Feb 2016 - Vol23 No4

Lions’ Roar A Student Voice Periodical

Involving Student Life February Vol.23 No.4

Welcome to Spring 2017 at Normandale Community College. In this month’s issue of the Lions’ Roar, we will focus on the new diversity center in the Kopp Student Center. Also, fantastic articles about our creative writing club, The Paper Lantern, and students struggling to stay awake during class, and on campus. “A Day in the Life of a Poet” was submitted by Steven Dodds, and we’ve included editorials from our staff writers. Please read, share, and follow us on issuu.com.

Michael Achterling Lions’ Roar – Editor-in-Chief

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We want to document the student’s college experience through the eyes of every student. We welcome all contributions from aspiring journalists and photographers. Please stop by the office and tell us how you’d like to contribute to your student voice periodical.

Lions’ Roar Office: K1401 (directly across from US Bank) 1 LRSVP

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The 45th President of the Divided States of America

Photo courtesy of The New York Times

Editorial by Michael Achterling After the 2016 election, I was confused. I have been taught to be a tolerant, inclusive, respectful person, Donald J. Trump, was none of those things. The country voted against my will in all the right places. The choice to me was obvious; however, many Americans thought differently. It was a hard realization. I became out of touch with rural Americans, and didn’t feel the anti-Clinton sentiment in my social bubble. I thought the hateful rhetoric of Trump would be his undoing, and it wasn’t.

Now, in the early days of President Donald J. Trump, executive orders have begun to outrage his opponents. Building a barrier wall on the southern border, instituting a federal hiring freeze, and pushing two controversial oil pipelines back into the forefront of daily political conversation, are only the start of a much larger political agenda.

These actions will have opposing reactions. The protests will continue, and possibly become larger. The divisions between

liberals and conservatives will continue to widen, just as they did during the Obama administration, with no clear end in sight.

These divisions between ideologies were created over the last 20 years. The invasion of Iraq, the financial collapse and government response of 2008, a healthcarefor-all mandate, and the rise of the Tea Party, all contributed to the discourse which is now running rampant throughout the United States. Then, an outsider businessman capitalized on these divisions which created an even deeper divide.

Within President Trump’s first week, a common theme has begun to immerge. Trump evaluates information contrary to his own beliefs as partisan “fake news”.

He has cultivated his own reality to support his positions aided by fringe media sites like Info Wars, and Breitbart. He believes if his go-to-media sites disregard information published by the New York Times, or Washington Post, then he should as well.

This creates an echo chamber of distrust within journalism, and

has led to the rise of the posttruth world now upon us.

When majorities of Americans read only what they agree with they miss the other half of the conversation entirely. Therein lies the problem. Proper political opinions cannot be formed if you read only half the story. We as a society must rediscover what it means to read often, and widely.

I challenge anyone who reads this editorial to spend an entire week going to different news sources. Branch out. Don’t receive your information from a single media outlet. Watch Hannity and O’Reilly for a week, or Maddow and Matthews in order to see how your opinion can change, or not change. Different media organizations focus on different aspects of a story, and only through careful understanding of media can a more complete picture be assembled in an individual’s mind.

President Trump accrued more votes where he needed them, and Secretary Clinton won more votes nationwide; none of this matters anymore. Donald J. Trump is the 45th President of the United States. It is time to govern, and yes, disagreement, protest, and peaceful assemblies are part of that process. However, a national conversation about our country’s divisions must be held without yelling, or assumption. We, as a country, must begin to come back together.

President Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is time for our house to come back together.

If we fail to do so, dark times may be on the horizon for these divided states of America.

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Students participate during Normandale’s Involvement Fair held in the Garden Room. (photo by Michael Achterling)

Students pose for a photo during Normandale’s Involvement Fair held in the Garden Room. (photo by Michael Achterling)

Students participate during Normandale’s Involvement Fair held in the Garden Room. (photo by Michael Achterling)

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Jeannette Sanchez: The Diversity Center Manager Story by Joe Peeples-Hampton

January is its third month of operation and the brand new Diversity Center (DC) is already seeing rapid patronage. It is conveniently located across from where students go to kickback so often, at the pool tables and next to the fireplace in the Kopp Student Center.

