Sabrina Acloque

I am a part of Quisqueya, the Dominican Students Association, whose purpose is to promote learning about Dominican culture, history, and experience.  I became a member of Quisqueya in the fall of my freshman year.  Later that year, the co-chair of Quisqueya encouraged me to run for Secretary.  Although I was scared, mostly because I was a newcomer to campus as well as the organization, I ran for the position and I was elected.  Thus, this year marked my second year in Quisqueya, and my first serving as Secretary.  My eboard position wasn't as minimal as I feared it would have been however.  This year taught me just how important my position as Secretary meant to the organization. 

I had the opportunity to table at the Organizational Fair held at the beginning of the school year and recruited approximately 15 new members (making our membership grow to 60 active members) who were not only of Dominican heritage, but who were black, white, and Asian.  Quisqueya is an organization open to everyone, with the goal of teaching all its members about Dominican culture.  I am glad that my tabling experience helped me to carry out this message to the larger Cornell community.  One of the new members we recruited was Joyce Muchan from the Public Service Center.  Joyce was working on a book drive through which she brought books every year to the Dominican Republic for children in the local schools.  She joined Quisqueya so that we could unite in her efforts.  I am happy that through my active recruitment of new members, which could not have been possible without the help I received from existing Quisqueya members, I was able to bring the possibility of co-sponsoring events with others to our organization. 

In addition to taking minutes at meetings and forwarding the information to our listserve, I have gone beyond these typical duties outlined for Secretary.  When there was no one else, I represented the Treasurer of our organization at the International Students Programming Board hearing which resulted in us receiving funding to bring the guest speaker of our banquet to Ithaca.  In preparing for our annual banquet, I also took on the role of writing funding request letters to prominent Latinos with the hopes that they could have contributed whatever they could to our organization.  Although unfortunately, the responses we received were less than successful (largely because many people we targeted worked for nonprofit organizations), writing the proposals was a preparatory experience that may come in handy for grant writing I may undertake for a future job or organization.    

I've learned that the satisfaction one gets out of being involved in a club, organization, or activity is how much effort one puts into it; my involvement in Quisqueya this year has given me such satisfaction.  I have seen our organization grow in its abilities and expectations of the executive board and the general body.  Currently we have a large group of dedicated members, and although I won't be Secretary next year, I hope to keep the vigor of our club going just the same. 

This is my second year as a National Scholar and I have tried to stay involved as much as I could.  I am a Big Buddy to my freshman Little, Parijat Sharma.  We haven't been able to physically meet each other this semester, but we have kept in contact through email; I always stress the importance of keeping our communication lines open.  I also served on the Alumni Relations Committee, in which I helped the chair, Jason Canavan, format questions for our alumni speakers who visited in March.  I have been to a number of symposiums, including the elections and our very last one, the visit to the Clock Tower.  I attended the reception where I met a number of mentors and became acquainted with other National Scholars whom I hadn't known before.  I hope next year I'll be able to become even more involved (with work and my class schedule permitting), to become friends with more National Scholars, and to help spread the name of our wonderful organization to the rest of the Cornell community. 

I am a part of the Minority Undergraduate Law Society, an organization which has been helpful in my preparation for taking the LSATS.  The importance of MULS will only increase as I continue the Law School search during my college career. 

I am also a host for Cornell's Red Carpet Society and CU Image, both of which are pre-frosh hosting programs.  These two organizations only complement my recently attained position as a Campus Information and Visitor Relations Information Specialist.  In short, I work as a campus tour guide and when at the front desk or in the call center, I help visitors with information or refer them to specific people or departments on campus. 

This year was my first year as member of the Haitian Students Association on campus.  Since my family comes from both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, becoming a part of both organizations was important for me in learning about the similarities and differences between the cultures of the people from both islands.

I also joined the newly formed Cornell University Coalition for Ethnic Studies.  I helped conduct research on the Native American programs for the 40 page proposal the Coalition submitted to the University for the advancement of our ethnic studies departments.  I hope to watch the Coalition grow in student involvement and in achieving its goals, which include spreading awareness about the importance of ethnic studies and their contributions to everyone—not just minorities—on this campus.