”

Checkout local coverage of this event on Fort Wayne's WANE15 news channel HERE.