Turning Point chapter starts up on campus
Cleric Rutherford Reporter
A group of politically conservative students has started a campus chapter of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by murdered Republican activist Charlie Kirk.
Two student officers, who asked Campus Current to withhold their names because of a concern for their privacy and safety, held the chapter’s first meeting on campus Sept. 22 with approximately a dozen potential members and said they are applying for status as
Photo by Nicholas Taylor
soccer has 3-game shut out early in season Riverhawks mascot Swoop celebrates 10th birthday
an official student club with the Office of Student Engagement.
“We come in peace, completely,” one of the officers said. “We're not trying to cause a ruckus on campus or anything like that whatsoev-
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Officers of a new Turning Point USA chapter on campus started the club after the assassination of popular conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Wikimedia Commons photo
Students ask college to undo 15 minimum
Amanda Lewis Editor-in-Chief
Nicholas Taylor Photo Editor
More than 900 students have signed a petition asking the college to rescind a policy that requires classes to have a minimum of 15 students enrolled or risk being canceled.
The petition, which education student Mary Ruesen circulated on Change.org and publicized by posting notic-
New editor takes over newspaper’s top role
Athena Dyer Xavier Johnson Reporters
A second-year digital marketing student became the editor-in-chief of AACC’s newspaper in August.
Amanda Lewis, a former music store manager, replaced Jose Gonzalez, who
graduated in May after serving for one year as editor of Campus Current.
“My plan is to get our team up and running,” Lewis, who earned a bachelor’s degree in arts management from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, in 2016, said. ”I want to see where we’re at first, and
then if there’s anything that we can do to improve it. I think starting off with, like, a strong team is good, and then seeing what everybody’s strengths are, because we have a couple of different folks that can do a couple of different things.”
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es around campus, says the policy could limit the choice of classes and delay graduation for students, especially those with full-time jobs.
“I feel like changing the rule like this is something that is going to cause change throughout the whole college over a longer period of time,” fourth-year plant science stu-
dent Alex Bradford said.
In the past, class minimums have been as low as five. About eight years ago, the college raised the mini-
mum to eight, and then to 10 and then to 12. The 15-student minimum began this semester.
Some students said they fear the college will cancel specialty programs like creative writing, photography and plant sciences because they typically enroll fewer than 15 students per class section.
“So we’ll end up losing some of the parts of the col-
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Amanda Lewis, a digital marketing student, is the new editor-in-chief of Campus Current.
Photo by Nicholas Taylor
Students are protesting a new class size limit by giving media interviews and circulating a petition.
Meet the Staff
Editor-in-Chief
Amanda Lewis
Graphic Designer
Thomas Lamb
Sports Editor
Ali Rizvi
Reporters
Athena Dyer
Xavier Johnson
Nessa Kilson
Cleric Rutherford
Photo Editor
Nick Taylor
Faculty Adviser
Sharon O’Malley
Time to rescind 15 minimum
Editorial Board
Raising the minimum class size to 15 may save the college money, but it potentially comes at the cost of students’ dreams and has upset them past the point of complaining and to the point of action.
Over the summer, several students voiced their concerns to local media, including the Capital Gazette, saying they fear the new rule will do away with creative disciplines like creative writing and photography. These are the kinds of classes that attract serious, passionate students—but not always 15 at a time.
More than 900 students have already signed a petition expressing fears that needed courses will be canceled. Without them, students may have no choice but to beg professors for independent studies, or worse, leave AACC early and pay triple the tuition to take the same courses at a four-year college.
The impact hits nontraditional students especially hard: parents, full-time workers and caregivers, for example, who already balance impossible schedules. For them, having access to the classes they need—full or not—is often the difference between staying enrolled and dropping out. By raising the minimum, the college risks shutting out the very students who fight the hardest to be here.
