After almost two months without faculty senates, the board of trustees unanimously approved to bring them back.
Several board members expressed their support for reestablishing faculty senates during the Oct. 16 meeting. Trustee Shannon Wood said she wanted to be invited to the first meeting of the faculty senate and praised the work of those behind the proposed changes.
“This is huge for the faculty,” Wood said. “I’ve gotten numerous phone calls, numerous emails. And it just makes my heart proud that you did it this quick.”
The last time the issue was on the table, the board didn’t take any action.
Former Joint Consultation Committee Chair Madelyn Bowman, who wrote and presented her proposed changes to the board during the Aug. 21 meeting, said morale has been low since the faculty senates were dissolved.
“Right now, we don’t have one voice that’s saying, ‘Hey, this is what happened,’” she said. “We’re getting information, but it’s coming from several different sources. And so it’s not as it’s not as easy to parse.”
Senate Bill 37, which went into effect Sept. 1, limits faculty senates at higher-education institutions to being an advisory body of 60 members and for their meetings to be recorded. The bill also requires regular curriculum reviews and establishes a way for individuals to See Board, Page 3
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Students call for campus art gallery
Painting II students, who graduated in the spring, had an art exhibition Oct. 2 for the work they did the previous academic year. Without a gallery, faculty said they used the painting classroom for the show by emptying out the room and cancelling class.
All programs but NE have dedicated space for exhibits
different persons, students, faculty alike, have asked about what could we envision?” NE art department chair Suzanne Perez said.
NE Campus has been without an art gallery since it opened in 1968, and students and faculty expressed frustrations that they are missing a space to show their work.
TR, SE and South campuses each have an art gallery or corridor that invites students and faculty to showcase their art in a professional and appreciative setting.
“On multiple occasions over those years, different higher administrators, different supervisors,
NE Campus was TCC’s second campus to open, coming shortly after South Campus. It is the only one besides NW lacking a dedicated space for artwork, and NW’s is already in the works.
The Collegian reached out to Chancellor Elva LeBlanc and Vice Chancellor of Communications and External Affairs Reginald Gates but has not received comment.
Perez, who has worked for TCC since 2000, said NE faculty
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New
Inforgraphic by Dom Martinez/The Collegian
“Journaling for Emotional Wellness,” from the University of Rochester Medical Center explains the benefits of journaling.
Keeping daily journal tracks personal history
and moving forward,” he said.
Darrell Bartell has kept a journal for over 27 years. What started as a New Year’s resolution in 1998 has carried him through year after year of consistent journaling.
As an English professor at TR Campus and an avid writer, he says journaling helps let go of the past.
“The best thing about journaling that you will find after you go ahead and write is turning the page
He explained that the one thing many people have in common is stress. Journaling can assist with relieving the feeling, as someone is able to lay out their troubles on a page. “You know the writing, it’s therapy,” he said. “But you know also, one thing that you can write about is imagination.” Bartell explained that in his own experience, he found that See Journaling, on web
The New Heights Adult High School opened its new campus doors Oct. 13 to hallways students walked through before, but this time, in a different light.
Repurposed from a 1922 sixth-grade building, the program renamed many rooms for the 300 enrolled 18 to 50-year-old students returning to finish their high school diploma.
“You don’t think about how that can be triggering,” said New Heights math teacher John Bowie. “How many hurts and pains come from that.”
He said they’ve adopted new words for the school’s rooms, like Odyssey, meaning an adventurous journey, in place of the name cafeteria.
over the past few decades have expressed concern for an art gallery not existing on their campus.
The NE art department works hard to ensure that each student and faculty member feels both appreciated and showcased despite not having a gallery space, she said.
“The NE Campus art department is designed to first address or enhance people’s experiences in the visual arts,” Perez said. “We satisfy a lot of need perhaps in the core curriculum because we offer art appreciation, art history.”
An addition to a separate facility for the visual and perform -
ing arts department would provide enough space for an art gallery, she said. Currently, there is not enough space to add an art gallery to NE, so a separate facility may be ideal to benefit all performing and visual arts students.
“Our goal is to enrich the lives of our students and community, to afford them chances to explore their own creative impulses, learn some skill sets that maybe they started and maybe have abandoned or just are intrigued by,” Perez said. Perez also said the college offers credit hours for art classes that See Art gallery, Page 3
“The option of just going to get my GED was always an option on the table,” Vedia said. “This opportunity is something that I always really wanted because I always wanted that high school diploma.”
While the GED test is thought to be equivalent to a high school diploma, studies show it’s not. According to “Dropping Out,” a book by Russell Rumberger, employers seek job applicants with perseverance, and it’s not seen from resumes with GED diplomas.
The partnership New Heights has with TCC allows adults to graduate high school with a career or technical certificate of their choosing.
“When I was in school the last time, I was more encouraged to just drop out,” Vedia said. “These
“It changes that narrative for a lot of our students,” Bowie said. “So, just kind of reintroducing some of those things that they may have been leery of because of their past experience.” New Heights student Cipriano Vedia was accepted into the program last year, and he said the new campus will provide more people like him with the ability to succeed.
people here are like, ‘No, come back. We’re going to help you. We’ll figure it out.’” He said New Heights teachers, advisers and TCC advisers work hard for students’ success and always find ways to positively develop their future.
“Everybody’s included. There’s no discriminating,” Vedia said. “I did have a teacher that would stay an extra 30 minutes to an hour working with me just to help me out, to try to make sure I was understanding the lesson and passing.”
