A first-year secondary Spanish education student will be the next student member of AACC’s Board of Trustees.Director of Student Engagement Amberdawn Cheatham, who leads the
committee that accepts the nominations for student trustee candidates, said the panel chose Conor Curran, a Student Government Asso ciation senator, because he has experience in student leadership.“[Thecommittee] decid ed that Conor was the best representative for the posi
Photo by Graig Bracey
The change comes as the college moves toward mak ing the student experience in an online SYNC class equal to the face-to-face experience.
Lilly Roser Reporter
Online SYNC courses that have included a single virtual meeting per week now will meet at least twice a week so students who take
Students who take on line SYNC courses this sum mer and fall could be meet ing more often over Zoom or Microsoft Teams with their professors and classmates.
College to hold more fall classes in person
First-year secondary Spanish student Conor Curran will begin his tenure as a BOT member on July 1.
SYNC class meetings to mirror face-to-face
TheCampusCurrent.com @Campus_CurrentCampusCurrentPaper CampusCurrentAACC May 2022 The award-winning newspaper of Anne Arundel Community College Page Page7 11
community feel again,” AACC Vice President for Learning Tanya Millner said.
Continued on page 3
First-year nursing student Chassidy Agraii says she is excited to return in the fall.
Still, Millner explained that if more students than expected register for on line-only courses instead of face-to-face classes, the col lege is flexible to open up more online sections.
Photo courtesy of Conor Curran
Photo by Shomari James
have decided that we need to be consistent [so] … all of the online [SYNC] sections will meet the [same] number of minutes as they would in a regular lecture class,” Alicia Morse, dean of the School of Liberal Arts, said. “We're doing this collegewide.”Classes that are
Continued on page 3
a SYNC version of the class will meet with professors and classmates for exactly the same amount of time as those in the face-to-face sec tions of the same course.
Millner explained it is easier for the administra tion to move face-to-face sections online than it is to do theThisopposite.semester, 28.9% of classes are face-to-face, as opposed to the 50% that the
ly involved online content in Canvas plus at least one Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting a week.“We
Second-year psychology student Hamza Iqbal attends a Zoom meeting for his online SYNC class.
AACC will hold 41.5% of its classes on campus in the fall, according to college vice presidents.“Thepush has been to bring back more face-toface offerings so we get that
Riverhawks softball player pitches perfect game.
Punk-grunge style is back in action on campus.
Maryland Gov. Larry Ho gan will swear in Curran on July 1. Curran will replace third-year culinary student Jordan Foley, a lieutenant in
Online SYNC classes, which the college began of fering in March 2020 when campuses closed because of the pandemic, have typical
Students comment on library study room policy.
Zack Buster Associate Editor
tion … based off of his qual ifications and his passion for representing the student body,” Cheatham said.
Zack Buster Associate Editor Dan Elson Editor-in-Chief
Bd. of Trustees to get new student member
Campus Life Campus Life Sports Page 9
Continued on page 3
Campus Current salutes this graduating class. The staff of the student newspa per wishes you everything good in your future.
probably had hoped for.
You never know, what you learned might be exact ly the skill you need when you get to your next job or to the one after that.
Photo by Graig Bracey
Whether it was learning conversational Spanish from my coworkers or cleaning the dirty bathrooms, these experiences taught me valu able life
to the place I am now, and how they will help me in the next steps in my life.
This time last year, I was a high schooler working at Chick-fil-A.Getting threatened by customers over cold fries may not have seemed like a valuable life experience, but making sure they walked away smiling taught me cus tomer service and hospitality.
On May 26, we will be there to congratulate you on graduation day.
Zack Buster Associate Editor
Now that you’re graduat ing from community college, you deserve an in-person graduation ceremony. You deserve the pomp and cir cumstance. You deserve to have all eyes on you as you
Attend your graduation ceremony if you can. Treat this graduation like you won a prize. Treat it like the crown jewel of your life so far because no other grad uate has ever had to earn it the way you earned it.
Letter from an editor
Second-year entrepreneurship student Kaylah Rashid and second-year information systems student Kevin Lemus try on their graduation regalia.
I’m a full-time communi
I can see how those ex periences served as step ping stones that brought me
Fast forward a year, and I’m the associate editor of the Campus Current news paper here at AACC. I have a job in my field that gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me feel like I’m having a good college experi ence, even in this weird time.
Wecircumstances.congratulate you for sticking to your studies even when you were sur rounded by illness, grief and fear brought on by the pan demic.We congratulate you for mastering online learning, for suffering social distanc ing and for not letting the isolation slow you down or stop you all together.
If you graduated from high school two years ago, you probably didn’t get to have a graduation ceremony.
Yourpossible.graduation on May 26 at the Live! Casino & Ho tel is AACC’s first in-person graduation ceremony in two years. You deserve it.
I use every one of those skills at the paper—except for the counting money part. And I’m learning new skills, especially leadership skills.
Even if you don’t real ize it, you can learn lessons from your minimum-wage job, Whiletoo. the job you have now might not seem rele vant to your future or be as enjoyable as you’d like, there’s always something to learn from it.
cations student and I’m dis covering just how many dif ferent social and professional skills I learned at Chick-fil-A: customer service, counting money, crisis communica tion, good listening skills.
You had to go through quarantining, wearing masks, social distancing, taking on line classes, making fewer friends and staying inside all the time. That’s not the usual college
Think about wheth
Workers: Keep options open
walk across the stage to ac cept your diploma.
One year ago, Zack Buster was a high school student working at Chick-fil-A. Now he's the associate editor of Campus Current.
While working for the paper, I began to have these little flashbacks to moments at Chick-fil-A. I began to real ize just how much I learned.