To the college’s credit, administrators have authorized deans to make exceptions to the 15-minimum rule. But it’s worth pointing out that just five students
Some of these classes are graduation requirements. In some cases, these niche classes are the very reason students chose AACC in the first place. If those courses disappear, students could face delayed degrees, the unexpected cost of taking them at a more expensive four-year university, and the heartbreak of being forced into alternative classes that don’t reflect their goals as closely.
Letter from a Leader
The impact of classes canceled for underenrollment is greater for some students than for others.
Courtesy of Zoë Farquhar
were considered enough to run a class just a decade ago. That number has been going up ever since—first to eight, then 10, then 12, and now 15. It’s no surprise that the staff of Campus Current stands with the students. Every canceled class isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet. It could, in fact, be a student’s future put on hold.
Our college should be opening doors, not closing them. Instead of raising minimums and reducing opportunities, we should be finding solutions that honor students’ needs, scheduling creatively or seeking funding. At the end of the day, education isn’t about numbers. It’s about people. And every student’s future matters.
My strategy: Say ‘yes’ to all
Nicholas Taylor Photo Editor
After I graduated from high school, I felt unsure about what direction my life was going to go in, but I turned that uncertainty into a challenge for myself.
I decided to say “yes” to every opportunity I was given.
Now, I’m in six student clubs, have a second job and belong to a new friend group.
It began with my random decision to attend a summer program at AACC and later a showcase of the college. These opportunities helped me learn about clubs like the Ambassadors Campus Team and Campus Current, two organizations I would later say “yes” to joining.
When the year began properly I ran into two friends who went to Old Mill High School with me, Chloe and Joanna, and I said “yes” to hanging out with them. We had a blast hanging out and we all said “yes” to joining Amaranth—the student arts journal—and Overcast Improv—another student club—together.
The three of us had so much fun together we de-
cided to say “yes” to forming our own friend group called “the mathletes.” Our secret is that we’re terrible at math.
I continued to meet new people and I said “yes” to being friends with each one of them. Now the mathletes has expanded into a friend group with up to seven people at each meeting.
We hang out almost every day in the library, and being on campus never feels lonely anymore.
I continued my challenge and kept saying “yes,” and more kept coming my way. From becoming secretary of the Game Development Club to getting a job as a student tutor, I was relentless in my quest to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way.
Finally, instead of just saying “yes,” I decided to ignite my own journey and start my own SkillsUSA club at AACC with the many friends I’ve made along the way.
Now, after only a month of saying “yes,” I have become one of the most involved student leaders on campus and have made enough friends to be a math equation.
Campus Current photo editor Nicholas Taylor, a firstyear education student, joined six clubs within his first two weeks at AACC.
Photo by Amanda Lewis
Club creates ‘a safe space’
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er. We just want everybody that is like minded to have a safe space.”
Maryland Delegate LaToya Nkongolo, a Republican who represents Anne Arundel County, announced the club’s formation on Facebook on Sept. 17. The post was shared nearly 70 times, got more than 500 likes and drew responses from more than 100 users, including a number of AACC faculty and students.
Nkongolo called the campus chapter a “game changer for those who have actually listened and dissected the debates for years.” Turning Point USA frequently hosted political debates with Kirk
on college campuses.
Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and was known for his podcast, “The Charlie Kirk Show” and his conservative speeches on college campuses around the country. After he was shot by an assassin in Utah on Sept. 10, President Donald Trump and a slew of high-level Republicans publicly mourned his death.
In an interview with Fox News, Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of Kirk’s podcast, said the organization has fielded more than 54,000 requests from college students interested in forming new chapters. Kolvet said Turning Point USA already has 900 college and 1,200 high school chapters.
AACC honors Hispanic Heritage
AACC is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month until Oct. 15 with workshops, art exhibitions and games.
The month-long celebration kicked off on Sept. 15. Upcoming events include a demonstration showing how to bake a tres leches
cake, a piñata workshop and a lesson in traditional Hispanic dancing.
“[These are] very important times,” said professor Wilfredo Valladares Lara, the chair of the festivities.
The 2025 National Hispanic Heritage Month theme is “collective migration.” The college has celebrated the month every year since 2008.
