Laundry troubles in the dorms

By Victoria Lewis Staff Writer

What do we want? Laundry. When do we want it? Now.

Lindsborg freshman Gracie Lambert’s latest laundry troubles in the Hutchinson Community College dorms came about on a March Sunday, where what became a four-hour laundry saga that smooshed her spirits began. Lambert, who lives in Elland Hall, said it all started when she was looking for a dryer, and actually had to go to the other dormitory, Kent Hall.

“I went to all the floors and then eventually had to walk to the Kent basement,” Lambert said.

After paying for two dryers, which did not start in Kent, she finally happened upon an open and working dryer on her third time, that was until “I come back to get my laundry and it’s still soaking wet and someone took my stuff out of the dryer mid way through (its cycle).”

In total, she spent $5 and still “had to hang my clothes in my room.”

“If we have to pay for our laundry, they should at least work and there should at least be more of them,” she said. “It made me mad because I shouldn’t have to be walking like a mile just to do my laundry.”

It’s no surprise for Lambert, as she has been experiencing issues with the laundry since last semester.

“I think this is a problem because it’s happened to me multiple times and I know it’s happened to more people since mid way through last semester to now,” she said.

For Brooklyn Downing of Olathe, it was all smooth sailing on Sunday, until she went to put her clothes in the dryer and “the fire alarms go off, and then I come back and there’s smoke coming out of the laundry room, and so I’m like, is that my clothes? I hope that is not my clothes.”

The fire department was called to Elland to investigate smoke coming from the laundry room, more specifically Downing’s working dryer. She said that while she and the rest of the dorm students gathered outside waiting for the all clear, “the whole time I was close to tears because it was my favorite load of laundry, all my favorite clothes (were) in there.

“I was really upset, I was lucky nothing happened to my clothes,” she said. “That was the only dryer that was open, and I had to fight for my life to get my clothes dried because I’m trying to compete with other people so that I can dry my laundry.”

In the aftermath, Downing wasn’t told what happened, just that the dryer was now “out of order.” On top of that, she had to pay for the load of drying too. What’s more, Downing was let know that had her clothes caught on fire and been damaged, there would be no reimbursement.

Downing, and her friends Cierra Rivers (Lawrence) and Madyson Popp (Hesston) were all in agreement about shared experiences of paying for laundry machines that doesn’t end up working.

“It’s happened to me like four to five times and I now don’t do my laundry here, I have to drive to a laundromat to do my laundry.” Her main question for management is, “why are we paying for something that doesn’t work?”

There have also been issued of people taking out your laundry so that they don’t have to pay for it. “Someone took my laundry out before it was done so I had to pay for another load and I sat out there and watched,” said Rivers.

Though issues have been reported all school year long, the issues seem to only have gotten worse since payment was required to use the laundry facilities. “I feel like when they were free they worked perfectly fine, or like every once in a while something would happen but then like once we had to pay for it, they all went to SHIT - they aren’t working, they’re catching on fire, they aren’t drying our clothes,” she said. “The washers will fill up with water and then not even wash our clothes, sometimes there are puddles of water.”

For a dorm facility has claims to have laundry equipment, a total of one dryer currently works and a handful of washers; meaning students are left to do their own dirty work and compete to clean their clothes.

By Lynn Spahr Staff Writer

Recently, The Hutchinson Collegian staff attended the Kansas Collegiate Media Conference and Convention, which included the annual awards ceremony, at the Drury Inn in Wichita.

The ceremony took place over two days, and speakers covering a wide range of topics were available to attendants. The awards were a chance for collegiate journalists from across the state to connect with each other and possibly professionals.

The Collegian received 49 total awards, a record in recent years. One of these awards was theAll KansasAward for two-year newspapers, which is given to the top publications in various divisions across the state. It’s the first time in at least seven years The Collegian has won the All Kansas Award for two-year college newspapers.

Two staff members, Ainsley Trunkhill and Laci Sutton, were awarded first and second place Journalist of the Year awards, respectively.