Youexperience.deserve the best ceremony possible and best sendoff
Photo by Frank Fitzgeralde Libom
To not even know your teachers these two years isn’t normal. To not even meet your classmates in person isn’t normal. To not be able to hang out with friends on the Quad simply isn’t the normal college ex perience—or the one you
I use the skills I learned at Chick-fil-A all the time. I use customer service skills when mediating differences between staff members and hospitality skills when con vincing a source to agree to an interview.Theseare things that help me now and will con tinue to help me throughout the rest of my life, whether I end up being a journalist, a sociologist or even a Chickfil-A manager.
Dear Riverhawks Class of 2022:Campus Current con gratulates you for complet ing two years of community college under the worst pos sible
Congrats to our 2022 grads
Evenlessons.ifIdidn’t realize it while I was working there, I learned skills that I use in my current job all the time.
Thank goodness gradu ation is normal this year.
To everyone who isn’t graduating, please come to the ceremony and support these remarkable gradu ates. Come and show them how proud you are of them for pushing through the pandemic to achieve this outstanding goal.
I’m learning how to run staff meetings, how to man age people, how to prioritize tasks and how to budget my time. I’m also learning how to be a leader.
er you could have handled the extreme restrictions that these graduates went through starting in 2020.
| Campus Current | 2022 | May Editorial 2 MeetStaffthe Twitter @campus_current Facebook CampusCurrentPaperFacebook.com/ Instagram @campuscurrentaacc Editor-in-Chief Dan Elson Associate Editor Zack Buster Graphic Designer Mary Kane Newsroom Manager Kaylah Rashid Photo Editor Frank Fitzgeralde Libom Photographers Graig ShomariBraceyJames Reporters Maggie Brown Kyle Cleary Jenna Lagoey Luke Lanham Lilly D'AngeloVanceRoserWildWilliams Faculty Adviser Sharon O'Malley Photographers on Page 1, top Frank Fitzgeralde Libom Dan KellyElsonHurd Contact CampusCurrent410-777-2296@gmail.com Advertising CampusCurrentAdverts410-777-2803@gmail.com101CollegeParkwayArnold,MD21012
Never forget how spe cial your accomplishments are. Class of 2022: You're the crown jewel of college graduates.
Editoral Board
transfer stud ies student Jamie Gant, who took a SYNC class last se mester that only met once a week, said she would have “definitely … benefited [from having] two Second-yearmeetings.”graphic and web design student Mason
es should meet for the same amount of time.
Student BOT member to take office in July
SYNC courses to meet more
"You shouldn't have … higher standards and ex pectations than if you are in a [fully] online class, a hy brid class or an online SYNC class,” Millner said. “The modality should not matter. You should still have the ex act same exemplary learning experience regardless of the modality.”Elizabeth
dent learning outcomes and objectives of the course are being met,” Bowen said.
Photo courtesy of Conor Curran
of leadership,” Curran said. “Because if we're not working for our students, then who are we working for?”
“Regardless of the [class type] it’s critical that the stu
“A crisis occurred two years ago,” Morse said. “We needed to, as an institution, quickly pivot to online lec tures. … There had been some flexibility provided for faculty around the num ber of minutes, so we have decided that we need to be consistent … starting in the summer,” for all liberal arts classes.
Continued from page 1
the seven other members.
Finally, 5.8% of fall cours es will take the hybrid format, which means students will take the class mostly online with occasional on-campus classroomMillnermeetings.saidthe college must “do the research and look at what has happened over the past five years.”
The nomination process, which started in February, in cluded interviews by a com mittee of student leaders and faculty. Then college adminis trators approved the nomina tion before sending it to Ho gan for the appointment.
Other schools within the college are doing the same.
Butler agreed. He said the extra meeting time would make “online classes feel a lot more interactive if you're meeting more.”
But first-year comput er engineering student Sam Fredrick objected.
Lance Bowen, dean of the School of Science, Technolo gy and Education, agreed.
fully online will continue to operate without any re quiredDependingmeetings.on the class and the professor, the num ber of online SYNC meetings has varied since the college introduced that method of takingMorseclasses.explained that the college created online SYNC sections in response to the pandemic, which closed cam puses and moved all classes online for several semesters.
ed heavily to online for four semesters.Millner explained in-per son courses have value but administrators must take into account that “people's lives have changed. … People are working from home and doing in-home child care and [some people] cannot get to Thecampus.”pandemic has an effect on what the fall will look like on campus, Vice President for Learning Re sources Management Melis sa Beardmore said.
“It should be the same content, and meeting the same objectives,” Colleen Eisenbeiser, dean of Learn ing Advancement and the Virtual Campus, noted. "But it's allFirst-yearonline.”
the Navy, whose one-year term will end on June 30.
In fact, Vice President for Learning Tanya Millner in April created a committee to come up with a uniform definition of “online SYNC” and standardize the require ments for class meetings.
“I feel like it’d be wasting my time because previously, I [felt] one time a week was at a great pace for what I was doing for my schedule and my life,” Frederick said. “So maybe it would inconve nience people to have to go to a class.”
on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, usually twice a week.
college planned for. This se mester, fewer students regis tered for face-to-face classes than college administrators expected.Forthe fall, the college will offer 30.5% of classes fullyAnotheronline. 18.5% of sec tions will be in the online SYNC format, which means students will take part of their coursework online plus they will meet with their professors and classmates
At some points during the past five years, almost all classes were in per son, Millner said. But when COVID-19 hit, classes shift
AACC released its fall catalog in April, featuring more in-person classes than the spring 2022 catalog.
The change will “ensure that the online SYNC expe rience is standardized … so student expectations are standardized,” Cook said.
Continued from page 1
Campus Current | 2022 | May | News 3
In the meantime, the amount of time students spend in meetings for online SYNC classes will match the face-to-face requirement.
