Countdown to Kickoff interview – Illinois

Ronnie Green Author

04/27/2017 Added

1 Plays

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Discussion of Homecoming week, distinguished alumni, campus career fairs, job placement, and 3 Nebraska 8th graders with perfect ACT scores.

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[00:00:02.589]Welcome back, Countdown to Kickoff
[00:00:03.639]here on the Husker Sports Network
[00:00:04.820]headed to a 2:35 kick today
[00:00:06.893]for the Huskers game against the Fighting Illini.
[00:00:09.708]Delighted to be joined now
[00:00:10.613]by University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Ronnie Green.
[00:00:13.692]It's been Homecoming Week, a lot of festivities around.
[00:00:16.136]This is always a good week of the year, isn't it?
[00:00:18.049]It's always a big tradition to have the students gear up
[00:00:21.342]starting last weekend, basically,
[00:00:24.157]with a week full of Homecoming activities
[00:00:25.963]and culminate today.
[00:00:27.610]A lot of our alums back for Homecoming,
[00:00:29.670]and the Homecoming court and the royalty and all of that.
[00:00:32.166]It's been a great week and been exciting
[00:00:34.344]and we're looking forward to a great game ahead
[00:00:36.470]with the Illini.
[00:00:37.479]Well, very good.
[00:00:38.312]Let's talk a little bit about some alumni that are back.
[00:00:40.668]I know you've been recognizing some throughout the week.
[00:00:43.271]Well, we sure have.
[00:00:44.598]We're very proud of our alums all over the world,
[00:00:49.087]and this past week we got some big news
[00:00:50.874]about one of our alumni.
[00:00:53.161]Rebecca Richards-Kortam, who is one of our alums
[00:00:56.230]and graduates in Physics,
[00:00:58.142]who now is on the faculty
[00:00:59.788]at Rice University in Houston,
[00:01:02.392]and she was named a MacArthur Fellow about a week ago,
[00:01:06.164]which is one of the biggest honors
[00:01:07.970]in the academic world.
[00:01:10.202]They only name 22 of these a year nationally.
[00:01:13.389]They're selected for their prowess and their opportunity,
[00:01:18.823]the impact they are expected to have in their career.
[00:01:22.143]So, Rebecca, it's a big deal for her.
[00:01:26.021]She received her B.S. in Physics
[00:01:29.111]and Mathematics here at UNL.
[00:01:32.034]She was a student working with David Sellmyer,
[00:01:35.474]who is one of our top scientists
[00:01:36.962]in the nanosciences and nanomaterials area
[00:01:40.361]when she was here.
[00:01:42.273]For her MacArthur Fellowship,
[00:01:44.186]she gets a $625,000 grant
[00:01:47.640]for future contributions to her field.
[00:01:50.827]She's gone on to become quite a prestigious bioengineer
[00:01:54.652]at Rice University, as I mentioned earlier,
[00:01:57.732]working in a global health initiative
[00:01:59.752]addressing health disparities
[00:02:02.036]in the developing world, in particular.
[00:02:04.794]So very, very proud of her.
[00:02:06.919]I know our Physics and Math colleagues
[00:02:08.672]here at the university were extremely excited
[00:02:11.414]to hear about this big honor for one of their alums
[00:02:14.868]and very proud of Rebecca
[00:02:16.993]and recognized at Homecoming this weekend.
[00:02:20.020]A perfect tie-in for that,
[00:02:21.084]and everyone should be proud of her
[00:02:23.527]and any help that they gave her along the way
[00:02:25.887]to make her be a success.
[00:02:28.384]And I know that's part of it here for colleges,
[00:02:30.510]to get everybody and young people ready for a career.
[00:02:33.803]And along that line, big career fair going on
[00:02:35.929]this past week.
[00:02:37.682]Twice a year, we have a big career fair for our students
[00:02:41.294]as they're contemplating their jobs
[00:02:43.472]and where they're headed when they finish
[00:02:44.801]their four-year degree
[00:02:46.489]or even in the graduate work.
[00:02:48.776]So two big days this past week,
[00:02:51.272]where we had the career fair going on downtown
[00:02:54.673]and on the east campus.
[00:02:56.372]A total of over 1,000 representatives
[00:02:58.895]from 365 companies, employers who joined us.
[00:03:03.675]Our career fair just gets bigger every year.
[00:03:06.013]It's so big we moved to Pinnacle Bank Arena last year
[00:03:10.104]to accommodate all of the interest
[00:03:12.175]in jobs for our students.
[00:03:14.300]Very proud of the fact that UNL
[00:03:15.948]has one of the highest job placement rates
[00:03:18.126]in the Big 10 of our students as they graduate.
[00:03:21.472]Varies a little from college to college and area to area,
[00:03:23.705]but the vast majority of our students
[00:03:26.626]already have a job in place and ready to go to
[00:03:30.557]as they approach graduation.
[00:03:31.885]Career fair is a very, very big part of that.
[00:03:34.729]We had 200 registered employers this year,
[00:03:38.128]you know of those 1,000 reps that were here,
[00:03:40.677]as compared with last year we're up again year over year
