You may know Luis Boettner from your computer science classes, education classes or from his work as a photographer for The Colate Maroon-News. You may have spotted him among the robed members of the Konosioni Senor Honor Society during Convocation, behind the helpdesk at the Student Operated User Resource Center, better known as SOURCe, or while passing by his fraternity, Phi Delta Theta.

However, he once taught as a substitute teacher for a fifth grade class in Paraguay, and then realized he wanted to pursue college in the United States while spending his summers at a military camp in Culver, Indiana.

For Boettner, it’s safe to say there is more than meets the eye. Though lacking a discernible accent, this Paraguayan learned English as a second language from his mother and through his school. He followed in his sister’s, Carolina Boettner ’04, footsteps by coming to Colgate. Boettner’s sister had originally stumbled upon Colgate because her favorite teacher in high school was an alumnus and had a picture of the campus on his classroom wall.

Boettner is among the few students who are considering Colgate’s masters program in Secondary Education, and he is also one of a minority of students pursuing the combination Computer Science/Mathematics major.

For his senior research project Boettner is working closely with Professor Jaime Spacco to analyze a data bank containing information from every NBA game since 2004. Their goal is to design computer programs capable of processing this data to assess the probability of a shot going in.

Boettner is obviously an active member of the Colgate community, and his positive attitude about this school and life in general is immediately apparent. If we can gain anything from him, it is a sense that we should stop and consider every opportunity we are offered here.

During his freshman year he took a course on the advent of the atomic bomb and traveled with the class to Washington, DC, and then to Japan over the course of three weeks. He felt that it was such a worthwhile experience that he actually went again the following year as a TA for the same class!

Last spring he traveled with the Colgate program to the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. Boettner urges current and future Colgate students to get as involved in the multifarious Colgate life as possible; there is no better way to encourage this than in living by example.