Reporter Lilly Roser con tributed to this article.
College to offer extra fall classes in-person
The lone student member of AACC’s Board of Trustees has the same voting power as all the other functionsboard,”equal“They'retrustees.completelytotheadultsontheCurransaid.“Theirarethesame”as
Curran said his tenure as the president of the Chesa peake Regional Association of Student Councils prepared him to become the student member of the Board of Trustees.“I…feel very passionate about educational leadership … and having [the] student voice be heard at every level
The college this semes
Appel, dean of the School of Health Scienc es, agreed that online SYNC classes and in-person class
Photo by Dan Elson
Continued from page 1
SYNC classes will meet for the same amount of time a week as in-person classes. Photo by Shomari James
First-year secondary Spanish education student Conor Currant poses in front of the U.S. Capitol.
Karen Cook, dean of the School of Business and Law, said “the vast majority” of on line SYNC business courses already mirror the face-toface versions. Starting in the fall, she said, all of them will.
If nothing changes with the risk of the pandemic, Beardmore explained, the college “does not anticipate [requiring] vaccines and COVID testing into the fall.”
ter removed the requirement for on-campus students and staff to prove they are vacci nated or have tested negative for COVID-19 each week. On May 19, AACC’s mask man date will expire.
For the first time since the pandemic started, COVID-19 is not a top concern of Anne Arundel County residents, according to an AACC survey that came out in April.
Photo courtesy of Dan Nataf
ing transfer studies student, said he is looking forward to graduating.“Itdefinitely feels like a victory not only because of COVID, but just because I've
Crime is a top concern for 26% of residents, up from 13% in the fall and 10% last spring, the survey revealed.
| Campus Current | 2022 | May News 4
364 test positive for COVID since July ’21
Students who are gradu ating in May said they expect their AACC commencement ceremony to far surpass what they experienced when they finished high school.
Positive cases on campus have been in the single digits sinceTheFebruary.college requires stu dents with positive test re
Second-year business administration student Brandon Timmins graduat ed from high school in 2020 and didn’t get to celebrate
Photo courtesy of Brandon Timmins
Beardmore noted that students accounted for “the bulk” of the positive reports.
First-year mechanical engineering student Cosmo Schafer self-administers a COVID-19 test.
More than 360 AACC stu dents, faculty and staff have reported that they tested positive for COVID-19 since JulyVice2021.President for Learn ing Resources Management Melissa Beardmore said the number is “relatively small” because until March, the college required students and staff to prove they were vaccinated or had tested negative for COVID-19 each week.Amandate to wear masks inside of campus buildings
COVID-19 ranked sev enth on the list of resident concerns, with 14% of those who participated in the sur vey selecting it as their top issue. That compares with 53% who named the virus as the county's greatest prob lem in spring 2021 and 35% who chose it in fall 2021.
“Safety has been our North Star," Beardmore said. "We’ve been more conser vative than others, especial ly in regards to keeping the masksSinceon.”the college began keeping track of campus COVID-19 cases, the num bers fluctuated, peaking at 39 cases the week of Jan. 24.
Zack Buster Associate Editor
AACC grads happy for 1st normal ceremony
sults who take on-campus classes to quarantine at home until an AACC nurse clears them to return to class.
Beardmore, the adminis trator in charge of COVID-19 policies on campus, said it’s possible not everyone who contracted COVID-19 report ed it to Second-yearAACC. English and entrepreneurship student Kasia Olszewski is one who did not.“Ihadn’t gone to the campus, but I had COVID last October and it was nev er asked of me to … tell peo ple,” Olszewski said. “So I think … that number is only
The survey also includ ed responses from 105 AACC students. Their top concerns are economy, COVID-19 and drugs, according to the poll.
For some, the AACC grad uation on May 26 at Live! Ca sino & Hotel will be their first commencement ceremony.
“I didn't have a prom nor graduation,” Timmins said. “I had prom in my ex's back yard and I had my graduation in my ex's backyard. So that's pretty much what I did.”
Nataf noted COVID-19 is not as big of a deal as it was over the past two years to residents who took part in the survey.“Soat the same time when it's declining in impor tance ... people are just will fully deciding to ignore it,” Nataf said. “And just saying, ‘I don't care anymore.'"
In a 514-person survey, county residents say crime and drugs are their most important issues. Shown, political science professor Dan Nataf, who super vised the poll.
ing in my accomplishments, but I will say it’s nice to get recognition,” Katheryne Lo chart, a second-year transfer studies student who plans to attend the ceremony, said. “So it’ll be really nice to have a graduation.”Lochartadded: “It’s al most like the whole phase of my life through the pandem ic was at AACC. So it’s kind of nice to have that sort of come to a close in the graduation and to celebrate my accom plishments when I wasn't able to Lukebefore.”Lanham, a graduat
AACC’s event will be the college’s first in-person com mencement since 2019. In 2020 and 2021, the college hosted a themultyaroundgraduatingDuring“carmencement.”carmencement,studentsdroveRingRoadwhilefacandparentscheeredonfromthesidewalks.“I’mnotoneforrelish
D'Angelo Williams Reporter
will end on May 19.
Dan Elson Editor-in-Chief
First-year film student Shawn Thompson said some might not report their test re sults because they might “be scared of telling people that they have COVID.”
In the 514-person sur vey, county residents named crime, drugs and education as their top concerns. Econ omy, growth, taxes, housing costs and transportation all ranked higher than the virus.
Also, 20% of respon dents ranked drugs as their top issue, up from 9% last fall and 11% last spring.
coming from people that did tell [the Olszewskicollege].”said this may be the case because some people would feel “embar rassed” or “awkward.”