Advisers find and pull all of the students’ previous records to start them in the program where they left off years before.
“These are the, in my opinion, some of the real heroes,” Bowie said. “The key is to shorten that time as much as possible for them.” They also help find resources for students.
“We have students that are in all sorts of circumstances, so they See New heights, Page 3
Photo by Diego Santos/The Collegian
FRED NGUYEN
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HOPE SMITH & ASH PETRIE campus editor & editor-in-chief collegian.editor@tccd.edu
Jeanette Adkins was told to enjoy her retirement when her anniversary at TCC came around. She said she laughed.
“They thought I was retiring because I had worked 50 years,” Adkins said. “You’re not gonna miss me because I’m still here.”
In 1975, Adkins was hired by TCC to teach in the Office Occupations Department, which later became the Office Administration. She started by instructing business classes, and according to her biography, taught up to 20 different subjects.
Adkins explained that she values the work of teaching her students because she is aware of the different life every student faces.
“I don’t just teach them as students. I teach them as individuals with individual problems and individual desires and so forth,” she said. “It’s very important to me.”
To fill her teaching load, she started instructing in developmental English/writing, as well as office systems technology in 1997.
She was eventually given the title of coordinator of the developmental English/writing program and enrolled herself at the University of Texas at Arlington to teach in higher-level English.
as annual Poetry Jam, Under the Clock Tower, the African American Read-In, and Living Literature.
“It’s good working around people that you know are nice people,” she said. “The English faculty, they’re such good people.”
“When I was in grade school, I was always good with grammar,” she said. “I was always a pretty good writer, but I really pride myself in knowing my grammar and my punctuation.”
Currently instructing English at NE Campus, she has participated in events such
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TR: Report of theft valued between $100 and $750 in the Trinity
NE English professor Shewanda Riley is in the position that Adkins was in when she first started. She explained that Adkin’s work throughout the years shines through her early efforts at TCC.
upon what she established being one of the kind of pioneers here at TCC.”
Riley explained that Adkin’s mindset is admirable and appreciates watching her dedication and loyalty to her work and the people around her.
“You know, she’s always got the mindset that she’s here to support the students, which
TR:
stories Adkins shares about the college and recalls a conversation they had about the Joint Consultation Committee chapter at NE Campus, in which Riley is the current president of. Adkins explained that she was a part of the steering committee that put the organization together.
“She played an integral part in that organization, coming to be and setting the foundation for it,” she said.
Jack-of-all teaching celebrates 50 years, institutional wisdom
“I get to benefit from that work that she did early on,” she said. “I can kind of build
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is the most important thing,” she said. “Even though students, I’m sure, have changed over the years from when she first started, the students are still her first priority.” Riley said that she enjoys listening to the
Stacy Stuewe, another NE English professor, said Adkins is the kind of colleague a person wants to have because she works so hard.
With all the experience Adkins has gained over the 50 years, Stuewe says the kind of knowledge Adkins possesses is necessary for college development.
“She’s amazing and has all of that institutional memory, which is so important, because sometimes we have these ideas about policy, and then we talk to someone who has institutional memory who has been here for a long time,” she said.
Stuewe said recent advice that her father gave her is to never retire. In Adkins’ case, Stuewe says Adkins is always growing.
“She’s been here 50 years, but still, she’s improving,” Stuewe said.
“She’s taking professional development classes so that she can teach blended classes and online classes, so that’s really exciting to see how she’s cutting edge.”
Adkins explains that her advice in teaching is to understand the perspective of her students, and that hearing their stories creates connections.
“You have to listen to what students are going through. Many of our students work full time, and they’re experiencing things that we have no knowledge on unless they tell it,” she said.
English for Speakers of Other Languages and Spanish
Two languages bridge spoken learning gap
Some English, Spanish students share stories in their native language
Students of English for Speakers of Other Languages and students studying Spanish merged together to practice the two languages on NE Campus Oct. 14.
Janelle Cardenas, NE academic affairs coordinator, said the idea of doing an event called Speakeasy came to her when she was at an event of her own, talking about her English language learning program at an elementary school.
“I was sitting there listening to a group of five teenagers talk, and they each were speaking different languages, but they started asking each other about different words. ‘Well, what’s this word in your language, and what does it mean? And why is it that way?’” she said. “They had a long, lengthy conversation of about 20-25 minutes that I sat there and listened to, and I just thought, what an
interesting idea.”
She said the idea of integrating both Spanish and English languages came after approaching Humberto Rodriguez, NE Spanish instructor, whose department now included the English language learning program. Together, they pitched the idea of making a collaboration.
“We wanted a space for the students to practice language, you know, and feel relaxed, not feeling like they were in a classroom setting, and just have it be natural,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez thought that students have a limited time learning languages in class, which is why he wanted them to have a calmer environment outside of class to pick up more of the languages.
“When we’re here, we’re more relaxed,” he said. “We let our guard down, open the doors to expressing ourselves, taking risks with the language. And I think that’s good for that development on both sides, the English learners and Spanish learners.”
Spanish speaking students could share their experiences in their native tongue while English speaking students got to immerse themselves in the language and other people’s culture.
Rodriguez timed the students to speak the two languages turn by turn while the
ESOL students moved from table to table.
The students began by speaking solely in Spanish and later spoke with each other solely in English.
NE ESOL student Vanessa Ramos talked to English-speaking students and asked about why they wanted to learn Spanish. In return, they replied in Spanish.
