This past weekend two student groups, a team of UR Computer Science undergraduate students and the debate team left the River Campus to take part in prestigious competitions.
A group of seven undergraduate computer science students formed a team, named Leeroy Jenkins after a video game, and took a trip to Montreal, Quebec to compete in the Computer Science Games.
At the games, the team competed and performed particularly well in categories including Xtreme Programming, Algorithms and Debugging. Because the team placed in the top 10 of nearly every event, they ended up winning the entire competition.
“It was a really good experience,” junior Daniel Mullowney said. “There were a lot of schools we hadn’t really done anything with before so we could see what other people were like and their strengths and weaknesses.”
This was the first time UR competed in the Computer Science Games, a competition that is now 4-years old. Team Leeroy Jenkins included seniors David Sloan and Will deBeaumont, and juniors David Lu, Dan Mullowney, Harry Glaser, Tom O’Neill and Mike Rotondo.
“It was really impressive to see how spirited and friendly everyone there was,” junior Mike Rotondo said. “The organizers were a very professional bunch of students, the facilities were great, and it was a very positive experience.”
The Debate Team traveled to West Virginia University to compete in the Novice and Junior Varsity National Championships. At the competition two teams performed exceptionally well. First, novice team of freshman Ryan Bach and junior Iskra Miralem made it to the semi-finals and were recognized as one of the four best novice teams in the country.
The Junior Varsity team composed of junior Ben Wittwer and sophomore Buddy Khan won eight consecutive victories including the final round against Binghamton University and was named Junior Varsity National Champions.
“This is the first overall championship we’ve won at this tournament in four years,” senior Chris Lavin said.
Wittwer and Khan are now continuing on to an invitational national debate tournament. They qualified for the tournament following their win this weekend and in doing so are recognized as one of the top 68 teams in the nation.UR named to Fortune Small Business top ten listUR was recently named to “Fortune Small Business magazine’s” list of the top ten cutting-edge colleges for entrepreneurship. Also on the list were Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin and Sitting Bull College, among others.
“The university has embedded entrepreneurship courses in virtually every department on campus – including computer science, engineering, religion, and music,” according to the article published on March 8th.
Three years ago, UR received a $3.5 million grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman foundation to encourage entrepreneurship studies on campus.
Since, the Center for Entrepreneurship has been formed, aiming to make entrepreneurship an integral part of curriculum and course across the university’s myriad programs.
Proponents of the UR entrepreneurship initiative are pleased with the national recognition of their program.
“The recognition by Fortune Small Business encourages us to continue to develop and enhance courses and programs in entrepreneurship across the University,” Dean of the College William Green said. Reporting by Bonnie Jarrett and Matt Majarian.