Students who spoke to Campus Current named COVID-19, inflation and rac ism as their biggest issues.
Second-year business administration student Brandon Timmins says he's happy to have a college grad uation because he didn't have one for high school.
Photo by Shomari James
Crime beats out virus in poll, survey shows
Residents are “looking at other problems that they just weren't able to focus on in the past,” AACC political science professor Dan Nataf said. “And drugs are one of them.”
the way he wanted.
been in college courses for like four years now, on and off, and I still don’t have any thing to show for it,” Lanham said. “So, me getting an asso ciate’s degree is a big step."
Lilly Roser Reporter
Some of the funds went to helping students with “ex penses related to the disrup tion of college operations due to coronavirus," according to an AACC press release. These expenses could include food, housing, health care or child
Amaranth’s faculty adviser for almost 10 years, said get ting published in the journal is a big career step for any writer at AACC.
Some students at AACC said they agreed with how the college used the funds.
Hackers “are targeting the college, but they are not targeting anybody specifi cally,” Williams said. “When we talk to other community colleges here in Maryland, we are all fighting the same battle of people trying to capture .edu accounts.”
into this fraudulent page unwittingly gave the hacker access to their AACC portal user names and passwords. The college responded by changing the photo on the MyAACC portal web
they needed to click on a link in the spam email to verify their accounts. Stu dents who clicked on the link saw what looked like the MyAACC sign-in portal. Students who logged
AACC changed the photo on the sign-in portal screen to a shot of the college's mascot so the page does not look like the one hackers used for a scam email. Photo by Lilly Roser
we received … that went out directly as student aid to stu dents. And then we had eli gibility for about $19 million in institutional support.”
wished the college gave more money directly to students.
AACC uses pandemic aid on college needs
students in that remote envi ronment, things like that.”
the email himself. Plus, he said he “had many, many people send him the email [to] say it [was] bad.”
Student arts journal puts out 47th edition
“Amaranth is the place where … the rubber meets the road for making a link between what is learned in the classroom and … [what
AACC received the pan demic-related funding from the U.S. Department of Edu cation; the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security or CARES Act; the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA; and the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Ap propriations Act.
Hackers send spam emails
Sarah Evans, the graphic designer for Amaranth, created the cover art for the 47th edition of the annual student literary magazine.
Since the start of COVID-19, AACC received upward of $31 million in fed eral aid to help the college and its students through the pandemic.Associate Vice President for Learning Resources Man agement Andrew Little said AACC got money to spend on the college and funds to give to the“Westudents.were eligible for both institutional support and student support,” Little said. “So in general, we had about $13 million in aid that
Photo by Zack Buster
Campus Current | 2022 | May | News 5
page so it would no longer look like the page that the hackers“Thecopied.faster [the college] can take action, the less im pact it is to everybody,” Wil liams said.
“I feel lucky to be in volved with something so special,” Levy said. “We had a wide variety of submissions which allowed us, as a team, to create what we felt was the most cohesive voice to represent AACC.”
you] carry with you into the job market,” Brown said.
Writers and artists can submit their work to the ed itors at Amaranth, who vote on which pieces to include in the journal.Second-year creative writing student Eric Levy, the journal’s managing ed itor, said working on Ama ranth has been a great expe rience for him.
Photo courtesy of Eric Levy
Vance Wild Reporter
Director of Information Security John Williams not ed that he discovered the breach when he received
“The thing I like to em phasize with the journal is that it is the best way for cre ative writing students to see that they have skills that are applicable in the workplace,” BrownBrownsaid. added that the journal can help artists and writers use their skills in ways that can get them jobs.
“A little more wouldn't hurt just because most of the people coming here are … not as flexible with their money as people who are go ing to a traditional four-year university,” Heath said.
Circulation technician Corey Allender unboxes loaner laptops.
The spam email told users that the college had locked their email accounts and that to regain access,
Little said the college put the money into tools that students need for succeed ing at“[ForAACC.example] we pur chased laptops for loaner programs for students,” Lit tle said. “We had hotspots available to make sure that they had access to [the] in ternet. We did COVID testing through that process … [and improved] our ability to de liver distance education, pro viding support structures for
A hacker sent more than 10,000 spam emails to AACC email accounts in March, the college reported.
Part of the money assist ed students with “exceptional needs” and emergency costs.
The emails went to a ran dom mixture of students, fac ulty, and staff and contained a link to a fraudulent web site designed to look like the MyAACC login page.
care, for example.
Zack Buster Associate Editor
The 47th edition of AACC’s annual student liter ary magazine will come out on MayAmaranth4. publishes po ems, short stories and photo graphs of student and alum ni artwork.“It’san excellent thing for a resume,” faculty advis er Simon Ward said. “There are many writers and art ists who have had their first things published in Ama ranth and have gone on to be subsequently published elsewhere.”Garrett Brown, who was
Still, first-year biology student Joy Heath said she
club is “Thisimportant.isagood opportu nity to show our communi ty as being welcoming and just a fun place to be and feel comfortable and be yourself,” ShaalanFirst-yearsaid. computer sci ence student Jamil Guthrie Jr. said he joined the club to learn about different cultures and “Soreligions.far,Ithink it’s pretty
Muslim club to talk about Islamic topics
The newly created Mus lim Student Association started meeting on campus in March.Hamza Iqbal, the club’s president, and Ahmed Ab bas, the vice president, said they created the club to ex pand diversity on campus and represent Islam.
| Campus Current | 2022 | May Campus Life 6
“It’s a really pivotal mo ment for the college in which we’re beginning to deepen and solidify our anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclu
Photo by Mary Kane
good and it’s honestly been very enlightening,” Guthrie, a member,First-yearsaid. business ad ministration student Fatima Jamal said she joined the club because she wanted to connect with AACC’s Muslim students.“It’s nice to bond with people who understand that way of life,” Jamal, the club’s secretary, said.