Another NE ESOL student Lucero Blasini, who is from Mexico, said she has lived in the U.S. for three years. She visits family in Mexico once a year and misses them.
“I am a nurse in Mexico, so I’m trying to transfer my credits [at TCC],” she said.
Between English-speaking student Natalie Buckingham and Blasini, they discussed the difficulty of conversing in English through daily interactions.
“To have a conversation is complicated,” Blasini replied to Buckingham.
To learn more Spanish, English-speaking student Juan Fernando Avalos said he watched shows in English with Spanish subtitles.
“It’s not like when you’re in the country, you’re gonna learn it. You hear it, [you] hear people speak it, you hear it on the TV, on the radio,” he said. “You get used to the environment, and you’re forced to talk.”
Photos courtesy of Humberto Rodriguez
Students practice what they’ve learned in class for event.
Photos courtesy of Shewanda Riley
Jeanette Adkins throughout the years before and during her time as an employee at TCC.
count as electives as well as degree plans for art majors.
Art faculty on other campuses also support a NE gallery.
Matthew Jones, a SE adjunct art instructor, said a permanent gallery would serve as a platform for student expression and introduce them to professionalism.
SE displays its students’ artwork in a hallway called an Art Corridor rather than a distinct gallery.
“There are two different kinds of art spaces we want to talk about,” Jones said. “We have just a regular gallery space, which is any kind of area where we can display art, that’s very helpful to the students so they can see what their artwork looks like on the wall in a more professional setting.”
Any kind of gallery space for students is appreciated by the campus, but a formal gallery is preferred, he said.
“Professional gallery spaces are also important for the students to have because it brings in outside artists so they can see different examples of how the professionals actually do it,” Jones said.
Other faculty members said students would acquire benefits such as confidence, validation, skill improvement and exposure to the art community.
NE art associate professor Andrew Stalder said the gallery would foster a sense of belonging for those who find art as a creative outlet.
“A permanent gallery would serve as a platform for student expression, interdisciplinary learning and campus-wide cultural enrichment while also fostering a sense of belonging, inspiring creativity and contributing positively
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file complaints against those who are found to be in violation of the law.
The bill also requires the chancellor to be the one to appoint the faculty senate president, vice president and secretary, along with one representative from each campus.
SE Campus President Andy Bowne presented the latest proposed changes to the board and said the members of the Policy Review Committee, who oversee the rewriting of board policy, were encouraged to read the bill.
“The good news is the observations of everyone involved is that this recommended policy change directly aligns to the statute,” Bowne said.
to campus life and the broader community,” Stalder said.
He also said with the proper facilities, art students will receive needed validation and recognition, which would increase their confidence in their work.
An art gallery would also provide a larger area for students and the community to use for various events and shows.
“Campus engagement serves as a hub for events, discussions and creative communitybuilding,” Stalder said.
South fine arts department chair Joshua Goode said he sees firsthand how the gallery on his campus benefits and supports student success.
“The gallery enhances learning by offer-
The PRC comprises Bowne, Vice Chancellor and Provost Shelley Pearson, the heads of almost all departments and one faculty member from each campus, who are rotated on and off the committee.
South history professor Lee Snaples, a member of the PRC, said the committee frequently has to make revisions as state laws change.
“When the state passes new laws, then TCC has to adjust policy, because we will comply with state law,” he said. “My role there is simply as a faculty member to try to raise concerns or circumstance where the policy may affect our students or faculty that I am
ing real-world exposure to professional art practices, hosting dynamic exhibitions and fostering creative dialogue among students, faculty and visiting artists,” Goode said.
Penelope Bisbee, gallery coordinator on SE, said although she wishes her campus had an enclosed, professional gallery, she is grateful that her campus at least has something compared to NE.
“I feel like any school that offers studio art classes should have some kind of gallery because sort of like the end step when you’re making art is that you put it out into the world,” Bisbee said. “If you don’t offer that, you’re missing a step there.”
When art is displayed on NE, it is typically done in a classroom or in a regular hallway between classrooms and bathrooms. This is seen as not ideal due to the possibility of theft and lack of space for most art, some art students and faculty said.
Crissy de la Torre is a continuing education student currently enrolled in ceramics and music classes.
She said she didn’t realize what the art department had to offer until she started exploring the fine arts building on campus.
“I just thought it was theater, and there’s a whole art building back over here,” de la Torre said. “Advertisement for the programs would be really helpful in getting more involvement.”
Ivette Ramos, a ceramics II student, said a NE art gallery would help her peers become more comfortable in their art.
“Because if the students are really concentrated in become an artist, this can be something that they can experiment and be the first gallery that they can introduce and know how the process and what they need to have in
aware of, so that we have a full view of what’s happening before we change policy.”
According to Pearson, the faculty senate will begin meeting after details about the meetings are worked out, such as how to livestream the meetings.
Bowman said she is hopeful about the future of the new faculty senate.
“Our board of trustees appointed the chancellor because she is so competent. She’s really good at her job, so we’re just gonna have to trust that she has our best interest at heart,” Bowman said. “Again, we didn’t have a choice. They didn’t have a choice.”
Buckingham said she left TCC but decided to come back just for Spanish.
“I was a student like, six years ago,” she said. “I just never got my degree, and I loved Spanish.”
Rodriguez said that the event, more than anything, built confidence.
“[The students] were going back and forth,” he said. “We were switching half English, half Spanish, but if they could do it here,
have access to all the other services we have,” Bowie said. “Food pantries. Help with paying bills. Mental health. [Advisers] service the whole student.”
