Letter from the Editor
Dear Patriots,
Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you are single or in a relationship, I hope this day brings you joy and is filled with time spent with those you love. While I am not a huge believer in the holiday, I see how much joy it brings others, which in turn makes me very happy.
You know what I really love, though? The environment and the world we live in, which is sadly deteriorating every day. This week, a topic we hope to bring to light is the lack of environmentally conscious options around our campus. Although the amount of litter I see scattered around campus has dramatically decreased since I was a freshman, it is still a problem that there are a lot of people here on campus that either are uninformed about the risks our environment is under, or simply do not care.
If you do not care, or think that it doesn’t pertain to you, I’m sadly going to have to inform you that it does. We only have one Earth, one world that we call our home, so we need to respect it as well as we can.
On a brighter side of things, a lot of great things are happening on our beautiful campus. Dorms are being switched around, the great Laila Ali is going to be coming to give a great keynote speech, “Avengers: Endgame” is another day closer, and Spring Break is just around the corner. There are many reasons to smile, Patriots, so be sure to have one on your face today.
Before I sign off, I ask you to find someone you care about and tell them that you love them. It is the day of love, after all! For all my single friends out there, do not fret, because there is so much more to life than human relationships and material gifts. And if you are sad, just remember, just because everything isn’t perfect right now, doesn’t mean that everything sucks.
Fire it up,
Mike Krzyston, Editor-in-Chief
Editor-In-Chief
Mike Krzyston
Faculty Adviser
Jeremiah Massengale
Staff
Emilee Agee
Haley Bullock
Taylor Duke
Abigail Fletcher
Leanne Gregory
Tyler Kohn
Rebecca Lewter
Jessica McFerron
Nichole Nantz
Alex Nunn
River Phillippe
Jenna Rose
Tara Todd
Dan Williams
Maranda Young
Front cover by Mike Krzyston
Back cover by Mike Krzyston
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Laila Ali to speak at next Excellence in Leadership event
BY ALEX NUNN Staff Writer
University of the Cumberlands has recently announced Laila Ali as the speaker for this year’s Excellence in Leadership Series. The event will be held on Tuesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. in the O. Wayne Rollins Center on campus. Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, has been invited to provide students with her story, the lessons she’s learned and how we can grow from them. Following a similar path to her father, Laila started her athletic career in boxing, where she owned the ring until the day she moved on, pushing past the mold of the Ali name and proving that women can truly have power in the sport scene. Laila has been a sports commentator, television host and cooking star. She’s never lost a match of boxing, and was a two-time Hall of Famer, being inducted into both the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame and the Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, just to name a few things she’s accomplished. She’s also proven that there is a place for women anywhere by working with CBS to create the first of its kind, allfemale sports commentary program, called “We Need To Talk.”
UC president Larry Cockrum, when asked why he chose Ali as the keynote speaker this year, responded, “I knew we’d had men year after year come through and speak, but I knew it was time to give the students a chance to hear a strong woman who’s made history speak.”
both in general, but also the strength women can find.
Many students are both proud and excited to hear that Laila Ali has be chosen to come to the Cumberlands.
Ambur Trammell, a UC freshman, was ecstatic to learn about Ali’s upcoming keynote, saying, “I think that it’s amazing that she is going to be the first woman to speak to the students on such a level. She is a positive role model for a lot of women and we are all lucky to have such a talented, courageous, and independent woman come and present herself to us. She can teach everyone here how to be more positive, healthy, and happier. I believe she can teach women how to push themselves to be better and never give up. In my opinion the university made a great decision on the first woman to present for this event.”
Cockrum added, “I’ve heard Laila speak before, and she’s a person who can speak her mind, what she has to say she’ll say, and I believe the students will enjoy hearing about her.” President Cockrum says that students should expect that she will have a lot to say about health and empowerment,
Another UC student, sophomore Chelsea Canady, was insightful on the topic as well. Canady stated, “This being my second year here, I haven’t seen as much from the speakers, but from those who’ve been here longer, I appreciate the impact the university will make by finally having a woman speak. I’ve heard people asking for this for a while, and it’s good that UC is making a change.”
