Students excited for new semester

RABBIA MOLAI managing editor rabbia.molai@my.tccd.edu

The fall semester is finally here, and TCC students said they are ready to get back on campus.

First-time students to college veterans said they are excited to jump into a new semester and see what the 2022-23 school year has to offer. NE student Vito Martinez is an incoming freshman this fall who is excited about furthering his education.

“I’m the first one in my family to go to college and so I kind of want to prove myself,” Martinez said.

Along with the excitement of being a first-generation college student, Martinez said he wanted to explore the campus more as well as expressed his aspiration to create a better life for himself and his family.

Much like Martinez, fellow incoming NE freshman Leslie Cruz is eager to get a start to her college experience.

“I think what I’m most excited about is just getting to meet new people from other places and just getting started with school and living that college life,” Cruz said.

Cruz said she had visited multiple campuses until she found the right fit for her and that she looked forward to seeing what TCC has to offer.

But it’s not just the freshmen who are ready to be back. Thirdyear student Julia Macleod was both excited and nervous about her upcoming roster of classes.

“I am excited for my swim class because I really love swimming and that should be fun,” Macleod said. “I am a little nervous about my Intro to Chemistry class because I’m going for an art degree, so science isn’t something I’m super knowledgeable about.”

On June 23, former Chancellor Eugene Giovannini’s resignation was accepted by the board of trustees, and LeBlanc was appointed as interim chancellor of TCC effective June 24. Since then, she has moved into the job well, according to board President Teresa Ayala.

“I think the transition has been smooth, I really do,” Ayala said. “She has such connections to this college.”

Ayala described the different positions that LeBlanc has had at TCC and how dedicated she is to the college as well as the students, seeing as she was once a student herself.

“We’re fortunate to have

DISTRICT

“Dr. LeBlanc has done an outstanding job on the interim basis,” Barr said. “Frankly, I don’t think the college has missed a beat over the last six months or so while we were going through this transition.”

When asked, trustee Bill Greenhill immediately started describing how much LeBlanc has been able to cooperate with the board.

“She is a leader. She works with people very well,” he said. “She works with us very well, with the board and each member of the board, very respectful. I am so grateful.”

Greenhill said how optimistic he is for the future of the college now that LeBlanc has settled into her position.

“We’re on a roll. See Chancellor , page 6

Budget approved despite board member objection

ALEX HOBEN editor-in-chief alexandra.hoben@my.tccd.edu

The budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year was approved by the board of trustees, but it wasn’t unanimous.

Before the Aug. 18 meeting, anticipation was high in the room for the proceedings, with many mentioning how this was a big one. The docket for this meeting had 19 individual action items, one of which was a presentation of the entire budget to the board for approval.

Every item on the agenda was passed, but not all the items had complete agreement. Trustee Shannon Wood opposed three items: the budget itself, the yearly property tax rate and a connectivity proposal with Verizon.

During the deliberation, she expressed her concerns, particularly about the tax rate and how it would affect her constituents.

Then, when asked to comment after the conclusion of the public meeting, she got more personal.

“We have a lot of people in my constituency that are low-income, and I don’t want them to be homeless, and it really upsets me when they tell me their bills have gone up,” she said. “And you know how the appraisals have gone up. My daughter’s one of those people, so it’s very upsetting to me because I don’t want people to lose their homes.”

The board set the property tax rate at $0.13017 per $100 of assessed property value. While it’s the same rate as last year, Tarrant County property values have gone up, meaning more people’s property tax bills have increased.

Board Vice President Kenneth Barr reassured the public regarding the rate.

“The actual proposed rate is the same as the actual current rate for the prior year. That’s the See Meeting , page 6

Food (continued from page 1) was available through Subway,” he said. “Those will include Stacked Mile High Deli, Rooted Plant-based Bowls, Motown Pizza as well as a hot food station that will rotate between campuses.”

The stands currently use a cashless ordering system where students can walk to the kiosk located next to the counter and order or get the app Toast on their phone which allows them to order ahead of time.

“I like the ordering,” Alvarado said. “The way you can order online instead of standing in a line.”

But what Alvarado was most excited about was the fact that she would not need to be using the food trucks again. She described how she didn’t know where the food trucks would be on campus, nor what time

Chancellor

or even if they were going to be there that day.

“The food trucks were just ridiculous,” she said. “Their pricing of the food — it was a hit or miss. We never knew, sometimes they never showed up, we didn’t know the location. It was always inconvenient to find them.”