Principal Gillian Smoak transferred to the Fort Worth New Heights program from a Dallas school district.
“When I live here, I want to know that I’m making my community better,” she said. “Adults who have high school diplomas are making not only themselves better, but their family better, their community better.”
Smoak said the Fort Worth police chief told her the opportunities New Heights gives adults are aiding the community in ways the police force can’t.
record in the experience,” Ramos said.
Isabel Guerrero, another Ceramics I student, said she feels more confident in her work when it is shown outside of the learning space.
“It feels nice when your stuff is on display and you can be really proud of your work,” Guerrero said. “And like for me, I just take it home and I’m like, but I want to show multiple people my work, so it would be nice to be able to have a place where you can be like ‘Hey, this is something I worked a long time on,’ because I know for a lot of us we spend hours on our work.”
Callie Davis, a continuing education student, said a gallery would be good for NE because students would be exposed to the professional realm of the art world and give them a taste of what their future could look like.
“We have a couple of people in here taking classes that are so talented, and they are going to go on to bigger things,” she said.
Mary Becker, a NE art associate professor, started as an adjunct in 2009 and said even then she was seeking information on an art gallery.
“There have been multiple discussions about it,” Becker said. “At one point, we even had funding I think from North Richland Hills to build a gallery, and we don’t know what happened.”
Perez said NE also lacks space and depth for its art department.
“We don’t have storage facilities. We have storage capabilities limited to the materials and the works produced in our classrooms,” she said. “So, in addition to the actual physical footprint of a gallery, our concerns are about security, lighting, access to the space that is only designated for those purposes.”
they can do it out there in the real world too.”
Rodriguez and Cardenas pitched their idea in the beginning of the semester and heard a response fairly quickly.
“I feel community is the most important thing for our students, is feeling a part of things,” she said. “I’m always looking for those ideas that we can get students to get to know each other better and be able to be a part of TCC.”
“He made a great analogy about how the police and the things they do are kind of like the fever reducer,” she said. “But the things that we’re doing here, we’re really the true fixes. We’re the true clinical things that are changing.”
Vedia spoke with Smoak about the new campus and he said hearing about everything New Heights is doing makes him feel seen in a way he never had before.
“I’ve been out of school for almost 20 years. It was the hardest thing for me coming back to a classroom setting when I was so out of touch,” he said. “I have a stronger mind. I feel like it’s my destiny now, and I’m able to do anything.”
Diego Santos/The Collegian Math instructor of New Heights John Bowie shows his math collection shelf in the Learning Center where students can borrow the items to study.
Infographic by Dom Martinez/The Collegian
Kelly Amtower/The Collegian
The hallway in the NE art department is used to display students’ work.
NW student shares her passion of faith
Valentina Meza’s life is driven by her faith. The NW student is president of the Christian Student Ministries Club and plans to transfer to Texas Woman’s University to major in nursing. She shared her interests in a recent interview with The Collegian.
How did you get involved with Christian Student Ministries?
I basically met the leader from last year. Her name is Erica, and I had her in my life cycle class. She mentioned it to me, and I found out that they had meetings on Mondays. I started coming, and that’s how I got involved. It’s perfect. They are so loving, of course.
How has your faith played a role in your everyday life?
I experienced something new that I was not expecting in my life. My stepdad [divorced my mom], and it changed completely everything. ... My mom said we have to stay at my aunt’s house and stay there for a little while. I decided to start praying, start reading my Bible. I’m still heartbroken, but you know, when you lose everything, God is the only one that can fill you up. Like there’s nothing else, no friends, no career. So, in my daily life, my foundation is God, because really, no treasure can fill me up — only God — and make me happy. Right now, I’m smiling because of God. ... Trusting in God is the only thing that will give us peace. Has your faith in God helped you?
It has helped me a lot. ... Whenever I talk about God, whenever I preach the word, it talks to my spirit. So that’s why I need to preach the word of God, because the enemy likes to put us down, make us sad. But we’re all called to preach the gospel. A lot of people think we’re holy, but no, we’re all facing challenges. So it’s important to show vulnerability and have compassion, and people can relate to us in that way. That’s why they can relate to God, because He experienced all the challenges we have experienced when Jesus came. Do you have any other interests??
I play piano for my church. My worship leader is the one that has been teaching me, and it’s something that I really love.
How long have you been playing?
About six or eight months. It’s scary because someone watching you play, you can get nervous, like “What if I mess up?” When I get into music, I feel like I forget about everything — about school, work, family, challenges — and I just love music.
What got you into loving piano and wanting to try it?
I’ve always [sung] in church, and as a singer, I have seen a lot of pianists and how they worship God through their instrument. I worship God through my voice. That is an instrument, too. Some people don’t think that, but it is our inner instrument. I feel like when you combine piano and singing, it’s something incredible. Is your family the most important in your life? They’re very important. That’s why I have been very affected with everything going on, because of my family. I’m from Venezuela,
and my mom, she never married my dad, and I grew up without a dad then we came to the United States. We spent a few years here. My mom got married to my stepdad, and I saw him as my father figure, but now that I don’t have either of them, it’s hard. But I have learned that I need to put God [first]. He’s my father. He’s the one that sustains me, and I like that. In the Bible it says that even if your mother or dad forsakes you, He will always be with you. God will always be with you. In my future life, I pray that I will have a good husband, because I don’t want my kids to experience everything I have. My mom is amazing, but there’s also things that only dads can do. If you could have the perfect life, what would it be like?