“At the moment, the Latin American community is going through a lot of challenges because of the current administration,” Valladares added.
Students protest new class size minimums
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lege that are so important, like the strong community and the small programs that make it unique,” Bradford said.
Vice President for Student Learning Tanya Millner said the administration made the decision to increase the minimum class size to 15 after “a full academic year of data analysis and discussions that involved faculty and staff.”
She told Campus Current in May that “the target number has increased gradually and intentionally over time to better align with the enrollment trends and some budget realities.”
The college has reported that it canceled 9% of fall classes before this semes-
ter began, compared with 12.37% in fall 2024.
Bradford said she asked the Board of Trustees to let her speak for students at its September meeting, but was told the rules prohibit members of the public, including students, from speaking.
Student Government Association President Chris Chambers, who gives a report on behalf of students at every meeting of the trustees, asked them to “read some of the comments, what the students are saying, and take into consideration the impact that this new class minimum will have on students at AACC.”
Communications professor Zoë Farquhar said it could fall to faculty members to teach some of the canceled courses as independent study classes to a handful
New editor starts starts job at helm of Campus Current
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Campus Current, the college’s award-winning student newspaper, publishes a print edition each month and a weekly e-mail newsletter. In addition, the staff updates the digital edition frequently each week.
of students who need those credits to graduate.
“So it’s really falling to the faculty, out of the goodness of our hearts, to say we care about these students,” Farquhar said. “I would not be surprised if faculty members are asked to do this more and are forced to refuse, because it’s just not in our capacity to teach” more than the required five courses per semester.
Second-year education student Dax Geotia said the college’s motive for the new minimum could be financial.
“They don’t want to have to pay a teacher for a time slot that has less than 15 students, and that is frustrating,” Geotia said. “It says that they don’t value not only the student’s time, but also the teachers'."
"We have some people who are in their 30s, some people who are 19, some who are photographers, some who are writers,” pro-
Lewis, who spent semesters in Prague and Rome, described herself as “an overachiever, I think, competitive, but I’m very determined to get things done, and get it done correctly, quickly, and learn along the way.”
fessor Sharon O’Malley, the newspaper’s faculty adviser, said. “And she has sort of a really well-rounded background, and she can bring a lot of that perspective into making the newspaper excellent."
Amanda Lewis takes over the student newspaper. Courtesy of Amanda Lewis
Adobe Stock image
Most classes this semester include at least 15 students, in keeping with a new college policy.
Photo by Nicholas Taylor
Campus newcomers must verify identities
Amanda Lewis Editor-in-Chief
Students who get new MyAACC accounts this semester will have to verify their identities with a phone number before logging in.
The process, called two-factor authentication, requires two forms of identification to verify a user’s identity when accessing college email or the MyAACC webpage.
“Multifactor authentication is one of the simplest and most effective ways we can protect our community,” Vice President for Information and Instructional Technology Richard Kralevich said. “It helps safeguard student information, keeps our learn-
ing systems secure and reduces the risk of disruptions.”
Students who had MyAACC accounts before July 7 do not have to verify their identities with a second source—for now. Kralevich said all students eventually will have a two-factor requirement. Faculty and staff already use the two-factor process.
Some students said the extra step is time-consuming.
“It just adds more time to your day that you have to do,” Mitch Riith, a first-year broadcast journalism student, said. “If you don’t have your phone number down … you forget your password somehow … you got to … go to IT.”
Éva Parry, a second-year
transfer studies student, agreed.
“Originally I’d say it was kind of annoying to do that every time to sign into my account since I do a lot of stuff for school on my phone,” Parry, who had to sign up for two-factor authentication when she held a work/study job at the college, said.
But some students said the process keeps their information safe.
“I feel more secure about the fact that even if someone found out my password, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to get into my account, which makes me feel good, because people can’t, like, go and see my grades [or] turn in work that isn’t completed,” Emily Sawyer, a pre-med and neu-
roscience student, said. “So it does give me a little bit of security but I find it a little more inconvenient for my student email.”