When asked about the food trucks NW coordinator of testing Martin Pham expressed his frustration with the price of the food compared to the quantity.

“They were expensive. $12-20 per plate and the plates were ridiculous,” he explained while gesturing to show the generally smaller size of the plates.

The food trucks were arranged by Genuine Foods for TCC during the transition

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There’s no question that we’re going forward,” Greenhill said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we have a brilliant future coming.”

According to the board, LeBlanc has been hard at work during her initial six months in her association with the TCC administration. During the Aug. 18 board of trustees meeting, it was mentioned that LeBlanc had several appointments with the board members as well as the chief operating officer Susan Alanis, to work with and clarify items of the budget that would be approved later that evening.

“I want to thank Dr. LeBlanc and Ms. Alanis and all those who have been meeting with the trustees over a lot of this material to make sure their questions were answered and addressed,” Ayala said.

Currently, there is no immediate need to search for a candidate for the permanent position, Barr said.

“I would anticipate we’ll take action later,” he said. “At this point, things are running well, and I don’t think we’re in a hurry to start the process.”

According to vice chancellor of communications and external affairs Reginald Gates, there has not been an official timeline or process set yet for the search.

“The board wanted to take intentional time to look at the overall organizational needs of the college.” period from the closing of Subway to the opening of the new sites.

When asked about the search, Ayala explained how both the board and LeBlanc are focused on putting the students first and keeping the district running efficiently after these changes.

“We were obligated to keep that process going, Sandra handled that schedule in the phone calls, scheduling that daily as well as the groundwork,” Preyer said.

He explained how the initial offer of the food trucks was made without fully understanding how the industry worked, thus it was difficult to keep it consistent.

Sandra Bartron - the retail manager for Genuine Foods contracted by TCC was the one making phone calls to ensure that the food trucks for the next day were locked in for TCC locations.

“A day of break-even is a day of wasted time for them,” Preyer said. “And so it was very difficult, certain locations and certain campuses really supported that effort. Through the rotation, you found out what campuses those were and that’s where the trucks wanted to be, other locations there was no interest.”

Genuine Foods is currently looking for students to apply for the positions they have available across the district.

Currently the employees are provided by Genuine Foods as well as a staffing agency.

Preyer is hopeful that the TCC community will be able to see the effort that Genuine Foods has put into their stands to make a high-class product.

“Everything as you’ll see is done with quality in mind, and just making it a good experience for everyone,” he said.

“But as far as how we’re going to move forward, I think we’ve been evaluating that because we need to just make sure that the wheels continue to run and that the students are still being served and the community is still being served,” she said. “Because again, we had to make sure we were focused on the college and the students and that’s where our focus has been, and she knows that too.”

Meeting

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$0.13017 tax rate,” Barr said. “The proposed rate honors the commitment made to voters for the 2019 bond program to absorb the new debt service without raising the overall rate. That’s the commitment we made, and we’re honoring that commitment.” Also on the docket was the approval of a cumulative $4.1 million over three items for the acquisition and installation of furniture for the NW renovation project.

“Essentially we did one bid with six different categories of furnishings that are required for the NW Campus redevelopment,” said chief operating officer Susan Alanis.

Many items highlighted in the new budget were changes being made to TCC staffing, particularly the addition of new positions and an increase in pay rates. Interim Chancellor Elva LeBlanc highlighted how much thought and preparation went into these decisions when board members commended the thoroughness of Alanis and her team.

“We’re doing the due diligence and that’s important to mention. We’re also being more transparent than ever before,” she said. “Because you had personnel lumped in budget areas where you couldn’t monitor them and now we will be able to monitor them much better.”

LeBlanc also mentioned how important it is to realize that TCC has an incredibly important position not only in the county but on a state level.

“When we talk about the budget, we seldom take time to discuss the return on investment and critical role that TCC plays in the economic development of the entire region,” she said.

She emphasized how the revenue coming in from the college wasn’t just in the items in the budget but in the cultivation of the students attending the college.

“We are educating the current and the future workforce,” she said. “They’re becoming taxpayers, and they’re contributing to the economy. And it’s not just them, they bring their siblings along so when you look at the students for example in ECHS [Early College High School], they’re making sure their brothers or sisters are joining in, getting an education at TCC so we are huge. We make an enormous impact on the whole economy of Tarrant County and the North Texas region and that should be discussed along with this budget.”