It would be just having peace. I don’t even care about the material stuff. My dream is to see my family members, all of them, being safe.
CAMPUS VOICES
do you feel about anonymous sources? Do you trust them? Why or why not?”
Duran South Campus
“I feel like they’re really helpful. If you see something and you want to write about something, but you’re scared or anything like that, I feel like being anonymous really helps with having that confidence to write about something. ... I would be open to hearing about anonymous sources, but more actual things, like politics or things that are going on in the world, I would rather hear from not anonymous sources.”
Rebecca Hernandez South Campus
“Anonymous sources are good because they keep the privacy of a person saying such and such for safety reasons. Being anonymous gives people more confidence to say things that they’re afraid to speak out about, and stuff like that. ... I’m obviously going to look at trustable sources before I agree on what they’re saying. If it’s opinion wise or something like that, people have different thoughts and opinions and just go by that.”
Evelyne
Photo by Kelly Amtower/The Collegian
Valentina Meza learned how to play piano to worship God through the songs she plays and sings.
Ryland
Diwali is a festival of lights and a celebration in honor of joy, friendships, family and success. Celebrated in most South Asian countries like India and Nepal, Diwali is not a holy celebration of a specific faith but is more of a tradition that can bring people of all religions together.
The celebration usually falls in the month of October, and this year, Diwali started in mid-October.
Diwali has variations in its name. Tihar, celebrated by the Nepalese, is another variation. Both Tihar and Diwali are a way to flaunt colored illustrations called Rangoli made by mostly women outside of their houses. During this time, people of Hindu religion honor deities like Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, by cleaning and prepping their houses to cover them in many strands of lights.
Some TCC students, those away from home and those with family, shared how they chose to spend Diwali and what it means to them.
Aayush Basnet
NE Campus
“[My] definition of Diwali is color, the lights and the enjoyment, that’s all. Usually, we gather around with friends, play cards, drink and [eat] some food. I didn’t celebrate this year because I have a [death] in my family member. If any issue in a family member, if someone has passed away, we will be able to celebrate the festival. Like in my culture... no one’s gonna celebrate the festival if something [has] happened in the family.”
Ankit Thapa NE Campus
“In Nepal, we call it as Tihar and in India, the people call it Diwali. It’s a festival for the Hindu religion which is a kind of celebration of getting together, and it’s a celebration of lights and it is celebrated for five days.”
“We celebrate [the festival by] getting together with [our] family. [We] also go in different houses playing Deusi Bhailo. ... singing, dancing and we get blessings from their families. We get money in advance for going to their houses and lighting up the festival.”
Samikshya Bista
NW Campus
“We celebrate it with our siblings together to make our bond stronger, gathering the brothers and sister at the same time [we celebrate] with some colors and lights and some delicious foods with our siblings. That is what Diwali means to me, especially [because] I’m far, from my hometown, Nepal. That’s why I really miss my siblings because they are really far from me. So I hope I will celebrate with them next year.”
Nidhi Ahir
NW Campus
“We sometimes explode fireworks. Then we get together, wear traditional clothes and get gifts from our parents. This year I couldn’t celebrate it because I was here. I just videoed my family. But in my home country, we just get together in our grandpa's house and all of our siblings, cousins, we just get together to make food. Just spend time as a family. We tend to decorate the entrance of the house with light different type of artwork. It’s pretty cool, it represents different colors. We see it as the most lightful day. We like to decorate the house with lights.”
Abhishek Sah
NW Campus
“In the evening, we worship the God, and then later we eat sweets. ... We do fireworks, which is fun, then we take blessings from our elders. I like to celebrate [Diwali] with my sister [aarti] together because it’s a brother and sister thing, so I enjoy that. Then I also enjoy fireworks and the sweets. In our culture we have sel rot ... and different sweets like [rasmalai]. There’s a bunch of them, but that’s my favorite part.”
Yashaswi Shrestha NE Campus
“For me, [Diwali] is a festival that is celebrated together. It’s a festival of lights, festival of getting together with your family, friends, ... letting go all of your failures and bringing new hopes in your life. Away from home, it’s not fun, definitely, it’s not like what it used to be at my home. In Nepal, ... the environment is different. You can feel the weather, you can feel the sun, you can feel the winter coming, and you can see people prepping their houses, cleaning their houses, bringing in new stuff for Tihar. But here, it’s like a normal day and you forget which day [it is] or which god is worshipped. It’s a random day where you go to college or where you go to work and then you forget about it.”
Apekshya Adhikari NE Campus
“So, I say Tihar. The first day, we basically give food to crows, the second day is Kukkur Tihar which is like basically dog Tihar so we just put Tika [on them]. I never had a pet dog in my whole life, but we put Tika on street dogs, and we’d get food to them, a lot of dogs. I would also make the, how would you say it, Mala. I would make [it] by myself by plucking flowers from my own garden, and that would mostly be marigold flowers. The third day is Laxmi puja and Goru puja and we put tika on cows and worship them. On that day, we play Deusi Bhailo. I had lots of friends. And my cousins, my sisters, everyone would go to play Deusi Bhailo. What we do is like, usually, we prepare dances or like we would sing. ... I think the last day, depends, like if I had [male] cousins near my houses, I would put tika on them. In Nepal, we don’t put tika on sisters’ foreheads.”