Growing full of favorite literature from around the globe, students have literally been everywhere just browsing the library section and the room does not have to be very big. The bigger presence there is diversity, and the biggest energy in the room is Jeannette Sanchez.

A Title-9 Deputy, Associates, Bachelors, and double Masters Degree holder in her own right, she was also a grants manager in Washington for a time before coming to be our Assistant to the VP of Student Affairs and new Diversity Center Manager at Normandale.

When asked what diversity was, she pondered for a brief moment before answering simply, “me.”

Born and raised in Alaska with a mixture of Caucasian and Mexi-German cultures, it is true, students find her at the intersection of identity and personality.

The interview had to stop.

Something was awry at the DC. She casually strolled over from where we were

at the Overlook; stepped inside, spoke to the students before propping the door and walking back. She returned ready to continue.

Rule number one: the door stays open.

She came out at 27. Leaving her husband of 6 years, she made it a mission to raise her two children Ricardo and Rosita honestly, and responsibly, by example. It is the same responsibility she has for creating a welcoming and understanding environment for new and returning students, parents, nontraditional, international and even married students as their advocate. Jeannette has been building a professional portfolio as a voice for students’ rights since being in education at Washington University, in St. Louis, to hands-on life experience in the edge of places such as Ukraine and Guyana while with the Peace Corps; doing extensive work with HIV and LGBT NGOs. “There are various ways of experiencing life,” Sanchez said “Your language, your education, socioeconomic background, race, ability, size, and internationality all play a role in your way of navigating your surroundings.” An academic aspiration of Sanchez is to start incorporating DC events into classroom curriculums.

There are many events planned for the spring that will introduce

Jeannette Sanchez, Normandale’s Diversity Manager

you to the diversity at Normandale. She sees the new center as a resource for not only students, but faculty as well and the plan is interconnected growth.

Students will hear from speakers who represent our campus’ own diversity, and have the opportunity for on-site open discussions about prides and pitfalls facing different cultures in our student body. Even on the internet,—the DC is in works to establish an online connection, maybe an app, for next year to stay current and connected in easily accessible ways.

This semester, the DC is looking for about four creative student workers who are willing to begin staffing daily operations and programming events. If interested, email Jeannette Sanchez at jeannette. sanchez@normandale.edu, or head on over and ask for more information in person!

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The Paper Lantern Story by Amy Lee As this semester progresses, it will become easier and easier to think only about the mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell and the proper use of a semicolon and the difference between derivatives and integrals. And while learning those things is important, it is not all that Normandale has to offer.

Normandale is a place to learn and grow, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Students can draw from the Normandale experience outside of the classroom by

reading the Paper Lantern, Normandale’s literary journal.

Earlier this semester, students submitted their fiction writing, poetry, and artwork (including photography) to the journal.

Then, the Creative Writing Club analyzed the entries and selected their favorites.

The process was not always easy. Every week, the club would meet, read entries, and discuss them. Because there were over seventy submissions, the Creative Writing Club had their work cut out for them narrowing them down. Lynette Reini-Grandell, a faculty member who sat in on some of the Creative Writing Club meetings, said, “The

“Figure Drawing Model” by Katie Varvel, featured on the cover of The Paper Lantern

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students deserve a great round of applause for putting this fall’s issue together.” Both the students in the Creative Writing Club and the students who submitted to the Paper Lantern put in hours of hard work.

That hard work paying off. The Paper Lantern has just been released. Look for free copies near the entrances and other spots around Normandale.

Why not pick up a copy to read in between study session or during break? You might just see the writing or art of one of your classmates. According to Melanie Ven, co-secretary for the Creative Writing Club,“The publication is entirely made up

by Normandale students, and perhaps you’ll be surprised by the names you find in this edition!” Whether or not you know one of the writers or artists in this edition of the Paper Lantern, reading it is a great way to connect to the community here at Normandale.