It’s not only women that are excited to see this new direction for the Excellence in Leadership speakers.
Lucas Worley, a UC freshman, said, “I think it’s really progressive! A real step forward for the Cumberlands.”
Freshman Jonathan Ball followed up by saying, “I think it’s cool that the daughter of the world’s greatest boxer became successful in her own right without relying on her last name. People can really learn a thing or two from her!”
Photo by Mike Krzyston
UC Engage: reflecting on the changes
BY JESSICA MCFERRON Staff Writer
UC Engage is a relatively new program that all incoming freshman at the University of the Cumberlands are required to take. It’s a way for students to get involved in helping around the community. UC Engage is similar to what the seniors once knew as Convocation. Over the past four years, the campus has changed the required class freshmen have to take from convocations to UC Engage, but the change hasn’t been a small change at all.
Katy Smeltzer, a UC senior, says ”We were required to attend eight convos. You had to have two attendances in four different categories. If you didn’t attend all eight, you would fail the class.“ Smeltzer also says, “UC Engage is great improvement to the system and now students are given the opportunity for community service and allows them to be more intentional with their time.”
Emily Coleman, the vice president for Student Services, says, “Part of the reason we changed to UC Engage is the phrasing of the word Engage, being engaged on campus.”
Coleman also says, “You have to be enrolled every semester until you reach senior status. We work with our local churches to see what the needs are there, Mountain Outreach helps by bringing us service projects, and we work with our local Alumni to see what are ways we can help with our local communities and our local schools as well.”
This semester’s UC Engage events include January’s MLK Day of Service and the upcoming Excellence in Leadership Series event in April.
Dr. Coleman adds “UC Engage really focuses on servant leadership, which helps students to further develop leadership skills. Combining servant leadership within UC Engage encapsulates UC well.”
Today UC Engage is very different because freshman are mainly community service events. One really big event UC Engage is hosting which is the next Pats Serve is Valentine’s Day Bingo at a local Nursing home.
Emily Loredo, a UC freshman, says, “My thought on UC Engage is that it is a great thing for the community when we have the service events and it is a great experience to have.”
New events occur around campus all the time, but when the campus decides to change something that all entering freshmen have to take it’s a major way for the campus as a whole to grow from their experiences or programs.
Photo by Mike Krzyston
Terry Bradshaw speaks at the 2018 Excellence in Leadership event, which was a part of UC Engage.
Students react to the State of the Union
BY EMILEE AGEE AND MARANDA YOUNG Staff Writer
At 9 p.m. on Tuesday Feb 5 President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union speech in The Capitol. Trump called for bipartisan unity and addressed illegal immigration. Many people all over the U.S., including those on campus were tuned-in, and many were not. What were some of the most common opinions on the speech? Students were asked if they watched, why and their thoughts.
Freshman Hunter Shamblin said, “This is the best state of the Union speech I’ve ever listened to. President Trump hit all the major points that our country needs to hear right now. Trump called out insane policies. It was touching that he brought that sweet little girl who had cancer. Trump’s best line of the night was “the state of our union is strong.””
Senior Grace Uebel said, “I think it was the most presidential speech Trump ever gave. It was in a clear format; Trump didn’t sound crazy. I’m not a Trump fan at all, but that speech, it made me hopeful. I really liked his points.”
President Trump encouraged the American people, congressmen and women to, “Reject politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.” He also mentioned that there are more women serving
in Congress than ever before. He said, “No one has benefited more from our thriving economy than women that have filled 58 percent of the newly created jobs last year.”
Elaine Leslie, junior said, “I avoided watching it because of Trump’s standpoints in politics.”
