Published: February 20, 2007 08:41 pm            

Rose-Hulman senior featured on All-USA College Academic Team

TERRE HAUTE — Engineer. Visionary. Entrepreneur.

Combining all these skills, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology senior Eric Clifft was named to the 2007 All-USA College Academic Team, featured in USA Today on Feb. 15. He was one of 60 students named to the first- second- or third-team lists from more than 600 undergraduate students at U.S. colleges and universities.

This marks the third time since 2002 that Rose-Hulman has had a student recognized on this prestigious academic team. Other colleges with students honored this year included Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Georgia Institute of Technology, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins and the service academies.

Clifft, a mechanical engineering major, helped form an Engineers Without Borders student chapter after reading an article in Mechanical Engineering magazine that described the lack of infrastructure hindering economic development in Africa. He immediately recognized how useful the Rose-Hulman community of engineering faculty, alumni and students could be in alleviating some instances of debilitating African poverty.

He distributed an e-mail message throughout campus seeking students to form a EWB chapter. Ten students answered that original message.

Two years later, the chapter is thriving, raising about $45,000 to design and build a poultry house capable of housing more than 2,000 chickens.

Last summer, Clifft joined nine students in going to Obodan, a village of 2,000 people in Ghana, to construct the building in 10 days.

The brooder house already has raised more than 1,000 baby chickens, having an important economic and nutritional impact on local residents.

The facility is becoming a model for other villages throughout Ghana and has helped Obodan to be submitted as an United Nations Millennium Village.

“Eric Clifft is a dynamic and inspirational leader who thinks of others first … He is enthusiastic about learning and about making a difference,” stated Lee Waite, head of Rose-Hulman’s Department of Applied Biology and Biomedical Engineering and EWB chapter adviser.

Anthony Akunzule, executive director of the Ghana Poultry Network, added, “Eric proved to be a natural leader, playing a significant role in keeping the students focused on completing the project. He physically helped in the building’s construction (planning and cutting timber to approximate sizes; leveling the house’s foundation; drilling timber for bolts) and assisted in the purchase of building materials.”

Clifft has also spent a year studying in Germany and participated in a cultural experience in Japan — exciting adventures for a student who hadn’t traveled outside of his hometown of Paragould, Ark.

“I looked at college as the perfect time to acquire new perspectives and to satiate my innate curiosity about different cultures,” Clifft states. “I realize that my inclination to accept opportunities and desire to help others have been the hallmarks of the last three years of my life. These two characteristics have taken me around the globe on multiple occasions and enabled me to rapidly improve the lives of numerous people.”

Clifft also maintains a 3.87 grade-point average, received the Garland Duncan Scholarship from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, earned Rose-Hulman’s Student Leader of the Quarter and Greek Member of the Year Award (Sigma Nu Fraternity), served as a representative to the Student Government Association and is a member of the Blue Key, Tau Beta Pi, Pi Tau Sigma and Alpha Lambda Delta honor societies.

Clifft wants to continue his studies at the graduate level in Stanford University’s unique Department of Management Science and Engineering, which provides education and research opportunities associated with the development of knowledge, tools and methods required to make decisions and to shape policies, to configure organizational structures, to design engineering systems and to solve problems associated with the information-intensive technology based economy.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.