Owen Silverman An drews, an instructional spe cialist of English language learning, said he became the club’s faculty adviser to ad dress diversity on campus.
Photo by Graig Bracey
Iqbal said seven to 10 members joined the club, which meets on Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the third floor of the Truxal Li brary.“I thought maybe there
would [already] be a Muslim Student Association club, because you can see other colleges like Towson Univer sity, University of Maryland, University of Maryland, Bal timore County, they all have it, but we’re the only one that really doesn’t have it,” Iqbal said. “And it’s kind of sad.”Club members discuss Islamic topics, Islamopho bia and diversity. The holy month of Ramadan started in early April and ends in May. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar during which Muslims fast, show generosity and pray.
Dan Elson Editor-in-Chief
sion work,” Silverman An drews said. “And you know, this club’s formation is im pressive because it came from the treasurer,club],”keninseesaidencetogivestuffeachlaborateanywherenoted.peoplereligionple[and]motedent,informationAbbas,students.”asecond-yeartechnologystusaidhewantsto“proandtalkaboutIslam...giveamessagetopeothatIslamisarespectfulwithpeace.”“ThereareMuslimoncampus,”Iqbal“Butwedon’thavetogo[and]colandunderstandother’sreligionandlikethat.So,Iwantittopeopleanopportunitylearn[Islam]basically.”First-yearnutritionscistudentMernaShaalanshecouldeventuallytheclubgrowing.“AlotofpeoplethatarethisgroupthatI’vespotoseepotential[intheShaalan,theclub’snoted.Shaalanalsosaidthe
The Muslim Student Association gathers on the third floor of the Truxal Library to discuss Islam.
GamesandFun Did you know? You can use your AACC username and password instead of a library card at the Truxal Library, except for borrowing hard copies.
“We need more people actually going on campus and being engaged with these types of [clubs],” Iqbal, a second-year psychology student, said. “So, I feel like there’s going to be more peo ple actually coming on cam pus, discussing our religion and just giving back to the community in general.”
like wanting to stand out a little bit,” Brunton said. “I don’t think anybody really … dresses, like, a little punk without wanting to stand out [and] not just kind of like go ing with like [the] standard.”
Students who wear punk and grunge styles take inspiration from ’90s bands like Nirvana. Shown, firstyear fine arts student Jenna Lagoey.
check
“I don’t even necessar ily think that has to do with fashion as much I would say as people are … just fed up with pop culture in general,” FallowfieldFirst-yearsaid. astronomy and physics student Zoe Brunton agreed.
Campus Current | 2022 | May | Campus Life 7 GamesandFun
Punk-grunge makes comeback at college
The punk-grunge cloth ing style is making a come back on the Arnold campus, proving punk is not dead.
“A big part of grunge fash ion is customization,” Jenna Lagoey, a first-year fine arts student, said. “These pants are old. So I cut them again, I made them fit and I added all these details on them. And I like them a lot more now.”
out TheCampusCurrent.com
Gant said. “Personally, for me, I just like this because I think it’s just comfortable. It’s easy for me. I have a lot of pieces that could just go on.”
Zack Buster Associate Editor
“I would say it’s just a lot more unique,” Fallowfield said. “And it’s a lot more or ganic than with a lot of oth er types of styles because with a lot of other styles it’s usually so cut and dry. Like, everything’s just sort of dif ferent versions of the same thing.”Fallowfield said the re volt against the norm is not pointless.“Idon’t really view it as … rebelling against stuff just for the sake of rebelling against it,” Fallowfield said. “Like, it has to be First-yearpurposeful.”transfer stud ies student Jamie Gant said the style fits her.
“Peopleagreed.who like certain styles of music also might tend to like certain styles of visual aesthetic,” Abell said.
Punk-grunge mixes the dark colors and torn clothes of ’80s punk rock bands and the old, repurposed flannels of ’90s grunge musicians. The style features layers, metal spikes and studs, old military jackets and custom ized thrift store clothing.
Lagoey said punk style clothes are “a lot of that kind of second-hand stuff, you know. It’s really getting the most out of things, [and] things are kind of beaten up a little bit.”
Looking for answers?
Abell agreed.
“People are able to ex press themselves better,”
Second-yearsaid. electrical engineering student Ash Abell
of it is definitely the ease of it, where there’s not a whole lot of thought that has to go into actually achieving the aesthetic,” Abell said.
“I mean, [it’s] kind of
Second-year graphic de sign student Sean Fallow field said the style isn’t just about music or even fashion.
“I would have to say part
With the revival of ’80s and ’90s punk and grunge music, the fringe styles that those bands inspired also re turned.“You definitely see a lot of the bigger trends are kind of influenced by Nirvana, kind of Kurt Cobain style,” Lagoey
Reporter Kyle Cleary con tributed to this article.
Fallowfield agreed.
Photo by Frank Fitzgeralde Libom
Fears ease as COVID cases drop in county
Fewer students have enrolled at community col leges, both nationally and at AACC recently, in part be cause of the COVID-19 pan
Second-year business student Michael Davis and first-year zoology student Chloe Yates study without masks outdoors on campus.
Students praise new building’s open space Focus groups reveal tips for engagement
First-year elementary education student Miriam Zorc looks through a microscope in the new Health and Life Sciences building. Students say they are enjoying the new building.
Students who take courses in the Health and Life Sciences building said they enjoy the sundrenched structure’s modern feel, open layout and large spac es.
demic. In addition, more stu dents are dropping out.
In an informal poll of 20 students, 14 said they feel safer now that COVID-19 cas es are falling in the county.