Caleb Potts, a junior, had very similar feelings; he said, “Even if I knew that the State of the Union speech was going on, I wouldn’t watch it. Politicians will never compromise. They’re so caught up in this conservative versus liberal war, that there is no middle ground.”
Trump urges his audience to put aside their desire to divide and work together to make progress, but Eric Forrest, a UC junior, had different thoughts, “So, I watched basically the whole thing. All he was doing was throwing out facts about what was being done and what has improved lately.”
One of the last statements of the night President Trump left his audience with, was that as Americans, “We are born free and we will stay free.”
Photo by River Phillippe
Single-use season
What happened to the recycling program?
BY TAYLOR DUKE Staff Writer
The once prominent recycling program has now moved to the shadows and the single-use plastic apocalypse is setting upon University of the Cumberlands. Originally taken charge by the women’s basketball team, the recycling program had bins in every building on campus and would collect the recyclables daily
The current items used for food that are treated as single-use items on campus are: pizza boxes, salad/wrap boxes, forks, fork wrappers, cups, lids, and straws from Tossed as well as the bags, boxes, fry containers, plastic foam cups, lids, and straws from Chick-fil-A and lastly the cups, lids, cup sleeves, and drink stoppers from Red White and Brew.
According to UC junior and member of the women’s basketball team Rebecca Lewter, the recycling program started in the fall of 2016 and ended at the end of the spring semester of 2018. Since then, the program has taken a step out of the spotlight. Although not formally gone, the program is currently being overseen by the Student Government Association.
When discussing her part with recycling, Lewter says, “It was nice to be able to give faculty and students the option to recycle here on campus, which made it a lot easier for them to choose to recycle rather than just throwing everything away.”
Lewter enjoyed being able to help the campus and give back to the community with her teammates. Although she no longer helps, Lewter hopes that the campus community will come together to bring back the program in the future.
UC junior Sydney Holcombe loves swapping out every day plastic materials for some reusable utensils to help out the environment. Holcombe was disappointed that the dishwasher was recently broken in the cafeteria because of the sheer amount of plastic foam dishes piling up in the garbage can because of the dishwasher malfunction.
When talking about the process of being sustainable, she states, “Because of the number of students on campus, we could really benefit from small changes. I would suggest that students buy actual tableware instead of single use plastic plates or utensils. An actual bowl and silverware are under $2 at Walmart.”
A lot of the resources and interest needed to keep the program going has died down. When talking about campus interest, Lisa Bartram, the director of student activities, said, “Since the program shift, I have not had much student interest in recycling.”
According to Bartram, an email was sent out at the beginning of the year stating that the program was still running, but the vans used to transport the recyclables to the recycling plant were no longer available. This proved to be a huge obstacle for the program and ultimately was its downfall. Bartram said that the cost of keeping the vans for the sole purpose of this program heavily outweighed the benefits that were being sought out. Money for gas and rental fees was being shelled out from the SGA budget and it was not cost effective.
Bartram continued by saying, “It was hard to find a consistent driver because it has to be picked up every day or else the bins would overflow. We (Student Government Association and Campus Activities Board) want to help continue to recycle as a campus.”
Bartram also discussed that the number of hours it took to collect recyclables from all of campus took a long time. In order for the collection
process to be more efficient, more personnel were needed.
Nikki Patterson, a UC junior and student work-study in the music department, states, “The music department tried to continue recycling after the basketball team stopped picking up. We still try to recycle a lot of our paper. There are just some weeks though, where no one can take it to the recycling center on 25 and we just have to throw it away.”
Bins and trash bags for recycling are still being provided by SGA but a volunteer or the person responsible must be willing to drive to a recycling plant to drop off the recycling. The closest recycling center to campus is run by Cedar Ridge Ministries and is located at 189 Factory Lane Williamsburg, KY. If you are interested in starting up the recycling program on campus, you can contact Lisa Bartram at lisa.bartram@ucumberlands.edu.