Kralevich confirmed that “passwords alone can be guessed, stolen or phished.
Adding a second step makes it much harder for attackers to gain access to sensitive systems, such as email, online courses and student records. This change strengthens security for both students and the college.”
‘Nest’ for clubs gets new functions, style
The website that serves as a hub for student clubs will look different and be easier to operate starting on Oct. 15.
The new version of the Nest, which is a platform for club officers to keep track of their organizations’ budgets and advertise their meetings and events, will include an app and allow club members to message each other within the program.
“I think it’s going to be a really good improvement,” said Claudia McCandless,
Next student trustee takes seat on board
Cleric Rutherford Reporter
A second-year computer science student became the newest member of AACC’s Board of Trustees in September.
Keshawn Johnson, whose role will be to bring the student perspective to board discussions about college policy, replaced Devin Keller, a cybersecurity student.
Johnson, 21, said when he learned about the opportunity to join the board, “I felt something that I had never felt before. I felt like it was a calling. I felt a sense of purpose and pride for my [fellow] students.”
AACC is one of three community colleges that allows its student trustees to vote.
“It [was] a very easy choice” to recommend Johnson, who was one of three
finalists for the position, according to Amberdawn Cheatham, AACC’s director of student engagement.
“He had really great ... past experience of speaking up on behalf of other students,” Cheatham said.
Johnson, who will serve as a trustee for one year, has been a member of the Black Male Institute, the student club Experience Campus Ministry, and the Student
editor-in-chief of Amaranth, the student arts journal. “I feel like a lot of people don’t use the Nest because it does feel a little bit dated and it is hard to use.”
The Nest, which the Office of Student Engagement created about 10 years ago, is home to more than 40 clubs, whose officers use it to manage the business end of their organizations.
Lea Brisbane, OSE’s leadership and involvement specialist, said club leaders and faculty advisers have complained that the old system is “clunky; it’s hard to use; it’s not intuitive; it’s not vi-
sually appealing; it’s hard to find stuff … too many clicks,” prompting the update. “We’ve been frustrated with the system and we’ve heard students have been frustrated with the system.”
The revised platform will allow users to personalize the home page, easily find forms, create surveys and include new-user videos, according to Brisbane. It also will be more transparent in the way it tracks club spending, Brisbane said.
OSE gave faculty advisers, club presidents and members access to training in September.
Achievement and Success Program.
In addition, Cheatham said Johnson served on a similar board in high school, working with the principal and other students to rec-
ommend policies.
“It’s essential to have that student perspective from the board that can kind of give insight on whether a policy is the best or not,” Johnson said.
New student trustee Keshawn Johnson is studying computer science.
Photo courtesy of Keshawn Johnson
The Nest gets an update starting in October.
Photo illustration by Nicholas Taylor
Nicholas Taylor Photo Editor
AACC requires new students to use a two-factor system to verify their identities on college platforms.
Photo by Nicholas Taylor
AACC mascot Swoop celebrates 10 years
Thomas Lamb Graphic Designer
AACC’s mascot, Swoop, turns 10 this year, and creator Ben Pierce, a senior graphic designer, said he “still get[s] a kick out of seeing it.”
Pierce, who works in Strategic Communications, recalled working with a team to narrow down the kind of bird Swoop would become before putting it out for a vote among students, faculty, staff and alumni.
Among the choices were seagulls, osprey, riverhawks and blue herons. “We tried to pick birds that are native to the area,” Pierce said.
The community chose a riverhawk and named it Swoop, which Pierce’s team designed with the colors of AACC Athletics: teal and white with patches of navy and gray, plus a huge yellow beak. AACC calls its athletes the Riverhawks.
Then, the college con-
tracted with the vendor who had created mascot costumes for a number of area sports teams.
The faux fur-covered, six-foot-tall mascot appears at campus sports games and events and in some local parades. The big bird’s handlers—those who wear the costume—keep their identities secret.