Still, some students said they are still not feeling as safe as First-yearothers. creative writ ing student Patrick Caswell said he usually wears a mask whenever he goes inside a building on or off campus.
Cheatham, who co-chairs a subcommit tee on student engagement, said student engagement is vital to creating a quality col lege“Betterexperience.student engage ment increases a sense of belonging for the student,” Cheatham, AACC’s direc tor of student engagement, said. “And if a student feels a sense of belonging, they feel a sense of ownership in the
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said. “And there's a bunch of resources throughout the building where you're able to access any teachers that you like, and they've been very helpful.”
the college’s provost, said at the time. “We’re trying to find ways to meet students where they are and get them back to Amberdawncampus.”
Two AACC vice presi dents formed an Enrollment, Retention and Completion Council in November to ex plore ways the college can help students stay in school.
of students,” KyAnna Ar rington, a transfer studies student who started taking classes here in 2018, said.
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York Times, Anne Arundel County averaged 173 new cases on April 19 compared with 731 on Jan 15. The county lifted its indoor mask mandate on Feb 1.
Students told Campus Current in April they like the way they feel in the building.
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“The bright colors, the windows … the vibe of the building, the fact that when ever I'm in here, people seem to come up to me more and just talk to me,” Cheynne Winters, a second-year
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Approximately 14 stu dents have participated in three focus groups—small meetings at which students can voice their opinions about ways the college can retain its students—this se mester.“[The] experience was good; it was a diverse group
“It was … you know, a safe space where you can talk about whatever you need to talk about. Some things, you know, can get a little bit per sonal, a little bit sensitive.”
“We are seeing a steady decrease in our positivity rate and our vaccination rate is higher than it has been,” first-year nursing student Ja mie Macaraeg said.
AACC students said they feel safer on campus and in public as COVID-19 restric tions are easing up.
“There’s been a decline in retention,” Vice President for Learning Tanya Millner,
see the different types of cells and also they have, like, huge aquariums that you're able to analyze the andforgrowingreallyhaveIt'sTheit'sment,”theZorceducationFirst-yearwater.”elementarystudentMiriamagreed.“Idon'tknow,[I]justlikemoremodernenvironZorcsaid.“Ifeellikebeenbetterlearning....greenhouseisbeautiful.reallyacoolexperiencetothatoncampustolike,seeitandhaveourstuffrightnextdoor.”Thebuildinghas18labsbiologyand20forhealthsciences.“Ilovehowopenitisand
Most students in the in formal poll said they feel safe enough to skip the mask.
community, right? So they’re going to do whatever they need to do to continue to be a part of the Riverhawk family.”
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AACC's Office of Student Engagement helps conduct surveys and focus groups to assess students’ opin ions on how the college can engage them better.
transfer studies student, said. “Like people in here just want to talk to each oth er more.”The 175,000-squarefoot Health and Life Sciences building is the largest on the Arnold campus. It opened in AugustSome2021.students said the building is a useful learning environment.“We'vebeen into the greenhouse a couple of times for the different plants,” Janelle Kellison, a second-year environmental policy and sci ence student, said. “And I've also been into the Biology Department, where I got to
“Me and my family still try to wear masks around most places, unless we're super far away from people,” Caswell said.
Photo by Zack Buster
AACC still requires masks inside campus build ings until May 19. Wearing masks outside on campus is optional.TheCenters for Disease Control and Prevention has said masks are not necessary in counties like this one with low COVID-19 numbers.
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“I just feel like I can go outside more compared to when I was pretty much in my house 24/7,” first-year professional game develop ment student Cole Scanlon said.According to The New
how there's so many differ ent resources like the tu toring center you're able to go to for any class, whether it's environmental, chem istry or anatomy,” Kellison
Cheatham’s committee seeks “to see how engage ment in the classroom and out of the classroom actual ly impacts people’s decision to continue to enroll,” she said.
Students have been par ticipating in focus groups and answering surveys to help AACC administrators figure out how to keep them from dropping out of college.
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dents (two or more) always have priority to use these rooms," the policy reads. “In dividuals working alone may wish to visit the silent study room on the third floor.”
“We did have a gap of two years when we were
virtual,” Mona said. “It didn't make any sense to be collecting then. It would have been pret ty impossible to do that.”The cam pus recently began display ing artwork in the Health and Life classesbeendentsculptureanywelocation“That'spus,”Burnieestobuilding.Sciences“IwouldlikegetsomepieconourGlencamMonasaid.theonewheredon'thavepiecesyet.”RobMuir,astuwhohastakingatAACC
Less than 10 minutes af ter she got into a room and unpacked her backpack, however, three other stu dents knocked on the door and asked her to leave. They told her groups are allowed to kick singles out of the rooms.Not wanting a confron tation, Brown packed up and left. But she said the experi ence left her rattled.
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AACC displays student art in the Health and Life Sciences building, outside of the Humanities building and elsewhere on campus.
Brown said she wouldn’t step back in the library again.
“The experience to me was so upsetting that lit erally,” she said, “I'm … a 33-year-old student crying
According to library policy, groups have priority over individuals for study rooms and may ask single users to leave a room.
Art professor Chris Mona founded AACC’s student col lection in 2001.
Brown said when the group asked her to leave her room, another student was napping with the lights out in the room next door on one side and two students were socializing in the room on the other side.
Barbra Sauce, an artist who has worked with a vari ety of mediums while taking art classes at AACC for more than 20 years, said the pub lic displays of work she has been a part of remind her of all the effort put into creat ing them.“It’sa joy, especially since it reminds me of that collabo rative process,” Sauce said.
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tears because I feel like I was wronged in some type of way,” Brown said.
Former AACC student Carlos Batts created "Hard-Headed," which is dis played in the Health and Life Sciences building.