Illustration by Taylor Duke
Keeping our lakes clean
Fishing out the rusted metal out of our lakes
BY MIKE KRZYSTON Editor-in-Chief
Litter and pollution not only plagues land, but our bodies of water as well. Two UC students, Tres Leon of Wisonsin and Austin Slates of Indiana, take responsibilties into their own hands to reduce the amount of rusting metal out of Laurel Lake in Corbin, KY by magnet fishing.
Top left: Slates fishes out multiple metal screws from the bottom of Laurel Lake
Bottom left: After a 10 minute struggle, both Leon and Slates pull a large, rusted pipe from the bottom of the lake.
Top right: Slates shoes off his magnet fishing device, which can pull up to 600 lbs. of metal.
Middle right: Leon casts his magnet into the lake.
Bottom right: The biggest catches of the day, Slates and Leon fished out two rusted pipes, btoh 3 feet and 6 feet long respectively.
Up for debate
The
captain that goes above and beyond
BY HALEY BULLOCK AND ABIGAIL FLETCHER Staff Writers
Jordan Floyd, a psychology major and fifth-year senior at the University of the Cumberlands, has been on the debate team since his freshman year. Currently, he is the captain of the debate team that is under the direction UC communication arts professor Jay Bourne. Throughout his many years of coaching debate, Bourne has had his fair share of captains come through UC’s debate team, but Bourne says Floyd stands out. To explain Floyd’s uniqueness as a captain, Bourne says, “He is a good listener. He is good at following through with tasks I give him… I mean honestly, he is like a second coach on the team… His real strength is being [a] teacher [for] the team.”
Floyd grew up as an only child in his household, meaning that his communication mainly consisted of adults. Floyd says his parents loved to challenge his ideas and why he thought the way he did ever since his childhood. Prior to being a university student, Floyd had no experience in the field of debate. Floyd recalls, “In fact, I had not heard of high school debate until I came to college and heard about it from other people. When I got an email from the debate team my freshman year, it seemed like a perfect fit.”
To Floyd, debating has changed his life and his perspective on the world. He has been granted many travel opportunities since becoming a member of the debate team without financial cost, traveling across the nation to places like New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle, Washington D.C., and San Diego. He’s also won awards at several national tournaments.
Floyd says, “There are so many wonderful memories that I associate with debate. The topics and people that I get to talk to every other weekend are extraordinary. Debate means a better world view, a better resume, being a more informed citizen and getting better at being a student.”
He also says debate has impacted several aspects of his daily life. Floyd adds, “I have learned to be very slow to judgement about other people. Opinions can be formed from very complex places and the life experiences that people have to get to reach those opinions. The more I have learned in debate has shown me that there is a lot more that I don’t know.”
As the current debate team captain, Floyd is deliberate in his measures he takes to improve the debate team as a whole. One of methods that Floyd uses is to have
personal meetings with director Jay Bourne on how those improvements can be executed in practice. Bourne recalls how in the past four years how he and Floyd have had lots of conversations about base knowledge. That means they talk about events that are happening in the world because they never know what topics are going to be covered in competitions,
When comes to nationals, Floyd says, “I look at each tournament in debate as preparation for nationals. There needs to be a progression from the very beginning. When the spring semester hits, we do tend to want to do more debating and focus on smaller details. However, Rome was not built in a day; great debating can’t be learned in a few weeks just
Although a common misconception among students is that Floyd led the team to nationals, Floyd says that without their coach, Bourne, they would not have anywhere near the success that they had. Bourne says, in reflection about nationals, “As a coach, it is rewarding because [the win] is not guaranteed. It is a reflection of the hard work that the students have put in. There is no scholarship for debate, so the people who are doing this want to do it.” Floyd believes in team improvement and doesn’t demand outstanding results. “I believe there is nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Debating is an extremely enriching experience. There are so many intangibles that debaters take away once they have graduated. I hope that people graduating can use their debate experience to become better citizens in the world. I hope graduates can get better at communicating their passions.”