“The best part about [Tihar] is basically dancing with everybody. Also the best part [for me] is, I would make flowers, Mala. I’ve always enjoyed Tihar but this time, I have not been able to celebrate it with my family or not been celebrated even alone because I was basically alone and I had school. I went home and it was too late, so I couldn’t celebrate it, but I hope next year will be better.”
Dismantling DOE will hurt students with disabilities most
The recent layoffs within the Department of Education target children and students with special needs, threatening their access to programs and services they need in order to have equal educational opportunities.
More than 460 employees have been laid off since Oct. 10, which is a fifth of the employees that remained after the mass firings that occurred this past spring.
This is in an effort to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown that has lasted almost a month, making it the second-longest shutdown in American history. The longest lasted 35 days during the first Trump administration.
For an administration that strongly advocates pro-life policies, it’s baffling to see how much they don’t seem to care about the life of a child after they are born, especially if they are born into a lower-class family or have a disability.
According to The New York Times, the new layoffs will wipe out offices that deal with sending federal money to states and school districts and enforcing federal special education and civil rights laws.
Students with special needs are often overlooked and are outcasts within the school system. They are shoved into a separate hallway, have lunch away from the neurotypical students and are disciplined more often.
That’s why the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is so important. IDEA is a law that makes a free appropriate public education available to children with disabilities throughout the nation.
It ensures special education and related services to those children and supports early intervention services for infants, toddlers and their families. Before IDEA was first put into effect in 1975, neurodivergent stu-
dents were often denied public education, institutionalized or received a poor, segregated and underfunded education.
When the people in charge of enforcing these laws are laid off, schools might easily fall back into the practice of pushing students with disabilities to the side, especially if they lack the funding to be able to adequately support students in need.
The Trump administration argues that the role of the federal government in the education system is unnecessary and a waste of money.
Linda McMahon, the secretary
of education, states that because schools are still running even after the initial layoffs earlier this year, the DOE is useless and should be shut down.
“Millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon posted on social media Oct. 15. “It confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary, and we should return education to the states.”
While it’s true, the federal government plays a small part in the ev-
Rising fashion trends have surprising origin, South Asian cultural traditions
From Scandinavian scarves to two-piece skirt sets, South Asian culture has always influenced western fashion trends.
Fashionable pieces like bindis, which are little red dots on the forehead, and chappal also known as flip flops, have become staples of western clothing, but only a few know the history.
As a South Asian girl who is deeply rooted within her Nepali culture, I look at recent trends and see a reflection of my culture, the only difference is the English names given to the cultural names of our traditions.
Our moms’ annoyingly constant demand to oil our hair up and put it in a bun or a braid has now taken its shape onto a “clean girl slick-back.”
Chai latte is another popular essence of the American autumn, inspired by the chai of Nepal and India but is a famous fall drink we see in every western girl’s grip during the month of October.
There are a lot more things that have become trendy recently in America, however those trends have always existed in South Asian culture. It is just that nobody wants to take a deeper dive into the history of where these trends get shaped by.
The “dress over pants” trend is just another name for salwarkameez, a traditional South Asian attire that has been around for hundreds of decades. Likewise, the “boho-chic” style takes its inspiration from kurtas, another traditional
desi attire. My grandma’s borko, a shawl that kept her warm when she lived in Solu Khumbu, a village near Mount Everest, has now been named a “wrap” and is used as a layer for Euro style outfits.
The beads of Rajasthan have now made their way onto designer bags from stores based in New York.
I love that my desi culture is being popularized and integrated into fashion worldwide. However, the representation of fashion is not so accurate nine out of 10 times.
Why are we calling it a chai latte and not just chai? Why are we calling it naan bread and not just naan? Another word that is often misspoken is “Mo: Mo” since every westerner feels the need to pluralize it, calling it “Mo: Mos.”
I think it’s quite funny that decades of traditional food, garments and practices are unoriginal because they are now renamed with western emphasis.
Mehendi is another component of my culture that has taken
its place in international fashion and style. The traces of henna on a bride’s palm, a way to avoid evil eye — a negative gaze — have now transformed into variations of designs called henna tattoos.
Lehengas, dupattas, shawls, saris, mehndi and bindis are not just fashion statements. They symbolize how Desis have overcome pessimistic stereotypes, successfully preserving our culture.
The remnant of our culture is found in fabrics, clay, henna and mustard oil in our hair.
These fashion pieces don’t only represent us as people, they also represent the years of hard work our mothers put into our upbringing.
Putting henna in our palms, putting oil in our hair so it stays long and healthy and braiding a Nepali laccha into our hair are all cultural components we want people to respect rather than rename.
My mom, to this day, puts on a kurta top over her jeans and wears chappals on her feet to go to the nearest shop to buy churas, which are also known as bangles, to get ready for a function where she eats Mo: Mo and paneer tikka with naan.
She and other women like her are the epitome of traditional South Asian customs that have somehow inspired several fashion trends.
The desi culture is built on these women’s resilience and their traditional values. To replicate their style and claim it as original is nothing short of ignorant.
eryday operations of schools, which are run locally and funded mostly with state dollars, the DOE plays a key role in helping student populations that are living in poverty, protecting students against discrimination based on race, gender and disability and enforcing federal law in schools and universities. And all of those protections require federal funding. By losing mass amounts of workers in the DOE, the department will dwindle and likely be shut down completely. This makes as much sense as
getting rid of federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI because local police can protect the country. Without a federal department to monitor and hold local school districts accountable for the treatment of students, especially those with special needs, accessibility and outcomes for students will become inconsistent across the nation.