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But first-year business administration student Mat thew Lewis said it isn’t fair that groups can kick out one person.“Not everyone comes in a group to a library,” Lewis said. “So if you’re there study ing and you have a place you shouldn’t be afraid of some one kicking you out of it.”
Mona said the induction of new works paused during COVID-19. This is the first time the exhibition will be in person in two years.
Photo by Shomari James
Groups take priority in library study rooms
The library is open Mon day through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and closed on Fridays. The policy started in fall 2012. The policy is dis played right outside of every study room on the library’s second and third floors.
An exhibition in the Cade Gallery that runs from May 10 to June 10 will fea ture around 30 student art works.Four or five of these pieces will become part of AACC’s permanent student collection, which started 20 yearsStudentago. paintings, draw ings, sculpture and photo graphs will go on display in Cade, the Health and Life Sci ences building, the sculpture garden, the library and other buildings on campus.
Every year the college purchases a few pieces of art from the student exhibition and rotates the work among buildings.Mona said a professor from a Maryland university juries the show each year and selects the pieces for the exhibition. The student art ists can decide if they want to make their pieces avail able for purchase.
Still, Lewis said the staff shouldn’t monitor the rooms.“Ithink we’re all adults,” Lewis noted.
Second-year commu nications student Maggie Brown said she waited on the second floor of Truxal Library for an hour the week before spring break because she needed a quiet place to prepare for a midterm and hoped to get into one of the 20 study rooms, which are quiet and private.
This year’s juror is Eric Briscoe, coordinator for vi sual arts at Morgan State University.“They set their price,” Mona said. “And so the juror selects work for the students to show and additionally, he or she selects pieces for the studentJohnsoncollection.”saidthe displays are important as they prime students to interact with the art market.“Thenanother thing … is your resume building,” John son said. “So when you’re in the fine arts, when you’re trying to get to that next stage, you’re not just show ing people your work, but you’re telling people what you’ve done with your work and being able to say that your work is in a permanent collection there and being able to put in some lines on that art resume. And it serves a couple purposes. One, to have their work seen … to receive payment for your work, to let it start to become a profession.”
She said she asked a li brarian to remove the sleep ing student so she could do her work in a study room but was told the staff doesn’t “re ally police the lunchsaidstudentroomsseesintowhostudentSecond-yearpolicy.”EnglishMikaylaBorneman,oftenusestheroomsrelaxandlistentomusicaquietspace,saidshestudentssleepinginthe“allthetime.”First-yeararchitectureMatthewBarravinihesometimeseatshisinastudyroom.
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“This library is made for reading, studying [and] using the computers,” Voor hees noted. “If you're using it for entertainment value, then you can just do that at home or on one of these ta bles here. You don't need a whole private room just to do that.”
AACC exhibits student art
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“Note that groups of stu
for eight years, praised the student art collection. Muir contrib uted to pieces on display on the Arnold campus and in the county.Creating work to display on campus “was a learning experience,” Muir said. “I could praise it up by saying, ‘student-inspired student creativity.’”
Library officials con firmed that their policy for study rooms is to allow a group of two or more stu dents to kick out a single person.Some students said the policy is fair and others dis agreed.“If there's someone in the single room, most like ly they're going to be asked to leave,” first-year transfer studies student Jacob Voor hees said. “I think that pol icy should be enforced. So I'm all for it."
“Sometimes I prefer to be alone by myself, especial ly when I don't want to eat in front of others or bother somebody else,” Barravini said.Voorhees said the library should be for school use only.
“It is a chance for stu dents to get their work out there,” Cade Gallery Director Teddy Johnson, who teaches art classes at AACC, said.
Sports
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Athletic Director Duane
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| Campus Current | 2022 | May10
“And because of [their leadership], we ended up winning a pretty good amount of games and made it to the championship," DuffyCantrellsaid. said this honor could help him land a spot on a four-year college’s bas ketball team.
AACC onboards new athletics coordinator
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coach Joe Snowden said the honor is “well deserved. … Jamar led the team scoring. Michael [was also good] in scoring, steals, rebounding [and]Theassists.”All-Region 20 teams include the top players from community colleges in Mary land and highregion.36sistspoints,SheallMiddletonballfeelsMiddletonPennsylvania.saidthehonor“amazing.”Women’sheadbasketcoachLionelMakellsaid“playedconsistentyear.That’snotasurprise.wasoneofthebest.”Middletonaveraged10.42.1stealsand3.1aspergame.Middleton’sstealsrankedfifthintheShescoredacareer-22pointsonDec.1
Erazo, who coached at St. Thomas Aqui nas College in New York, said some of his goals are to cre ate new Riverhawks sports teams and update the fields.
Third-year business student Brian Connolly, who plays multiple positions, is one of the captains.
Guard Brandy Middleton, a second-year public health student, made the All-Region 20 Honorable Mention Team.
“George just had a really diverse background of col lege,” Herr said. “Mainly, [he had] a lot of the things that we were looking for in terms of the field preparation and the hands-on experience that we’re looking for.”
A third-year student and a first-year player have joined forces as co-captains of the Riverhawks baseball team to help motivate their teammates.Headcoach Nick Hoffner said third-year business ad ministration student Brian Connolly and first-year busi ness student Ethan Grieb
Grieb, an infielder and a pitcher, said, “It’s just a cool feeling to have, knowing that the coach trusts you enough to keep everything in check
Baseball team has 2 captains this season
when [players are] not able to come to him when there’s a problem.”Griebsaid he and Con nolly get along well.
Third-year business ad ministration student Brian Connolly, a co-captain of the baseball team, said the coor dinator of athletics is some one the players can talk to.