If you’d like to become even more connected, check out w w w. t h e P a p e r L a n t e r n . o r g .

The Paper Lantern website is the place to go if you are interested in submitting to the journal in the spring or if you want to read editions of the Paper Lantern from previous semesters.

Whether you’re looking for a way to connect with fellow students at Normandale or just want to experience a wide variety of art and writing, I’d highly recommend reading the Paper Lantern.

Sleepy Students and Sweet Dreams Story by Katharine A. Menning Netflix, texting, YouTube, homework, procrastinating on homework, Facebook, Snapchap, cramming for an exam, test, or quiz, pulling allnighters to study, etc., all these have one thing in common: they keep us late at night and deprive us of our sleep. Since I have started going to Normandale, I have noticed quite a few students trying to catch a few z’s on couches in the Kopp Student Center or in the Library, at tables all over campus, or any other place someone can get a few winks. As a student here, I have experienced a shortage of sleep. I have even taken advantage of catching a snooze on some of the chairs or couches at the Library or Student Center.

I understand the struggle to get enough sleep. Professors give lots of homework, but on top of that, many of us have jobs and personal lives which take up much of that time. And then, some of us have a problem of procrastinating. We leave everything for the last minute and end up staying up into the wee hours of the morning, trying to get everything done before it’s due the next day. I personally have procrastinated and stayed up late, trying to get the assignment done. I also have a job and personal life that takes up most of my time after I get home. The struggle is tough.

Photo Courtesy of Newsela

According to a report written by William Dement, M.D., Ph.D. and published

by Stanford University, the average amount of sleep that a college student needs to get is over eight hours. I am betting that well over half the students here don’t get that amount of sleep every night.

Also in the study, Stanford University stated that if this eight hours guideline is not met, a sleep debt is created.

A deprivation of sleep leads to health problems and even death for some Americans. In the report, it is also said that the obstructive sleep apnea is known to affect 30 million Americans. In Gallup Poll surveys says that about 56% of the adult population says that they experience drowsiness during the daytime. Out of one thousand subjects studied, 34% were found that to be extremely sleepy.

Thankfully, there are solutions and things to help. One way is to make sure that you get

to bed at a decent time. By getting enough sleep, it gives your body the rest you need so that you can function properly.

Getting proper sleep also helps with being able to study and learn properly. Another way to get a proper night of rest is not to pull all-nighters.

Now I know on occasion, an all-nighter is needed, but not every week. To prevent allnighters, students need to not procrastinate on homework. I know that can be hard but if it saves you from missing out on those precious hours of sleep, I believe that it is well worth it.

One last bit of advice is to stay off social media, YouTube, and Netflix that keep you up during the night. It also entices procrastination as well.

If you follow these simple pieces of advice, it will improve your sleep patterns and even your health. I applied a few of these to my life and have reaped the benefits. Hope you all get a good night of sleep!

Sweet dreams!

February Vol.23 No.4

A Day in the Life of a Poetry Intern Story by Stephen Dodds Getting out of bed at four in the morning, before a two-and-half hour drive to the Brainerd Lakes area was certainly not what I had expected to be doing as part of my internship. It was not at all, what I expected, yet that is precisely what happened over the weekend of October 16 and 17. When the internship began, I had no idea that I would find myself standing before a group of poets, reading my own poetry to them as they gathered at the annual League of Minnesota Poets Convention. It was at this convention, held in Baxter, Minnesota, where among other things, awards were given for poetry written in a variety of forms, ranging from haiku, narrative, topic specific poetry and in all, there were twentyone contests.

The League of Minnesota Poets consists of seven chapters, covering the entire State of Minnesota. They are Polaris Poets, based in Duluth, Grand View Poets, based in the St. Cloud/Sartell area, Heartland Poets, based in the Brainerd Lakes Area, Mississippi Valley Poets & Writers, the most local to me, and with whom I am spending my semester long internship, as they are based in the Twin Cities. In addition, there is the Southeastern Minnesota Poets chapter, based in Rochester, and last of all, Mankato based, is the Southern Minnesota Poets Society.

