AMPUS NEWS _ oroevwovmscerae THE VOICE, THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012 3 Chartwells promises more money to students Langara’s food service provider will be increas- ing their scholarship and bursary endowment fund available to students By HAYLEY DOCTOR er for Langara since 1997, has promised to increase their endow- ment towards scholarships and bursa- ries to the college to $500,000 by the year 2020. This increase in funding comes with the introduction of two new awards, the Chartwells Nursing Excellence Award and the Chartwells Award of Ex- cellence. The awards were handed out Feb. 27 during the inaugural awards ceremony and two nursing students won the awards because of their outstanding academic achievements. Both women scored near-perfect GPAs last semester. “T really appreciate the recognition, and the contribution this makes to my academic funding. It’s a big help, and I Cee: the food service provid- think this is a great thing that Chart- r4 4 wells is doing,” . said Kate Hunc, Thisisa one of the two re- cipients in a press new schol release. arship and “This is a new 7» scholarship, and I’m really I'm really grateful grateful to to be one of the re- be one of cipients of it. It’s a great honour,” said the recipi- Frances Huang, ; the other award re- ents of ut. cipient. Itsa great The two scholar- ships meant $500 was awarded to each recipient to help her in her studies. The presentation was made by Chartwells president Ross Munro who handed the cheques to the recipients. “We must be continually giving back to students. I am just thrilled with the caliber of the young people that these scholarships are able to as- sist,” said Munro. Chartwells, a division of the larger company Compass Group, currently has two existing bursaries in place with Langara that total $5,500. With the increase in funding, that number will eventually increase to $10,000 each year. These increases in bursaries and awards come at a time when student debt is higher than ever. A study showed that in 2004, the average debt of a student after finishing school weighed in at just over $28,000. honour FRANCES HUANG Award recipient JEN OEHLER photo Chartwells president Ross Munro handing the two new awards to nursing students Kate Hunc and Frances Huang. Hunc and Huang both maintain near-perfect GPAs. By ROSS ARMOUR Langara foursome triumphed as the winners of the B.C. 2011 Student Marketing Research Competition held last Decem- ber. Graeme Chalmers, Joanna Babuich, Shenglong (Kevin) Jiang and Chloe Woolsey were announced as the win- ners and granted the Roger Griffin Award for Excellence in Marketing Re- search. Marketing instructor John Falcus entered a project completed by the group into the contest. “The time and effort these students put into their report was clearly dem- onstrated by the quality of their report. Their energy and enthusiasm was ter- rific,” he said. The competition is run on an annual basis by the B.C. branch of the Market- ing and Research Intelligence Associa- tion. “It’s wonderful to see our students’ work recognized by the market re- search industry in B.C. They competed with students from UBC, SFU, BCIT, and the University of the Fraser Valley so coming in first place is a terrific ac- complishment,” said Falcus in a press release. Langara’s winning project was a two-phase study for a local entrepre- neur who was thinking of opening a coffee shop and wanted to know more about what makes a coffee shop suc- cessful. “In phase one, the students conduct- ed a focus group with coffee drinkers to determine the attributes that were im- portant to them in selecting a coffee shop. In phase two, they conducted a survey using this criteria to evaluate the customer service of a local competi- tor - Café Artigiano,” explained Falcus. Based on their findings, students were able to make recommendations to the entrepreneur regarding their busi- ness venture. B.C. chapter secretary of the MRIA Paige Schoenfeld explained the con- test. “The competition is designed to pro- mote excellence in marketing research, provide an excellent learning experi- ence for students, and enhance the pro- LANGARA COLLEGE photo Left to right: Chloe Woolsey, Shenglong (Kevin) Jiang, Graeme Chalmers and Joanna Babiuch receive the coveted Roger Griffin Award. Langara foursome triumphs Marketing students bring home Student Marketing Research trophy file of both the MRIA and schools with media coverage of the competition and its winners,” she said. Schoenfeld confirmed that projects regularly submitted are usually based on real research problems and busi- nesses. Members of the local MRIA board judged the competition. “The balance of research compo- nents that were incorporated varied, with some projects having a heavier weighting on secondary data, while others had more weighting on in-depth interviews and focus groups,” said Schoenfeld. Criteria for the contest included whether or not research was complete and achievable, if survey questions were clear and if the project was con- vincing and worthy of the MRIA’s rec- ognition. Langara communications officer An- nie Mullins also said this was a “won- derful achievement” by the four stu- dents. The Student Marketing Research Competition award comes with a tro- phy and a $250 prize for each student. AWARD facts 1 The award is named after the late Roger Griffin 2 Griffin was the founder of the Marketing Re- search Intelligence Association 3 Griffin taught at Douglas College 4 He served as a national board member of the MRIA 5 He was a retail & marketing research specialist who ran an ad agency that spearheaded adver- tising for Eatons Source: www.insidedouglas.ca LSU introduces food hamper program Food hampers are now available through the Lan- gara Students’ Union for needy scholars on campus By QUINN MELL-COBB new service introduced by the pisses Students’ Union is taking im at eliminating hunger by pro- viding an emergency food supply to students in need. The recently established Langara College food hamper program, an en- tirely student-led initiative, is now into its second week of existence. Launched on March 1 in the Stu- dents’ Union Building, intrigued pass- ersby were offered free fruit and pam- phlets outlining the program and what it offers to students. Reaction to the new service on cam- pus has been nothing but positive so far. Louis Mohler, an environmental studies student, was quick to praise the new initiative for the gateways it may be able to open for needy Langara stu- dents. “T can certainly see where [the Stu- dents’ Union] is coming from with this,” said Mohler. “A lot of students can end up strapped for cash because of school and stuff, so this is definitely an awesome way to kind of avoid a bad situation and keep your stress down.” Purchasing food is all too often something that gets pushed to the backburner for post-secondary stu- dents, not just in Vancouver and Brit- ish Columbia, but all across Canada. A report from September 2011 released by the Food Banks of Canada network said that since the very first Canadian campus food bank was launched at the University of Alberta in 1981, over 70 more have since been added across the nation in the last 20 years. Organizers of the food hamper pro- gram were unable to comment before press time, but were lauded by Langa- ra arts and science student Kayla Con- ley for their efforts to help erase such alarming statistics as the aforemen- tioned. “TThe food hamper program] sounds like a great thing, which will probably help a lot of people out. We all have our bills and debts that we have to pay month in and month out. Money doesn’t just grow on trees,” said Conley. 66 We all have our bills and debts that we have to pay month in and month out KAYLA CONLEY Arts and science student