UGBC Spotlight is an initiative designed to highlight talented individuals or groups around BC’s campus that deserve recognition. We are BC. The students on this campus make our university the great place it is.  As the undergraduate government, UGBC is here to serve and recognize the students of Boston College.   Do you know a student-made project that deserves to be recognized? Have you created something yourself that you want to share with the Heights? Nominate someone, or yourself, to the UGBC Spotlight here!

10/9/09

This week, we are shining the spolight on OurTailgate.com. This is a social network revolving around tailgating and making weekly tailgates much more fun and better-equipped for attendees. The site allows anyone to become a member, and then that person can use the tools provided on the site to send invites, check RSVPs, make lists of whats needed, post/contact/leave messages or any other important information regarding that tailgate, and the people who are attending can log in at any time. The purpose is that people often show up at tailgates with either way too much food, not enough, everyone brings the same thing, someone brings a lot of friends, or people end up not showing up, etc. While it may work out in the end, this is a much better way to smoothly coordinate it and lets people access the information at their own convenience, as opposed to even having to answer to someone when they decide to call you on the phone when they want.

This site was started by a college athlete himself who found himself in charge of organizing weekly tailgates as the team captain. He needed a way to let everyone know all the information, from number of people to what to bring. Also, there needed to be a way to let everyone know everything as it continued to change on a daily basis, and let them access everything at their own convenience.

The site took a long time and was something worked on throughout senior year, but pursued after graduation.

This fits into the BC experience because tailgating is a major part of life at BC. Also, a principal of BC is to be inviting and welcoming to friends and family. In order to do this, it would be helpful to have a way to let others know who exactly is coming to a tailgate, or who isn't, and what is needed. That way, if one family shows up bringing a bunch of visitors one week, everyone else can be prepared. Also, it is an easy way to invite others (i.e. the invitations), and invites others to joining the BC culture and experience. Also, BC supports students who in general start up businesses and work hard themselves, but also student athletes. The person who started this site did it after his own experience as a college athlete.

This has been a unique project so far. Throughout the process, of creating the site the creator has dealt with the normal problems that occur when looking for support for the idea such as technical, financial, etc. I think that the successful start-up of ourtailgate.com shows that young entrepreneurs truly can do something worth while and make it work after working hard and keeping at it. It is a great model for all BC students.

3/12/09

This week, we would like to recognize Katherine Walsh '08, an alumni of Boston College who has spent most of her time at and away from the Heights working hard to help the environment. Her website, http://changents.com/katherine-walsh, tracks the progress of her proposal in the Down 2 Earth "Pitch the City" contest from February 2009.  As one of 10 semi-finalists out of over 100 applicants, Katherine's proposal to make Boston greener has the chance to be implemented.  View her proposal here and back her to help her win the contest and have her proposal implemented!

In the words of Katherine:

"Back in February I entered the Down 2 Earth “Pitch the City” contest http://www.d2eboston.com/contest/ . The purpose was for regular people like me to create an environmental proposal for the city, one that would make Boston “greener” and increase public education and community involvement around environmental issues, and send a 500 word proposal into the judges. Over 100 people applied and D2E picked 10 semi-finalists. I am one of the semi-finalists! The semi-final round has required that I create a profile on changents.com to promote my proposal, share ideas, facts, graphs, pics, etc. and try to get support for my idea. I also have to send in a longer, more detailed version of my proposal to the judges. If I get picked as one of four finalists, I get to present at the D2E Expo on April 5th, to an audience and city officials, including Mayor Menino.

On a more personal note, my proposal (which you can view under the February 24th blog post) is something I care very deeply about. The main jist: how to improve the efficiency and community involvement of Grow Boston Greener. I spent two entire summers and my senior year long Enviro Scholars project on the issues surrounding Boston’s urban forest. I’ve worked with Boston youth groups to educate neighborhoods on environmental health and justice, spent a summer recording tree data of literally every single street tree in Boston (my friends still laugh about that summer), and a summer planting trees and writing reports. I hope you will see the value in my proposal and support me! Thanks!"

2/2/09

This week, we would like to recognize myCollegeBody, a FREE health and fitness magazine (with some other cool features) that is 100% dedicated to you, the college student!  myCollegeBody was found by seniors Andrew Priestes and Libby Wemhoff. Log on to http://mycollegebody.com and access a unique blend of peer and professional content, including health, fitness, fashion, and beauty tips and articles, that appeal to college students, living the college lifestyle.

Learn more via this electronic interview with Libby:

1. How did you begin with this endeavor?
   "Last fall, my friend Andrew Priestes came to me with the idea for the magazine and asked if I would help him develop the business plan for BC's Venture Competition.  We immediately started working on it, brainstorming ideas,  writing the business plan, etc.  Originally Andrew had bought the domain name for a belly button ring business he planned on starting, but when that fell through, he thought up the idea to create a college health and fitness magazine, since there are none out there that currently cater solely to college students living the college lifestyle."
2. How long have you been working on it?
   "We've been working on the plan since last fall, so for over a year now.  The website has only been up since July of 2008, and the magazine was just released this month."
3. Who do you work with? Any other BC students? Anyone outside of BC?
   "We've been fortunate to have a lot of help from other students, both from BC and other schools, as well as some of the BC faculty and alumni.  We recruited friends of ours to write articles,  be featured in articles, pose for pictures, etc.  We've also had help from the Women's Resource Center, ODSD, The Heights, and UGBC, all of which we're very thankful for.  For the venture competition, each team receives a mentor, and ours was Jere Doyle, a BC alum and founder of Prospectiv.  He really helped us develop our business model and taught us a lot about ways to market the magazine online."
4. How much time does it take you, (weekly or monthly)?
   "Running myCollegeBody takes a lot of work.  We both work on it everyday, whether it's updating the website, promoting, or talking with contributors.  We're always thinking about myCollegeBody, and how we can make it more attractive to students."
5. How does it fit in with your BC experience? Did anything directly inspire you (positive or negative) to begin the project?
   "For us, starting the magazine while here at BC has been great.  It's allowed us to utilize so many of the campus's terrific resources and gives us direct access to our target market.  While it is sometimes hard to juggle classes, work, extracurriculars, plus the magazine, it's definitely worth it.  We've both always wanted to start our own business, so I think the Venture Competition really motivated us to get going.  We received some great feedback from people throughout the competition so that was inspiring as well. However, when we found out we didn't place in the top three, we were a little bit discouraged.  But it definitely forced us to work harder, and so far, it's paid off."
6. What have you learned through the process? Any advice to other people with similar interests?
   "The most important advice we can give to other entrepreneurs is to never give up.  You're always going to encounter people who will tell you you're wasting your time and that your plan will never work.  But if you have a solid business plan and work extremely hard, anything is possible.  It may be risky, but if it's something you really want, then go for it."
7. What's your ultimate goal with this project?
   "Ideally, we would like to be able to produce six  or more issues of the magazine per year, and eventually get that number up to twelve.  We'd like for myCollegeBody to be students' number one source for their health and fitness needs.  Then after a few years, we would start considering acquisition offers, and hopefully sell the company to a high bidder."

1/19/09

This week, we would like to recognize DC to BC, a great blog about the rap and DC music scene by BC senior Modele 'Modi' Oyewole. Log on to http://dctobc.com and access news, videos, music downloads, and insight on hip-hop and rap!

Contact UGBC ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) with questions or nominations.