Photo by Dan Elson
sists a game. Cantrell scored a season high 25 points against Virginia’s Christen dom College on Jan. 31. Cantrell also made the All-Region team in 2020.
“It’s nice to have another member of the athletic staff that players and coaches can work with and talk to,” Con nolly said.
Young, a second-year transfer studies student, av eraged nearly 17 points and 7.6 rebounds a game. Young recorded a season-high 28 points on Nov. 5 against North Carolina’s Sandhills Community steals,averagedphysicalCantrell,College.asecond-yeartherapystudent,13.3points,2.81.3blocksand4.4as
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“I think those guys set an example of the way we want things done here,” Hoffner noted. “We want guys who want to work hard and want to win.”The role of the co-cap tain is to foster good rela tionships with the players and coaches and to show en couragement.Connolly,who plays mul
The National Junior Col lege Athletic Association named three Riverhawks basketball players to All-Re gion 20 Division III teams in earlyForwardApril. Jamar Young and guard Michael Cantrell are two of five players on the All-Region 20 Division III First Team. Guard Brandy Middleton made the All-Re gion Division III Honorable Mention Team.
Forward Michael Duffy, a first-year psychology and health and exercise student, called the winners “leaders.”
tiple positions, said he holds himself to a higher standard as a“Ifco-captain.you’rein a good po sition to win a game or seal a game, I want that on me,” Connolly, a first baseman, pitcher and left fielder, said. “And I want to succeed. And I want to be someone that the team can rely on and look to when times are tough be cause it’s always nice to have one of those guys.”
A former women’s tri athlon coach became AACC’s new coordinator of athletics on AprilGeorge1.
“[I] just [want] to try to improve in any way, shape or form,” Erazo, who called himself “a track and field guy,” said. “It’s a very small program than what I’m used to. I’m used to dealing with at least 22 teams at a time.
“It’s unbelievable,” Mid dleton, a second-year public health science student, said. “It just felt really nice to see all my hard work [pay off].”
against the College of South ern YoungMaryland.also said he made the All-Region 20 team be cause of hard work and lead ership.“The joy keeps me mo tivated,” he said. “My hard work has been shown to the media and fans and coach es.”
Herr said Erazo’s experience will fit into the college.
Men’s head basketball
Erazo replaced Keith Bi gelow, who served as coor dinator of athletics for more than 20 years. Bigelow, who works as a lead groundskeep er, will continue to coach the cross-country team.
Hawks players make All-Region 20 teams
showed the most leadership on the team.
Photo by Gary Demski
The Athletic Department hired a former women's triathlon coach to become the new coordinator of athletics. George Erazo started April 1.
And [AACC has 14] teams. So there’s a lot of room for im provement.”Acoordinator of athlet ics is in charge of schedul ing, athletic programs and facilities like playing fields and the gym. Erazo, a former recreational and facilities assistant at Iona College in New York, earned a degree in sports management from St. Thomas Aquinas College.
Nevins said she didn’t feel pressure to keep the streak alive as the game continued on because she “knew I had defense behind me. So I wasn't really too worried.”Klingensmith noted he was surprised Nevins pitched a perfect game.
right fielder, agreed.
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He said Nevins’s perfect game is “outstanding at any level. It’s a great accom plishment.”Klingensmith said the fastball and the breaking ball were working for her.
Softball pitcher wins Hawks perfect game
“It’s a very rare thing that happens,” Courtney Cro son, who plays second base, noted. “Especially with hav ing 13 strikeouts. It's a very big accomplishment for her.”
“They weren't really swinging the bat,” Brooks said. “Her pitches were mov ing pretty quick and [they had] great movement.”
The pitcher of the River hawks softball team threw a perfect game on April 3 in a 17-0 win against Virginia’s ChristendomSecond-yearCollege.health sci ence student Jaclyn Nevins said she located her pitches well the entire game.
Nevins, who also plays shortstop, said the April 3 game was her first perfect outing.She is the only pitcher to throw a perfect game in six years since head coach Guy Klingensmith has run the team. In the game, Nevins struck out 13 of 15 batters
through five innings.
“It’s just uncommon to [pitch] a perfect game,” Klingensmith said. “Even in Major League Baseball, it’s really not common to pitch a perfect game.”
Campus Current | 2022 | May | 11 Sports
Photo courtesy of Kelly Hurd
Nevins pitch another per fect “Igame.definitely hope that I could stay on top of it,” Nev ins said. “We all play very hard. So the goal always is to progress every game and keep learning. So as we go on, I do hope … we have a pretty good chance to stay successful. So I do hope that I'm able to do my part and stay successful as well.”
“As you play the game, you learn which batters are going to swing at which pitch and where locations need to be [and] not leaving a ball down the middle or easy to hit,” Nevins said. “So as you grow and learn, it gets easier to throw as you go.”
She called Nevins’s per fect game Brooks“crazy.”added she was proud of Nevins.
“You saw her smile a lit tle bit,” Brooks noted. “And we're like, ‘Whoa.’ We were all pretty stoked about it.’”
He also said the players rooted her on during the game.“We just cheered one another up,” Klingensmith noted. “We took it as a team. “That’s what we do.”
He said he could see
Second-year health science student Jaclyn Nevins pitched a perfect softball game on April 3.
She added, “It’s always awesome to make accom plishments like that. So hopefully we could just take that and run with it through out the Herseason.”teammates said Nev ins has the skills to repeat the performance.“Shehitallof her spots,” Croson, a second-year trans fer studies student, said. “She did a very good job [and she] worked on different pitches. And she was just very con sistent.”First-year film studies student Ryann Brooks, a
Klingensmith said he won’t raise his expectations for Nevins.“Shehas enough pres sure on herself to perform every time she steps in the circle,” Klingensmith said.
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