Vision Xchange’s sixth annual Hopkins Top Model event raised awareness about arsenic contamination of water in Bangladesh as well as about the Greek community’s newest addition, Pi Beta Phi.
Aishwarya Rajagopalan, representing Pi Phi, won as the competition’s female contestant while Jaron Tepper of the Jewish Student Association was picked as top model among the male contestants.
According to Rajagopalan, Pi Phi was emailed a few weeks before the event and was invited to participate, but had missed the deadline to submit a model. It was not until the week of the event that she knew she would actually be participating.
“It was something that I had always wanted to try and it was for a great cause,” Rajagopalan said. “My favorite part was the formal round where I wore traditional Indian clothing. I wanted to do something unique so I put my own spin on that round.”
Rajagopalan also noted seeing all of her Pi Phi sisters at the event supporting her as a memorable part of the experience. “It’s great getting Pi Phi better known on campus!” she said.
Hopkins Top Model featured 24 models representing various student performing arts groups and members of Greek Life who each walked the runway in three different outfits. The first represented their group, the second, water, a central component of this year’s cause and the third was the formal attire round. The contestants were also asked questions by the judges.
Thalia Staikos, the Master of Ceremony, explained that a box would be passed around for each contestant and audience members could vote for each contestant by putting a slip they received upon entrance into the box. Voters could also simply put money into a contestant’s box to show their support.
“The winners [were] determined by a combination of monetary donations and judges’ opinions as well,” Staikos said.
Vision Xchange (and Hopkins Top Model) began six years ago. It was created by then-sophomore Salmah Rizzi, who graduated in 2008. Vision Xchange’s Logistical Co-Chair, Trisha Chakraborty, explained that it was created by Rizzi who perceived that there was a lack of campus-wide events.
“Our campus is really diverse but a lot of it gets lost. If you’re not directly involved in an organization, you may not know what they’re up to,” Chakraborty said. “We wanted to build an event where students could come together and work together for a cause.
“Hopkins students can be caught up in their work, don’t really do much outside of their one or two activities and we wanted an event that would make them want to come, and at the same time learning something and contribute to a really great cause.”
Chakraborty points to the Homewood Award Vision Xchange received in 2008 for having made the biggest difference on campus as evidence of the group filling the gap it set out to tackle.
“We work on a zero dollar budget, so [we cover] all of our expenses by getting grants and raising a lot of money,” she added. “The administration really respects us. Our cause has a lot of support from the school; even though we don’t get money, a lot of different offices and departments support us.”
Chakraborty also described the growing popularity of Hopkins Top Model, which was popular from the very beginning, and has since become a staple event during the fall semester at Hopkins.
“When we email out student groups, instead of having to explain who we are [and] what the event is, people know,” Chakraborty said. “We get a lot of emails from student groups wanting to submit a model. It generates its own buzz. It’s becoming an established event on this campus.”
This year’s cause, for which all donations and proceeds go towards, was “The Clean Water for Peace Project,” an initiative to mitigate arsenic contamination of groundwater in the village of Golaidanga located near Bangladesh.
Juliana Wu, the Public Relations Co-Chair, said that, in contrast with last year’s Baltimore-based cause, this year’s had international scope.
“Our cause last year was more of a Baltimore-based cause, where we raised money for House of Ruth. This year it’s a more global charity event,” Wu said.
According to Chakraborty, Minhaj Chowdhury worked at the village last summer and introduced “The Clean Water for Peace Project” to Vision Xchange members to the idea early in the semester.
“He brought it to our first meeting. We have a meeting where we ask any members to bring a cause that they’re interested in. We go through all the causes and pick the one that we want to dedicate our time and energy to,” Chakraborty explained.
“We ended up voting for the arsenic contamination and it was really cool because [Chowdhury] worked there over the summer and he personally knew the guest speaker [Dr. Abul Hussam] that we had. We had a personal in.”
She also said that while the event was supposed to be fun and entertaining, it was first and foremost to educate students about the cause and thus the guest speaker was a very important part of the event. “We want to be able to educate the audience,” Chakraborty said. “The cause is seriously overlooked and the solution is so simple.”
In choosing a cause, Chakraborty emphasized the group’s efforts at selecting one without any surrounding controversies. “We had a small hiccup when I was a freshman three years ago,” she said. “Our cause was a little controversial; we were raising money for Palestinian children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and that caused some controversy with the Jewish Student Association and with Hillel.”
“Since then we’ve tried to do causes that are very clearly overlooked that aren’t so controversial.”
“The Clean Water for Peace Project” also lent itself to easy and effective marketing; Vision Xchange members handed out water bottles labeled arsenic, prompting students to read the label and learn about Top Model’s cause.
Another important aspect of planning besides deciding upon a cause for the event is the selection of judges. This year’s judges included Dr. Michael Trush, the Director of the Urban Environmental Health Institute at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is familiar with the cause, Dean Boswell and Syreeta Smith, founder of the Nova Modeling Agency.
Chakraborty explained “We want the judges to be well-known so that people are going to be like ‘Oh that’s really cool’ and as Dean Boswell is so engaged with student life, she was an ideal choice.”
The third judge, Syreeta Smith, founded her own modeling agency in Baltimore and signed last year’s male winner, Miles Gordon, to model for her agency. “She was keen on being a judge since she loved the event last year,” Chakraborty said. “She’s in the field and can give good feedback and we do try to get a balance of people who are familiar with the cause [and] who have some sort of connection to fashion and modeling and who the students recognize.”
Vision Xchange has expressed satisfaction with the event. Wu noted that besides being much better organized, the event also raised more money than last year.
“Overall I think it went really well, I think we doubled the amount of money we raised from last year and it was successful,” she said.
Jean Boisvert, who also serves as Public Relations Co-Chair, added that the speaker, Dr. Abul Hussam, stated he would match what the event itself generated.
“I think we made enough to pay for 50 filters and he said he would match that number,” Boisvert said.
Students also seemed impressed by the event. Lindsay Stiller, a current junior, said it was her first time at Hopkins Top Model and found it very well organized. “It’s actually pretty organized,” Stiller said. “I really like the lighting and the walkway and the spotlights are very official.”
Stiller noted that one weakness with Hopkins Top Model was lack of clarity in how the voting happened. “It [wasn’t] clear how you can vote or how people can get to the next round,” she said. While pleased with their success, Vision Xchange is not done working for the year. In the spring they have Hopkins Top Model’s counterpart event, Hopkins Got Talent.
“Like Hopkins Top Model goes off of ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ Hopkins Got Talent is based off of ‘America’s Got Talent.’ We [like] taking popular TV shows and [bringing] it to a student level,” Chakraborty said.