Pierce said he attended Swoop’s first birthday party in 2016, which featured games, a giant birthday cake and dancing on the Quad.
“Swoop was out there dancing, doing the wobble,” Pierce said.
For the mascot’s 10th birthday, Pierce and others in Strategic Communications created a commemorative logo, showing an illustrated side profile of the bird and the words, “the rise of the Riverhawks” and “10 years of Swoop.”
Before Swoop came to life in 2016, AACC athletes,
whose colors were red, white and blue, were the Pioneers and had no mascot. Pierce said the Student Government Association and some student athletes approached him to suggest that the college update the school’s nickname and create a mascot.
“The Riverhawk identity and Swoop, that was all kind of developed, you know, with athletics in mind,” Pierce said.
Pierce, who emphasized he was part of a team and not a solo designer, said creating Swoop is “something I felt I poured a lot of time and energy into, and seeing that it was embraced [was] definitely a really good feeling.”
But Pierce said the team created more than a school mascot.
“I’m feeling like we helped create more of a sense of community with that Riverhawks identity,” Pierce said. “You know, I feel like we’re all Riverhawks.”
AACC mascot Swoop celebrates a big birthday this year.
Photo courtesy of Strategic Communications
College starts major for dental hygienists
Amanda Lewis Editor-in-Chief
AACC added an associate degree for dental hygienists this fall.
The five-semester program, which enrolled 10 students in its first cohort, offers clinical experience and workforce-ready training that will prepare students to take their licensing exams, work for a dentist or enroll in a master’s degree program.
“There’s a huge shortage of hygienists,” B.P. Patel, director of dental education, said. “This program is about workforce development and getting students job ready, fast.”
Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of dental hygienists will grow by 9% from 2023 to 2033. That compares with a prior estimate of 38% growth from 2018 to 2028.
“We are witnessing a complete reversal of the once-oversaturated hygiene market,” North Carolina hygienist Lori Hendrick wrote in the trade journal Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. “We are experiencing a shortage of working dental hygienists across the U.S.”
AACC’s curriculum is one of seven two-year dental hygienist programs in Maryland.
As part of their training at AACC, students—who are required to practice their skills for 15 weeks before they can sit for their licensing exams—will offer services such as cleanings, dental scans, and fluoride treatments to students, faculty, staff and members of the surrounding community at reduced prices.
Cleanings, for example, cost $35, and scans, $25, Patel said, adding that the school accepts dental insurance from these patients.
“It gets access to care to people that don’t have that access to care,” said Patel, a registered dental hygienist who earned his master’s degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
Patel said graduates can earn up to $140,000 in jobs as dental hygienists.
Before enrolling in AACC’s program, students must complete six prerequisites in microbiology, biochemistry, math, English, psychology, and human biology or anatomy/physiology.
Among those in the first cohort are a few students enrolled in the college’s dental assistant program.
Kailey Howell, a firstyear dental assistant student, said the hygienist program “is great for a lot of students like me who [are] in the dental assisting program who want to further their education. I think it just gives them that opportunity
to, you know, be a hygienist, and a lot of people are interested in that. I think that that’s great to have here.”
Howell predicted the new program will be a success.
“I know people who go to the Baltimore [City] Com-
munity College and other community colleges around us just for their dental hygiene program, so I definitely think that people will come here,” Howell said.
Athena Dyer and Xavier Johnson contributed to this story.
A cohort of 10 students has enrolled in the college’s new dental hygienist program.
Photo by Amanda Lewis
Artist creates cheese prints
Thomas Lamb Graphic Designer
Inside the Cade fine arts gallery, an art installation is prompting conversation about the American dream, deportation, deterioration— and cheese.
The artwork by Lauren Cardenás, an associate professor of printmaking at Louisiana State University, features a series of seven images displaying sunrises and sunsets from airplane windows that are printed onto slices of American cheese and encased in plexiglass.