Trunkhill, a Hutchinson sophomore and the Collegian’s Managing Editor ofor Content, was “Happy with the results, not just as an individual, but with the group as a whole. Everyone did an amazing job and should be equally proud of the work that they created.”

The 46 remaining awards were individual, spread across a variety of categories. These range from column writing to page design.

Awards won by The Collegian

Two-year college newspaper division

Nina Becaro, Aruja, Sao Paulo, Brazil freshman

First place

Feature Photography

Honorable Mention

Feature Photography

Cole Deutschendorf, Hesston alumnus

Second place

Feature writing; Headline writing; Sports Feature writing

Third place

Front page design; Headline writing; Inside page design

Aubreigh Heck, Las Vegas alumna

First place

Sports news/game writing

Second place

Editorial writing

Third place

Sports news/game writing

Honorable mention

Editorial writing; Front page design; Social media reporting; Sports feature writing

Connor Keating, Halstead sophomore

First place

Review writing

Honorable mention

Review writing

Lizzie Kipp, Hutchinson freshman

Third place

Review writing

Braedon Martin, Hutchinson sophomore

First place

Front page design

Second place

Front page design; On-site copy editing

Honorable mention

Review writing

Danae Moser, Hutchinson sophomore

First place

News photography

Third place

Newsphotography

Mason Poepperling, Buhler sophomore

Third place

On-site copy editing

Honorable mention

Inside page design

Colin Shields, Wichita alumnus

First place

Sports feature writing

Second place

Social media reporting

Honorable mention

Social media reporting

Ben Short, Abilene alumnus

First place

Inside page design

Shelby Spreier, Newton alumna

Second place

Sports photography

Third place

Social media reporting; Sports photography

Honorable Mention

Feature Photography

Laci Sutton, Nickerson senior

First place

Profile writing

Second place

Inside page design

Ainsley Trunkhill, Hutchinson sophomore

First place

Feature writing; On-site copy editing; Profile writing

Third place

Feature writing Brendan Ulmer, Olathe alumnus

First place

Headline writing

Lee Wellman, Holton sophomore

Second place

Feature photography

Combined division,Two-year college newspapers, all yearbooks, magazines

Braedon Martin, Hutchinson sophomore

First place

Column writing

Danae Moser, Hutchinson sophomore

Third place

Photo story in a printed publication

Victoria Lewis, Australia sophomore

Honorable mention

Breaking/General news

Colin

Shields, Wichita alumnus

Third place

Social media marketing

Ainsley Trunkhill, Hutchinson sophomore

Honorable mention

Column writing

Are finals the final straw for students?

By Mason Poepperling Staff Writer

The end of the spring semester is here, and the dreaded time of year is approaching. The time where a sense of fear and dread can be felt upon all students who experience the worst horror they could possibly experience: Finals week.

As Hutchinson Community College students vigorously prepare for the tasks at hand, some have started to feel that the good old-fashioned final exam that students have come to know and loathe may actually be a little too old fashioned, and that final projects are the way of the future.

“A hands-on project showing attained knowledge and skills in a class is far superior to a randomly generated exam full of questions” said Heath Hensley, HutchCC Computer Support Specialist Instructor.

Some, however, believe that there are some cases where a final exam is necessary, as it’s not as easy to make a final project for some classes as it is for others.

“It just depends on the class,” Blake McDermott, a student at Hutchinson

Community College, said. “With a lot of programming classes, exams just suck. Questions can be a bit ambitious and those classes are all about applications. With exams for a class like psychology, they just make sense.”

Others take a more middle of the road approach, believing that both have their place and are equally as effective if applied properly.

“As someone who studied history with finals both as projects and tests, they gave us tests throughout the course that covered everything” said Kelsey Dame, transfer specialist at HutchCC. “They were just given after every chapter or section. Both helped, but with a project I felt like I wasn’t studying the same thing over again for a final. I was doing my own research and applying the knowledge throughout the course.”

Whether or not HutchCC professors and instructors decide to start distancing themselves from old fashioned exams or not, it’s safe to say that both projects and exams have their place on the college campus, and whatever helps students with achieve their academic goals doesn’t seem like something to fear after all.