In the worst of cases, in smaller, less funded districts, these changes could roll back the clock 50 years to a time where students with disabilities were denied education entirely.
Letter to the editor
Hello. I am a TCC student and I believe your paper consistently publishes articles in poor taste. I consider myself fairly neutral on the political spectrum, but there is no denying “The Collegian” antagonizes the left on numerous occasions. Take for example, the article from the most recent issue, “Students argue religion, gender with protester.” While I do not agree with the subject’s behavior, the article itself feels very sensationalized and one-sided.
I have come across many Christian students in this school, myself included, so it feels wrong to see you focus on the one person who is NOT showing the love of Christ, going so far as to compare such a hateful person to a zoo animal. I am fairly certain that if the man mentioned had argued his point in a calm, tactful way, it would not have made the paper.
In addition, the article seems designed to scare people into not questioning others’ beliefs, rather than encouraging open discourses about hard subjects. I believe more should be done in “The Collegian” to promote true tolerance: the act of being able to disagree with someone’s religion, politics, stance on LGBTQ issues, etc. and still seeing them as a person.
A person who’s Black, gay or a Republican has no more or less value than anyone who’s White, straight or a Democrat. Even a murderer is just as much a person as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
This is how you promote jus-
tice, rather than making people scared to disagree.
Instead of posting more and more stories on “the big jerk (or stupid legislature) who dared to disagree with stuff in the meanest way possible,” please find ways to show healthy disagreements. Show how students in the community can disagree on religion and politics without screaming or belittling others.
Instead of “the poor minorities got discriminated against yet again” or “Can you BELIEVE Trump’s latest policy?” (I have no biases towards Trump himself, but this seems to be yet another example of vilifying specific political views), show things that unite people, such as stories about humanitarian aid and such.
All I wish is for “The Collegian” to truly serve the Tarrant County College District rather than presenting this sort of propaganda. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments about this message.
Sincerely,
Maura Ryan
Izzie Webb/The Collegian
Play Preview
With a bell, a made-up language and the metaphysical world, the South theater program brings the absurd comedy of David Ives to life.
“The World According to Ives 2025” comprises four one-act plays by American playwright David Ives: “Mere Mortals,” “The Universal Language,” “The Philadelphia” and “Sure Thing.” Drama instructor Lindy Benton-Muller said Ives has been called the master of the short form.
“He’s witty and clever,” she said. “I don’t tend to put anything on stage that I don’t want to spend a lot of time with that would make my job hard. So I choose things that I think my audience will enjoy, but mostly that my actors will enjoy working on because it’s a lot of hard work.”
“Mere Mortals” follows three workers sitting on a girder 50 stories up on their lunch break. The audience listens to their conversation as the men banter about the contents of their lunchbox and how their wives are doing while also sharing their own secrets.
South student Julie Pruett, who plays one of the workers, has been doing theater for as long as she can remember.
“My first real show was ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” she said. “I did that my senior year at my high school. I played the Beast, and it was the best experience that I had there at that school. And I was like, ‘You know what? I want to do more of this.’”
Benton-Muller decided to set all the plays in the near past. She said that even though the original material didn’t specify a time, the technology references gave her an idea of when the story should take place.
“That’s been interesting, working with the students and explaining some of the references to them,” she said. “I asked them to go look for thermoses, and then I found out
later, they didn’t know what thermoses were. OK, because that’s a word I use. It’s a thing that’s in the lunch box. They didn’t know. So now they do, because they work with thermoses and their lunches.”
“The Universal Language” is about a woman named Dawn who stumbles upon a man who speaks a made-up language, Unamunda, and he offers to teach her for $500. “Sure Thing” is about the first meeting between a man and
a woman that keeps going wrong. Bill keeps messing up the interaction with Betty, and when things go wrong, a bell rings and time rewinds back to give them another chance.
South student Haley Sutter, who plays Dawn and Betty, said she found playing the more timid Dawn to be harder.
“I have to be very shy and reserved for the first good portion of [‘The Universal Language,’] and
as a theater kid, it’s a little different for me, because I’m not very shy or reserved,” she said. “So it was a learning curve to act as though I was.” Benton-Muller said Ives is good at writing plays that students enjoy performing.
“The students are really enjoying his work because he’s pretty funny,” she said. “We do have a disclaimer on it, though, for adult themes and language.”
“The Philadelphia” is about two friends in a restaurant who discuss the metaphysical explanation for one of them having the worst day ever.
Pruett, who plays the character having the bad day, said she wasn’t familiar with Ives before she started working on the play but found his work funny.
“It’s just kind of absurd,” she said. “But it’s a real level of absurd that you can kind of relate to. And you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve been there.’” Sutter said the cast has been putting the show together well.
“It’s interesting because there’s not a whole lot of us, so we work with what we have,” she said. “We’ve got multiple people in multiple shows, but everyone’s very, very good at what they do. And of course, Lindy’s really, really good at what she does, and she’s good at working with the cast that she has.” The play will run from Nov. 6-8 at the Carillon Theatre with free admission.
“Most of my students have just been really looking forward to coming and seeing their peers on stage doing this hilarious material,” Benton-Muller said. “Don’t miss it. It’s really good. I think you’ll like it.”
Photos by Diego Santos/The Collegian
Zach Zare, Shaye Klingen Smith and Julie Pruett perform “Mere Mortals,” about three construction workers working on a skyscraper on South Campus.