From Mid-South Conference and beyond
UC Cheer gears up for first appearance at NAIA Nationals
BY TAYLOR DUKE Staff Writer
Since the 2016 season, Coach Corissa Dyer has taken the University of the Cumberlands’ cheer team from last place finishers to Mid-South Conference champions. This is the team’s first season competing as a NAIA declared championship sport. With a MSC championship under their belt, the cheer team is now striving for bigger and better things.
“Coach Dyer has really pushed us in the last year,” UC senior Kristy Stanley states, “Last year was a success in our eyes. Winning Mid-South was a really big deal. Really this year, we’re focused on Mid-South no doubt, but we have bigger things we want to accomplish.”
This season will also be the first season where the University of the Cumberlands Patriots go to Davenport, Iowa, to participate and hopefully bring home a title from, the 2019 NAIA Competitive Cheer and Dance National Championships.
In previous years, the cheer team would only compete alongside the men’s and women’s basketball teams at the Mid-South Conference Championships. With the sights being set higher, a more rigorous competition schedule has been in motion for the team. To qualify for nationals, all teams must participate in four qualifying competitions prior to nationals.
Routines are judged on 10 different categories: partner stunts, group stunts, pyramids, basket tosses, jumps, standing tumbling, running tumbling, choreography, showmanship, overall execution, and degree of difficulty.
When talking about the most difficult stunt, second year returner Lauren Mchan said, “The ending stunt sequence is the hardest for me
because there are so many moving parts. Essentially, there are two girls at the bottom who have two mid layer girls standing on their shoulders. Then there is the top girl who the two mid-layer girls (one of which is me) catch on our forearms. That top girl is about 15 feet in the air when it’s all done.”
During their first qualifying event on Feb. 3, the cheer team took on the University of Georgetown Tigers. The Patriots kicked off their season with a win and a score of 78.05. Their second competition, a dual meet against Georgetown and Union College, produced two more victories for the team.
For UC freshman Megan Miller, this season has been just as fun as it has been hard. Miller says, “We have put in so much work. We practice almost every day, sometimes twice a day for three hours a piece. You really have to have a heart for this and because of that I’ve really grown close to everybody.”
The Patriots’ cheer team will compete in the Mid-South Conference Championships this coming Sunday, Feb. 17. After that, the Patriots will travel to Baldwin City, Kansas to compete at the NAIA regionals.
Photo by Mike Krzyston
Photo by Taylor Duke
Album Review: thank, u next by Ariana Grande
3.5/7
BY EMILEE AGEE Staff Writer
Ariana Grande officially dropped her album thank u, next on Friday with extreme anticipation from fans. Grande has had nothing short of an emotional rollercoaster of a year and with this knowledge, it set the bar high for the effect that would have on the album. Although with multiple listens, it grew on me, from start to finish it’s consistently generic.
The album starts with the track “imagine”, the second single released for the album in December after” thank u, next” was released in November. The lyrics are romantic and express a desire for a fairytale romance. Maybe it’s Grande’s breathy voice, her tone which rarely changes, plus the typical pop beat, that makes this a slight miss, but her talent for long notes does shine. Some tracks like “7 rings”, “needy”, and “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” all sound like a lazy grab at being hip-hop or R&B with choruses and hooks that are simply her repeating her titles over and over. I will say the song “bloodline” and “NASA” sounded unique, fun and more experimental for Grande’s voice. Unfortunately, there is limited experimentation with her beats and melodies. It’s very uniform. The song writing is basic and formulaic, “bad idea” is a track that reflects this so perfectly. To get picky, the first verse is 30 seconds, chorus for 30 seconds, second verse for 30 seconds, chorus 30 seconds, 30 seconds of instrumental, and 30 more seconds of the chorus. The last minute and a half is instrumental filler due to the demand that this song be 4 minutes 30 seconds.
