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8-word iu story?

Books and beyond

The 10 Best IU Stories in 8 Words or Less

Dec. 12, 2011

"Eight words describe our experience as judges of this remarkable contest: 'We judged secretly and chose the same winners.' Congratulations to all and Happy Holidays!" —Nancy and Michael Uslan

Nancy and Michael Uslan were the judges of the IU Alumni Association's Spirit of IU contest to find the best IU stories in 8 words or less. The Uslans love a great story, and the members of our Spirit of IU community had lots of great stories to share. After taking a few days to read all the entries separately, Nancy and Michael decided on the 10 winning stories. Both put Nathan Sorrels' story of going from rejection to remembrance at the top of their lists. Here are the stories from all our winners:

• Nathan Sorrels, BA'04: Rejected. Humbled. Re-focused. Accepted. Discovered. Grew. Thrived. Remembered.
• Nicole Calandra, BA'96: Learned how to learn, I want to return!
• Katherine Lewis Albers, BA'01: Third generation IU student. Family knows best.
• Laura Bliss, current student: Hopelessly in love with all things Hoosier.
• Adam VanOsdol, BA'05: Teter to Ernie Pyle: Earned degree my style.
• John Blue, BS'85, MS'92: Life friends. Met wife. Stayed connected. Always returning.
• Colleen Law, BA'93: Huge campus got smaller every day. Thanks friends!
• Eric Knabel, BS'93: Good times. Good friends. Great education. Lifelong memories.
• Jim Keplinger, current student: I enrolled a boy and graduated a man.
• Nicole Green, BA'04: First friend at orientation: decade later, best friend.

Congratulations to all our winners. As the first-place winner, Nathan will receive an engraved IU pen, an embossed IU notebook, an IU T-shirt, a copy of the Books & Beyond book, The World is Our Home Volume III, and an autographed copy of Michael Uslan's The Boy Who Loved Batman. All other winners will receive a Books & Beyond book a choice of an IU pen, notebook, or T-shirt. If you're inspired by our IU stories and the Books & Beyond project at IU, you can help out by voting for the "Friends of the Books & Beyond Project" in the Fueling Good program. With your vote, Books & Beyond has a chance to win free gasoline for a year, which will help their efforts to connect U.S. and Rwandan students in the process of writing children's stories.

A story can change lives.

Oct. 24 2011

The inspiration for our super-short story contest is a collaborative learning program called Books & Beyond, in which students from IU Bloomington's Global Village Living-Learning Center, an undergraduate residence that caters to students with international interests, share stories with young students in New Jersey and Rwanda and help them learn to write and read. The program started in an effort to provide Rwandan school children with books,
in the aftermath of genocide. Now that is what we call the spirit of IU.

This year there are 72 Global Village students participating in the Books & Beyond Project. The visionary and driving force behind the Books and Beyond project is Nancy Uslan, who advises the program, travels to Rwanda and IU in support of the program, and is a tireless fundraiser and supporter for Books & Beyond. She and her husband Michael serve as judges for the Spirit of IU's Stories from IU contest.

Now until the contest ends December 1, you can enter your IU story, in 8 words or less, on the contest page. Add the hashtag #spiritofiu to your entry and share it on Twitter so that others can join in the fun.

As part of the Books & Beyond program, children in New Jersey TEAM Schools come to school on two Saturdays to write and illustrate books, while being mentored via Skype by IU students. The books, with such themes as home and environment, are then published along with stories written by the Rwandan students. Each summer, participating students travel to Rwanda to deliver the books and observe, first hand, how they are changing lives. This project fosters literacy, critical thinking skills and a global approach to education.