Eduardo Ibarra and Haley Sutter perform “The Universal Language.” All four plays in “The World According to Ives 2025” is written by American playwright David Ives.
Julie Pruett, Briana Britt and Shaye Klingen Smith perform “The Philadelphia.”
MusicskeytoLove’s story
How one student chases their destiny
Colorful lights shined onto a vocalist’s face decorated in clown makeup as their raspy voice assembled a crowd to gather.
“I feel like a stranger to myself and a ghost to everybody else,” NE student Lore Love sang. “I’m a roll of the dice on my charisma for the night. The life of the party depending on who I want tonight.”
Titled “Life of the Party,” it’s the first of seven songs their band Dead Week played on Sept. 27 at Bruised House, a small Keller music venue Lore runs, advertises, sets up, takes down and sometimes even where they perform.
Love is the lead singer-songwriter for Dead Week and plays guitar, is a vocal coach, a lead coordinator for a solo artist program, the planner for Bruised House, a student and can vocally impersonate different instruments.
“I used to hyperfixate on a song and would loop it endlessly and try to mimic every single little tiny thing, always analyzing where I feel it in my body,” Love said. “I can do a pretty solid trumpet impression.”
Love pressed their lips to the left side of their mouth, raised their shoulders up, tightened their neck muscles and continued by singing different trumpet notes with vibrato.
“The voice is weird, but you can do pretty much anything with it,” Love said. “I didn’t have any money growing up, but I’ve always been very fixated on music, and I wasn’t ever gonna let that stop me.”
For as long as Love can remember, they’ve been deconstructing and reconstructing music and sound. There was no specific genre or band in which they narrowed their focus. Everything interested their child mind, and they studied everything.
“Chronically, over and over again, I’d listen until I had every sound, every part memorized. And even then, I don’t think I could ever truly get my fill because there’s always something going on,” Love said. “All the different voice parts that are happening in that. Also, the instrumentation, I would mimic all of those vocally.”
Once they could wrap a hand around the neck of a guitar, Love said their passion for music became an unstoppable force absorbing their entire being.
“It’s weird, it sounds so silly, like it always just felt like my divine thing I needed to do,” Love said. “This was my thing. If I wanted to truly have a life with this, I need to run at it, full force.”
Throughout grade school, Love was in choir and theatre. They even took guitar and voice lessons at The Rock Mill, a Keller music academy, where they teach lessons now.
“We all just have that thing we need,” Love said. “I took a break from performing one time when I was 16, and it was around the pandemic, and I was so sad. It almost feels like a
thing I physically need to do for my sanity.”
Performing, writing and singing, Love never stops working. However, they said it doesn’t feel like a job when they’re doing what they love.
“It feels so visceral and cathartic,” Love said. “It’s beautiful, and also it’s a release. It’s like you’re letting out all of your deepest feelings. You’re screaming, almost healing to some degree, but also addicting.”
Love’s addiction has taken over every part of their life in the greatest way. Their friendships, careers and hobbies all incorporate their love for music in some way. And when they’re not performing, teaching, studying or planning, they’re writing.
“They take a lot of inspiration from the world around them, or what’s immediately happening in a moment, and they’ll just jot down lyrics,” said Alex Fox, the guitarist for Dead Week.
There is no equation for their writing method. Love takes the world around them and expresses their thoughts through lyrical storytelling.
“As human beings we experience emotions, just in different cadences,” Love said. “So, writing in a way is very deep and personal to me but also feels like it can be applicable to anyone at the same time.”
Fox said it is Love’s raw emotion they let out that has led him to discover his own uniqueness, how to express it and use innovatively.
“They really make the gears in my brain turn,” Fox said. “They kind of force me to be on my toes creatively all the time now.”
He’s been in projects with resilient people before. He said the industry is full of capable people, but Love stands out among the rest because of how they support others.
“Being able to work with someone who is so creative, who’s so unafraid to be super expressive with their vision ... it’s very refreshing,” Fox said. “They can be a little hardheaded sometimes, and I love them for it. They just have a way of wanting.”
Bassist for Dead Week and Alex’s partner, Caylee Fox, said Love’s way of wanting also opened her up to being more creative. Through listening with care, Caylee said Love’s energy allows her to comfortably share ideas.
“They’re just so open and silly and whimsical,” Caylee Fox said. “When I met them, I was very shy and timid, and since then, I’ve become less shy and timid.”
Love advocates for her and the community in more ways than she can count, and to Caylee, it’s their character that changes people.
“They’re this very thoughtful also cheerful character that makes a room light up,” she said. “It’s just instantly, you want to laugh. You want to smile. They’re such a light.”
NE student Chloe Sisk met Love at one of Dead Week’s shows in February. Since then, Sisk said Love has had a big impact on her life.
“Lore is so supportive,” Sisk said. “Anytime I’ve ever expressed or anyone around us has ever expressed interest in doing something creative or doing something to better themselves, Lore is always head first into it.”
Sisk had gone to shows before and worked on projects, too. However, Love’s passionate nature has pushed Sisk to become more confident in her abilities.
“Lore has inspired me to entirely be myself,” Sisk said. “I would have never been able to have fun and express myself and dance and talk to people without them.”
“ “ I t’s beautiful and also its a release. Its like you’re letting out all of your deepest feelings. Y ou’re screaming, almost healing to some degree, but also addicting.
Lore Love NE Student
Photos by Diego Santos/The Collegian Lore Love, the main singer of the band, Dead Week, perfoms at Bruised House, the house venue they run.