Initially my role as an intern was to aid the production of the award certificates, as a proofreader/ editor. I was to help ensure that the certificates

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were being produced in the right amount and in the right categories. There were awards for First, Second, and Third Place, as well as several Awards of Merit. In addition, there were also certificates for Honorable Mentions. It was also necessary to ensure that the correct names and poem titles made their way onto the Certificates. Each of the First, Second and Third placed poets won cash prizes.

In all there were twenty-one different contests, which the Contest Chair, (and my Intern supervisor) Peter Stein said that “entries came in from across the USA as well as a few from Canada”. Many of the winners joined us at the convention, held at the Arrowwood Resort, in

Pensive Poet Steven Dodds

Baxter. The resort was a great location for poetry, as there was a definite rustic appearance to the log cabin style exterior and spacious comfortable rooms.

In attendance were members from all the chapters across the State of Minnesota. All League members are affiliated to the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS), who co-ordinate an additional poetry contest for undergraduate students, which offers for top prizewinners the publication of their own chap book, a cash prize and some reading engagements.

Sharing the stage with some of these great poets, I was privileged to read a few of my own poems and was particularly

Pensive Poet Steven Dodds poses for a photo next to a gnome.

encouraged, when during one of them I could hear an audible gasp from several of the audience members, all poets like me. With encouragement like this I plan to move on with my studies at a four-year school that I value as a great learning tool. I hope to put what I learned there, and in my poetry classes, with Normandale’s Matt Mauch, to good use as I plan my career in publishing. Certainly, a contest with such a prize is a great incentive, but it is not just about the competition, rather it’s more about letting out the creativity that resides in me, in us, in everyone.

After the event was completed, Contest chair, Stein reflected on my interning thus: “Stephen was a great help in preparation for our annual contest. Even as the Contest

Chair, it is easy to forget how much work is involved as what seems like small tasks really add up. Stephen helped with these things, like typing up over 200 award certificates and making sure all the names, and titles of the poems, were spelled correctly. I was very appreciative to have Stephen take those jobs and get them done with minimal instruction.

I gave him a task and he got it done. We also put him to work at our Fall Conference.

This helped the organizers be able to take part more in the conference that they had planned rather than being the ones running around behind the scenes. Stephen’s readings of the award winners, were well delivered on cold reads as well.

It was a joy to work with him and hope he joins us for other

events in the future.”

The keynote speaker was Park Rapids, Minnesota based poet, LouAnn Shepard Muhm, who read excerpts from her first full-length poetry collection, Breaking The Glass. She shared her work with an eager audience and later signed copies of her book.

As a member of the AFA in Creative Writing Program at Normandale, I can recommend the program. The reasons are many, not just because of the excellent instructors, but with the annual Writing Festival (in spring) and the exposure to writing for an audience via the Paper Lantern, the college literary journal, there are many opportunities, not least of which is the possibility of interning in the publishing world in one of its many guises.

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Photo Illustration Courtesy of The Atlantic

Closer to Closure: Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative Editorial by Joe Peeples-Hampton There’s an old country saying I believe is unintentionally applied to every New Year’s resolution and tagline: hindsight is always 20/20, meaning—through a mixture of positive and negative experiences and learning their solutions — times clearing and molding of our perspective on life situations.

Basically, an “if I knew then what I know now…” kind of outlook. It is almost as if you reach one of those days in life, look up, look back and everything disappointing or misleading up until that point now makes sense and the right choice seems so obvious. Nothing was for nothing and there is nothing inbetween about it like an epiphany.

Up until then I needed to be warned and prepared for a change, but I am learning that is not always the case in life. It can allow moving forward to a point of closure to which I believe I have almost arrived. Enough so that I can write this reflection and possibly guide another newly navigating adult

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to the other side. However this New Year will be the actual practice of my own. So, while I was never one for one day New Year’s resolutions, I will say that I neither think the same way nor see situations with the same perspective as before. A lot will be applied to this upcoming year which was learned from 2016: New Year, Improved Mindset.