There are strong themes of female empowerment through security in one’s sexuality, as well as self-confidence and stability. She dives into her issues with her relationships with the song “ghostin” most likely in reference to late rapper and ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, who she samples, and the song “in my head” where she says “I thought you were the one.” I won’t say any of the beats are bad, they’re just very standard. If an artist is trying to show creativity and prove how dynamic they are, they won’t aim for standard.
The most common thing I was feeling throughout listening to the album was “it’s okay, but it’s overrated.” Zoning out was a problem because her lyrics, plus the beats would be so repetitive, it turned into white noise. Add the cringe factor at lyrics like, “Yeah, my receipts, be lookin’ like phone numbers, If it ain’t money, then wrong number” and you’ve got the perfect album for someone who needs background noise at a high school party. Ari might have 7 rings but this album’s 3.5/7 rings.
Album Review: Almost Free by FIDLAR
The tornado sirens, dogs barking, and Beastie Boys homage in the opening track, “Get Off My Rock”, in punk rock quartet FIDLAR’s third album, Almost Free, seemed to indicate that these California boys are up to their usual antics. As a band best known for their subject matter of partying with your friends, such as in the song “40oz. On Repeat” off of their sophomore album Too, the Los Angeles group has made a name for themselves as something that can best be described as “party punk.” Yet, as front man Zac Carper’s vocals fade from a yell in the opening track to a somber voice in the second track “Can’t You See”, it is apparent that something is up in this latest project from FIDLAR; they seemed to have “tamed” themselves.
Of course, “tame” is a loose term to use in describing a band that primarily makes music about skipping school to drink and do drugs—there are still notes of FIDLAR’s old selves through tracks like “Alcohol” and “Nuke.” However, the underlying message of this record is one written by a couple of guys who may have experienced one-too-many hangovers; we all have to face our own mortality at some point.
Songs like “By Myself” and “Good Times Are Over” depicts Carper dealing with trying to find fun beyond his old ways, and struggling to become sober, while the rest of his peers are growing up and maturing faster than he is. The song “Flake” deals with friends who have grown tired of his shenanigans and choose to ditch out on him.
The raw, over-simplified lyrics continue, as the foursome grows into a more mature sound. In Almost Free, the band takes the bold, yet punk-rock, move to talk trash about politics and the government. The song “Too Real” is the best example of such, with lyrics like “You just like to fight/ You’ve gone so far to the left, you ended up on the right/ You’ve gone so far to the right, you don’t care if you’re right/ Are you really feeling guilty about being white?”
4.5/5
BY MIKE KRZYSTON Editor-in-Chief
In their pursuit of sonic progress, FIDLAR draws from a wider array of influences on this particular record. On previous projects, it would be rare to find the band to stray away from grungy power chords and overlyreverbed vocals; yet, on Almost Free, there are thin boundaries to what the boys experiment in. The hip-hop driven “Get Off My Rock” serves as an aggressive introduction into the new project, the reggae-fueled “By Myself” brings a positive vibe to a depressing song, the jazzy instrumental title track “Almost Free” splits the album into two separate stories. The poppy tune “Called You Twice” serves as the sappy love ballad on this record, with lines like “I didn’t want to call you/ but then I went and called you twice/ I didn’t want to know you/ but now I know the things you like, and don’t like.”
In no way is this a perfect album, however, and perhaps that is due to Carper’s choice to become sober. When you have written about the same subject for almost a decade, what else are you supposed to write about? If Almost Free echoes out as a cynical recovering alcoholic that has just discovered the worst parts of the world, it’s because it is.
While on paper, the basics of this album seem all over the place and undefined, but FIDLAR finds a way to hone it all together into a great sounding new direction for the band. While they partially sold out by having their album produced by Ricky Reed (known for producing a lot of hit singles for the ever-cringy Pitbull), they are nowhere near the levels of frustrating basicness other indie-alternative bands, such as Portugal, The Man or Imagine Dragons, have grown to. In essence, this album serves as a milestone for the punk band as they move forward in their impressive discography.
