A team of college students coached by a Corning solutions architect recently won an information technology competition, defeating teams from larger North Carolina universities.

A Corning employees from the Solution Architecture Group in Information Technology in Hickory, mentored the four-man Corning-sponsored team from Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh to victory in the 2016 Student Architecture Showdown held by the International Association of Software Architects (IASA).

The team worked four to six hours a weekend from late July until the end of September, to create an IT architecture for a fictional store in order to make it easier for shoppers and improve employee efficiency. The team then presented their solution to a panel of three judges at the ITARC Southeast 2016 Conference in Raleigh, sponsored by the Raleigh IASA chapter.

The Wake Technical team topped competing teams from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Duke University, North Carolina State University, and North Carolina Central University. After the competetion the four members of the winning team received opportunities for job interviews with Corning and other team sponsors.

Corning’s former Vice Chairman and CFO Jim Flaws returned to his alma mater, Tufts University’s School of Engineering, to deliver the 2016 commencement address.

Flaws graduated from Tufts in 1971 and received an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College. He went on to spend 42 years working at Corning, nearly 17 as chief financial officer.

Sharing a few of his formative experiences from his time at Tufts as well as from his career, Flaws explained how they shaped him as a person and a professional. He urged the graduating class to find strength and confidence in their core skills, interests, and values, and he underscored the importance of community service as one of his own core values.

“[I can’t emphasize enough] how worthwhile it is to share your time, experience, and if possible, resources, with worthy organizations,” Flaws said. “To paraphrase Mark Twain, we get the full value of joy by dividing it.”

The Read-In program -- connecting employees with local classrooms to read illuminating non-fiction during Black History Month -- has been expanding for several years based on popular demand. A luncheon Monday celebrated the efforts of the 57 volunteers who participated in this year's program, teaching local schoolchildren how a 6-year-old girl helped lead the way to school integration in the South of the early 1960s.

"The mission of the program is to make the celebration of African-American literacy a traditional part of Black History Month in the communities in which we live and work," said a Corning employee who read to children in four schools.

Schools find the program is playing a valuable role in local education. The Corning-Painted Post school district director of pupil personnel services and coordinator of the program, said that teachers probably talked more about Valentine's Day in February than Black History Month. The visit from Corning employees was likely the only Black History Month lesson taught in the schools, she said.

For seven years, one Corning employee has shared his commitment to education within his community by helping schoolchildren compete in Odyssey of the Mind, a hands-on, problem-solving competition.

He has guided his team of fourth graders – who created a clever haunted-house play with a twist – all the way to the world finals.

The team’s play, about the Evil Broccoli Queen clashing with Pepper Mint and her candy friends in Veggie Land, won the regional title and was second in the state.  The team's four girls and three boys went on to participate in the finals at Iowa State University.

Once a year, girls from Corning-area middle schools visit Corning's headquarters for a day packed with engaging workshops and conversations that inform them about about career options available to them.

One of those annual sessions, this past November, attracted 159 students from six schools to Corning’s Headquarters to participate in career planning sessions and mock job interviews.

Corning offered the students opportunities to gain exposure across an array of 15 learning sites, including: Security, Robotics, Media, MTE, a Specialty Materials lab, the Rockwell Museum, Finance, Legal, the Diesel Plant, Culinary Services, and 3D printing.