The moldy cheese represents “an idea … that’s essentially molded into a nightmare of not being able to meet [the] needs” of immigrants, Cardenás said.
Cardenás calls her exhibition “Sueño Americano,” which translates to “American dream,” she said. The exhibit opened in Cade on Aug. 19 and will leave on Oct. 13.
The artist said she was inspired by an NPR piece that featured migrants who were getting deported.
“One man who had been deported a couple of times and ended up coming back every time, he was voicing that on the flight, it was migrants who were handcuffed; there were Border Patrol … officers on the plane,” Cardenás said. “It’s a chartered flight, and they gave them a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water as their farewell meal from leaving the United States.”
Cardenás, the daughter of immigrants “and individuals that benefited from the American dream,” said the uptick in deportations ”is kind of impacting everyone’s lives … and I think it’s important to have a conversation about it.”
She said she has displayed the installation at galleries and other colleges since 2020. It showed in New
Orleans for nine months.
“In those nine months, the cheese actively grew mold, which was not my intention,” Cardenás said. “I knew that the cheese would mold. I just didn’t recognize I didn’t account for travel, humidity, changing of climate. So all of these things ... exacerbated that internal climate within the plexiglass, so the cheese does actively mold.”
Cardenás, who shot the photographs from airplane windows as she traveled between 2016 and 2022, said the exhibit, which she updates frequently, included 175 slices of cheese at one time to mirror the seat plan of a Boeing 737 charter plane, the kind that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses to deport migrants.
“I feel like this piece is important, just because of the times that we’re in,” Cardenás said. “It’s able to initiate a conversation thinking about what is going on within the world. Thinking about immigration, immigration reform. What are these issues that are starting to arise? How is this affecting the greater United States as a whole?”
The Cade Fine Arts Gallery shows "Sueño Americano," a series of pictures that use American cheese as a medium, until Oct 13.
Photo by Nicholas Taylor
Women win 4 games in row
Ali Rizvi Sports Editor
Women’s soccer recorded a four-game winning streak, including three shut outs, earlier this season.
The three-game shut out ended on Sept. 18 with a 10-1 win against Howard Community College.
Defender Eden Abey called the streak “awesome.”
As of press time on Sept. 24, the team had a 5-3 winning record.
The Riverhawks won the NJCAA Region 20 East District Championship last season and made it to the NJCAA Division II Women’s Soccer National Tournament, where the team was eliminated in the first round.
The team, composed of six returning second-year players and a dozen rookies, struggled in the early part of the season, losing its first two games in the 2025 JUCO Kickoff Classic tournament.
“That was the first time we all played with each other,” Abey, a second-year student and a returning player, said. “It was a lot of pressure. It was a Top 20-ranked team, so it was a lot of pressure on us. We weren’t all connected.”
The women hit their stride during Game 3 against Carroll Community College, which they beat 8-3. But they suffered a tough 3-2 loss in a game against the College of Southern Maryland in Game 4.
Then the shut-out streak began, as the Riverhawks handily defeated Mercer County Community College, Potomac State College and Montgomery College.
The defense held firm through 270 minutes over the span of three games, keeping a clean sheet throughout.
“You know, it took us a while for us to get there, but our defense has been con-
necting, and it’s a new group of girls, so it’s really awesome that everyone is able to connect,” Abey said.
Still, a few players are recovering from injuries. But coach Jim Griffiths said he is optimistic for the season.
“If we can get healthy,” he said, “I think we can be as good as any team I’ve coached.”
is a major designed for students with a bachelor's degree program already picked out. You can take the exact classes you need to fulfill requirements at your 4 year school in a custom designed associate degree. If AACC has a major in the subject you’re going to get your bachelor's degree in… you should be in that major!
Talk to your professors and your academic advisor now to start making your transfer plan.
To meet with someone about Transfer Studies email Prof. Scott Cooper at sacooper@aacc.edu
Riverhawks women's soccer had a four-game winning streak early in the season. Shown, left, Eden Abey, a defender.
Photo courtesy of AACC Athletics