Experience dictates our timing and outlook on the world and it was last year when usual social formalities began to feel unnatural to me.

Facebook seemed like a distant land, full of anxiety-producing updates on near and far events as I scrolled up and down my timeline. I wanted to see how my family and peers were handling it. They were managing... some with families even. Started from those teen pregnancies we used to talk about in the high school hallway. Not fully taking into account our differing circumstances, selfconsciousness begins to develop. A lot of them had two babies now and are working husbands or wives. Life is moving at different rates for all of

us. It was hard keeping up socially knowing that I had to return to my own version of growing pains. I learned quickly even my parents are people too; still figuring it out.

We had been in recovery from the deep losses of two sisters and my grandmother. Time revealed to me that I am also getting older. I was doing what was expected of me: be adult, work, school, maintain, but life still felt like, what was I doing with the time? Waiting to get control of the reigns? I was working three jobs.

I started school again to regain a routine and sense of focus. I moved into my first apartment. I was living and providing on my own but I still felt like someone’s child. Three of my youngest siblings got their driver’s licenses’, graduated high school and left for college over the course of the school year and summer. I was still learning things about being my own functioning adult who had yet to explore any passions. As an observer, it is easy to feel largely insignificant in such a big, fastpaced place, so for the better part of

the year I became socially detached.

Although it may not seem like a big thing, I bet if you were to go even one week without social media you will see just how disconnected the world really is becoming. Not much of an avid user anyway, I completely stopped watching any television or using social media to clear my space and to make my world more connected and meaningful. Soon enough it was difficult keeping up in basic daily conversation if I had not seen “that meme” or “that video” or “that commercial”. I lost touch with some of my closest friends. I missed many events: my niece’s baby shower, first cousin’s wedding and my Godson’s birthday party among others. This attempt to become closer to closure appeared to push me further away.

Family, friends, strangers all showed me something about the world I had not seen before. The people, well-meaning as they may be, are not against you, but they are for themselves. Having to protect their feelings against triggers, their ideas against ridicule, their spirits against despair; they are trying to maintain just as you are in the best way they know how. Growth is not comfortable. Roots have to break apart and you are not always provided luxury time to figure anything out. Life is an on-the-fly kind of gig. It is constantly moving and changing in front of us whether we choose to pay attention to it or be distracted by our feelings about it.

Your growth is not largely dependent upon your love interest, best friend, parent, or sibling or how they feel about what has happened to you. It is in how your character chooses to react—based on what you have already experienced and now know to apply to any situation—that determines whether you have grown closer to who you see yourself becoming. Who

Photo Courtesy of RedOrbit

is you? A part of my hiatus was applying perspective. You cannot put the same amount of energy into every person and situation. I had to learn not to take everything so personally. From being told “no” or wait to people offering advice and critiques, we do not all have the same experiences to come to the same conclusions: how much have you had to break through? How far have you had to climb? That is why everyone’s opinions are valid; it is just a different route to a common goal and some routes, at certain times, are better than others but we learn to trust the many lessons we learn throughout life and our feelings about them.

The only thing constant in life is change. Everything is changing.

Everything will change. That can be scary when you are living life just to live it, but it can also be exciting when you are prepared for

its unavoidable changes. Here’s to acknowledging our growth. We are forgiving ourselves of any unnecessary anxiety, guilt and negativity we accepted in previous years. We are allowing ourselves to make mistakes, learn and feel no shame for not knowing better but confidence in wanting to learn better. We are trying. We will experience different places, foods, cultures and ask difficult questions to bridge gaps in the knowledge of ourselves and others. If you want to be understood, understand. We are also forgiving others; giving up our right to hurt them back for hurting us in their mistreatment of our feelings in ways they may or may not have been conscious of. We are releasing tensions and grudges to appreciate potential and effort. Progress is not about speed rather direction. Let’s accentuate the positive in this New Year.

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