[00:03:45.180]so we're excited about that.
[00:03:46.986]I would venture to guess there was a lot of money
[00:03:49.590]that traded hands in those career fairs
[00:03:52.564]during the past week.
[00:03:53.467]Oh, I'm sure.
[00:03:54.300]You know, job placement,
[00:03:55.273]I'm sure that number you threw out's really impressive.
[00:03:57.665]That has to help in recruitment of new students as well,
[00:04:00.408]to be able to say, "If you come to UNL,
[00:04:01.947]"get your degree, look what you can do."
[00:04:03.594]Absolutely.
[00:04:04.975]I know last week when we were in Chicago,
[00:04:07.313]we were talking about coming off
[00:04:09.226]the State of the University address
[00:04:10.978]a little over a week ago,
[00:04:12.147]and we talked a lot about that with the campus,
[00:04:14.644]about not only today and the opportunity
[00:04:18.363]that our graduates are going to have
[00:04:19.957]in the job market,
[00:04:21.338]but even in the future as we grow our enrollment
[00:04:23.941]and we continue to increase and bring more students
[00:04:26.437]here to the University of Nebraska,
[00:04:27.979]that is economic development for the state,
[00:04:30.157]we believe, and a win for Nebraska.
[00:04:32.654]So they're very pleased to see those students
[00:04:36.266]getting to that third-, fourth-year stage in their career,
[00:04:39.294]where they're really looking at
[00:04:40.513]those job opportunities and landing them.
[00:04:43.490]Well, speaking of recruiting future students,
[00:04:46.094]some exciting news in the state
[00:04:47.546]with some very young students
[00:04:49.521]who had terrific success with the ACT.
[00:04:52.373]Tell us about that.
[00:04:54.017]Well, having been a parent of four kids,
[00:04:56.379]I watched my kids go through this ACT ritual, right?
[00:04:59.790]I don't know that all four of ours started
[00:05:01.331]quite as early as these three did.
[00:05:03.456]But we started a tradition
[00:05:06.325]about seven or eight years ago now,
[00:05:08.928]former Chancellor Perlman started this tradition
[00:05:11.881]of tracking students who in junior high,
[00:05:15.122]so seventh-grade, eighth-grade level of their study,
[00:05:19.851]taking the ACT, who performed exceptionally well
[00:05:23.621]as 12- and 13-year-olds,
[00:05:25.853]starting the tradition of offering them
[00:05:28.031]scholarships to UNL for those that topped out the test.
[00:05:32.441]So, this year, we were aware of three students
[00:05:35.309]across the state of Nebraska,
[00:05:37.807]two in Omaha, one at Omaha Westside Middle School,
[00:05:42.163]one at Brownell-Talbot Middle School,
[00:05:44.819]and the third at Scottsbluff Middle School
[00:05:47.422]in Scottsbluff in the panhandle,
[00:05:49.601]who got at least one part of the ACT
[00:05:52.683]with a perfect score as a junior-higher.
[00:05:55.923]Now, I don't know about you,
[00:05:56.986]but when I was in junior high school,
[00:05:58.580]I was trying to figure out who I was, right?
[00:06:01.077]And what my name was.
[00:06:02.246]These kids have already got their future plotted.
[00:06:05.220]I had the opportunity to present the scholarship
[00:06:08.621]to one of those three, Ava Steele, and her family
[00:06:12.109]at Westside Middle School on Tuesday,
[00:06:14.660]with her grandparents there and her parents there.
[00:06:18.060]A great opportunity to talk to her.
[00:06:20.109]She took it as a 12-year-old last year,
[00:06:22.817]scored a perfect 36 on the ACT
[00:06:25.315]in the science section and an overall 33
[00:06:29.246]on the ACT as a seventh-grader.
[00:06:32.496]And she had a younger brother there
[00:06:33.701]who's a sixth-grader and I got a feeling
[00:06:34.816]I'll be up there to present to him
[00:06:36.038]in a couple years.
[00:06:37.260]But we offered those students a full tuition,
[00:06:39.545]four-year scholarship to come to UNL
[00:06:41.882]because we want that level of talent
[00:06:43.741]at our university, and you can't start too young.
[00:06:47.394]To get them here is a win for our state.
[00:06:49.625]That is amazing, incredible bright, bright young folks
[00:06:52.512]out there in the state.
[00:06:53.521]Good to see you.
[00:06:54.354]We're going to give you next week off, if that's okay?
[00:06:55.911]And we'll see ya in two week at Indiana.
[00:06:57.505]We're looking forward to it,
[00:06:58.727]and we're looking forward to being 5-0.
[00:07:00.799]Thank you, Chancellor.
[00:07:01.632]A weekend excursion where friends, family,
[00:07:03.710]and unforgettable good times come together
[00:07:06.260]in a surprisingly beautiful land,
[00:07:08.256]wouldn't that be nice?
[00:07:10.221]Visit Nebraska. Visit nice.
[00:07:11.921]Go to visitnebraska.com to learn more.
[00:07:15.326]We have more of Countdown to Kickoff coming up,
[00:07:17.078]Huskers and Illini here on a beautiful Saturday in Lincoln.
[00:07:20.053]We'll do that next.

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Countdown to Kickoff interview – Illinois

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