Campus Current

The faculty adviser for Campus Current, AACC’s student newspaper, plans to retire from the college at the end of this semester. Journalism and communications professor Sharon O’Malley, who joined the AACC faculty in 2016, said she will continue to teach part time here and at the University of Maryland, where she worked from 1993 to 2016. “I’m ready to slow down but not to quit working altogether,” said O’Malley, who said her decade working with the newspaper has been “intense.

The Super Science Club hosted a trip to the National Aquarium on March 13 involving six student clubs and 53 participants. Alex Bradford, Super Science Club president, arranged the trip, which drew students from Adventure Club, R.A.T. Club, Sculpture Club, Art Association and the Genders and Sexualites Alliance. “So many people told me … how much they had enjoyed it [in the past],” Bradford, a fourth-year plant science student, said.

This spring’s Empty Bowls fundraiser raised $1,850 for HelpLink on April 8. Several dozen students and faculty members gathered in the Hawk’s Nest dining hall to purchase $10 bowls of homemade soup. “I have to recommend what I made,” Kayla Woodyard, a first-year culinary arts student who helped with the cooking, said. “We made lasagna soup. Yeah, it’s pretty good.

AACC faculty on March 4 passed a vote of no-confidence in Provost Tanya Millner. A vote of no confidence means the faculty has lost trust in Millner’s ability to do her job as vice president of learning. “She doesn’t hold herself accountable to faculty,” Suzanne Spoor, an English professor, said. “She doesn’t see herself as accountable to a faculty relationship.” The vote of no-confidence is not binding; that is, the faculty has no authority to dismiss or otherwise punish a vice president.

AACC students and staff gathered in Humanities 112 on March 31 to watch performers sing and read literature. Professors from women’s studies, communications and English helped produce a live show of original poems, prepared speeches and songs as part of Women’s History Month. “It’s a great time for us to connect with each other in this capacity,” communications professor Jessica Mattingly said.

AACC’s Belonging, Academic Success and Community cohort, or BAC, hosted a civic showcase on March 11 featuring student-made projects about how identity can relate to power and privilege. Students around campus gathered in the Health and Life Sciences Building to view infographics, pamphlets, artwork and slide shows about their identities. Some chose to focus on their race, gender, sexuality or heritage, for example.

Nearly 30 students are preparing income tax returns for free through April 4 for students, faculty, staff and community members who earn $69,000 a year or less. Business administration professor Oksana Fisher and former part-time professor Michael Gavin coordinate and train the volunteers, who meet with clients by appointment in Careers Room 326 on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Gavin said the tax preparers are “… saving people money with what they deem is a very complex process.

The college this semester started requiring all students taking for-credit classes to identify themselves twice when they log onto AACC platforms, such as mymail and Canvas. Students will type in their usual mymail address and password the first time and then will be prompted to approve that login using an authenticator app or by responding to a text or phone call from the college.

AACC students are prepping for a number of performances this spring. Upcoming shows include a Black Box performance—a series of student-written short plays—on May 1-2.and sketch productions by Overcast Improv on March 13-14 and April 3-4, all performed by AACC students. “You’ll be intrigued to go see some theater,” professor Sean Urbantke, AACC’s theater director, said. Just finished is a run of the play “Rent,” which closed on March 8. “Rent,” which started on Feb.

AACC President Dawn Lindsay will never forget what she did on March 13, 2020. She closed the college. Just as the world was falling victim to one of the deadliest pandemics in history, Lindsay, who had been president of the college since 2012, extended the upcoming spring break from one week to two when it wasn’t clear how long the emergency would last. Two weeks turned into three, which turned into 17 months of online-only classes for students and remote work for staff.