Concordia Nebraska programming and leadership teams seek members

Two extracurricular teams at Concordia Nebraska are currently seeking new members and also offering scholarship money to qualifying incoming freshmen who join the teams. In addition, generous financial aid is provided to each incoming full-time undergraduate freshman in the university’s programming team and leadership teams. Both teams meet in the university’s state-of-the-art Dunklau Center for Science, Math and Business, where spaces have been designed to meet the unique needs of each group. 

Concordia University’s programming team not only helps students improve programming knowledge and skills, it also offers participants entry into a unique community of students who explore programming, software development, and more.  

The team meets and works in the new Bulldog Innovation Center, which is equipped with high-end computers, including Dell and Apple devices. The center also includes docking stations with ultra-wide monitors for programmers to seamlessly convert their own laptops into powerful workstations. 

Marcus Gubanyi coaches the team. Gubanyi is also a computer science faculty member, teaching courses in computer programming, software engineering and data science. He previously worked as a software engineer, building medical and government software. 

“In addition to competitions, these students have a unique opportunity to develop software for a purpose,” he explained. “These students work together on collaborative software development projects and also develop and maintain software systems for the Concordia community. Current projects include a mobile app for Concordia clubs, a friend-finding website built just for Concordia students, a magic-tech escape room and more. The team’s contributions impact our entire campus community!” 

The team competes in International Collegiate Programming Contests, Google Code Jam, TopCoder and other competitions, and competes against students from other universities across the Midwest region. 

Concordia Nebraska’s Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC) team offers leadership-minded students tangible, high-impact learning experiences. Team members participate in national and global leadership competitions. The university team has moved into consistent top-five national rankings over teams at universities with student populations 15 times the size of Concordia Nebraska.  

“Our leadership team creates a uniquely effective practice field where student leaders can apply what they’re learning in a context that stretches them to the boundaries of their leadership knowledge, skills and abilities,” said team leader Dr. Curt Beck. “Team members have the opportunity to hone skills that prepare them for their future vocations as corporate or organizational leaders. We focus on a foundation of both ethics and excellence and offer training that gives students a matchless skill set that they will draw on to serve and lead for years to come.”  

Concordia’s Collegiate Leadership Competition was started by Dr. Beck in 2017 and has helped it grow into a consistent national contender. Team coaches use experiential curriculum to provide real-time feedback to students on the attributes of effective leaders, leader/follower styles, creative problem solving, influencing others, navigating difficult conversations, conflict resolution, ethical decision-making, stressors and effective team building.  

In April of this year, Concordia’s team will be traveling to Newport News, Virginia to compete against other teams at the CLC U.S. Invitational. The 12 members of the team are Carlin Adams, Joel Baker, Aubrey Baumann, Chloe Brown, Olivia Dunklau, Marc Freiberg II, Ashley Gerczynski, Austin Jablonski, Camryn Opfer, Grace Reimer, Sydni Watson and Shelby Ziegler. 

Learn more about the Programming Team at cune.edu/programming.

Learn more about the Collegiate Leadership Competition Team at cune.edu/clc.