by Stacy Burger

College students face many responsibilities throughout their time in college. These can include navigating parenthood, work-life balance and insecurities of finances, housing and food.

The Completion Center at McLennan Community College is free to all MCC students to help them reach their full potential. Success coaches help students develop a balance between academics and the outside circumstances in their life.

“They want to see you succeed in school,” MCC student Alexis Escobar said. “That’s the ultimate goal. But if they notice you’re having troubles in your personal life they want to take care of that, as well.”

Each success coach has an area of emphasis. Some specialize in coaching single parents or first-generation college students, while others coach students with financial pressures or general academic struggles.

“We help students be their genuine self,” success coach Starlen Roddy said. “Everything we do here is centered around the student whole-heartedly.”

A lot of times, students struggle with understanding the idea behind spending thousands of dollars on a college education, when they could be working and making money instead. The Completion Center combats those thoughts to help students understand their purpose.

“Everybody here is trying to get students in the right mindset of, ‘You’re here for a reason and you need to finish it out,’ ” MCC student LJ Curtis said.

Success coaches, who meet with multiple students a day, say students leave the Completion Center feeling proud of their purpose and more confident in their skills.

“They definitely changed my mindset about school in general,” Curtis said. “They’ve just helped me understand why I’m here.”

Following their time at the Completion Center, students come back with success stories due to the support they received from coaches.

“After meeting with a success coach, students come back and tell us stories about how, not only did they survive the semester, but they’re looking forward to graduating and being able to tell their kids how they overcame certain things,” Roddy said.

It isn’t just a place to get help with academics. It is a place filled with coaches that want each student to succeed, be happy and fulfill their purpose. Coaches also connect students with resources available to them across campus and in the community.

For instance, all MCC students have free access to tutoring and the campus counseling center. Paulanne’s Pantry also provides food free of charge to students, and students may apply for emergency grants of up to $250 from the MCC Foundation.

“It became like a family to me,” Escobar said.

Success coaches also encourage students to stop by the Completion Center even if they don’t know exactly what they want to do next.

“If you don’t know your goals let us walk with you in order to help you get there,” Roddy said. “Give us the opportunity to not only assist, but to welcome you with open arms.”

Stacy Burger is a Marketing and Communications Intern at McLennan Community College. She is a senior at Baylor University studying Marketing & Public Relations and hopes to work in sports or entertainment. As a Colorado native, she enjoys all things outdoors.

By Stacy Burger

Student loan debt is a national crisis, reaching its highest levels ever in 2019.

Student debt is the only consumer debt with continuous cumulative growth since the Great Recession, according to Bloomberg. And according to Forbes, student loan debt totals over $1.5 trillion with 45 million people across the U.S. having some type of student loan debt.

Both millennials and baby boomers deal with student debt, and studies show Generation Z is looking to avoid it.

Many students take to less expensive alternatives when it comes to the soaring costs of tuition at public and private universities. Community colleges provide students a financial advantage. Students can prepare for the financial demands of a four-year university in their first two years at a community college.

The University Center at McLennan Community College is committed to students looking to earn their bachelor’s degrees without debt. University Center Director Annette Scott helps students combat student loan debt.

“In general, I see students that get out of college and they end up getting a wonderful job with that college degree,” Scott said. “But they end up spending 15 to 20 years, some of them, paying for their college debt.”

Scholarships play a large part in avoiding that debt. Scott encourages students to be proactive in finding scholarship opportunities and to apply for all the scholarships they can.

“There’s aid out there that goes unclaimed simply because people don’t apply for it,” Scott said.

Attending community college can alleviate that financial burden, as well.

“If you can get your freshman and sophomore level classes from a community college, that’s always the best thing to do. You save a lot of money,” Scott said.

Most students work to pay for expenses throughout college. Some employers will award tuition assistance based on certain criteria the company decides on.

Companies like Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Smuckers, Verizon, Bank of America, Oracle, UPS and Fidelity among others, offer tuition reimbursements to employees.

“If you have an employer, go to the human resources desk and see if they reimburse for college debt,” Scott said.

Despite rising tuition costs of four-year universities, there are alternatives to avoid student loan debt altogether. Seeking out scholarships, attending community college or finding an employer that will reimburse for tuition costs are some ways to avoid the student debt.

“It’s nice when people can finish their college degree and walk across that stage debt free,” Scott said.

Stacy Burger is a Marketing and Communications Intern at McLennan Community College. She is a senior at Baylor University studying Marketing & Public Relations and hopes to work in sports or entertainment. As a Colorado native, she enjoys all things outdoors.

By Ricky Galindo

The Hispanic Student Association at McLennan Community College is comprised of two co-leaders, Aranza Torres and Ruben Salazar. The rest of the members are students, who largely lead the organization. Essentially our purpose or our drive for this organization is to be inclusive of people of all kinds, and that’s not something one tends to see these days. As much as people preach about being inclusive, there is still some sort of bias as to what people should be included. We really want to bring that awareness of inclusiveness. Because everyone is different, we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. Ruben and Aranza do a great job at picking up on these things that the students themselves might not realize.

The students are the voices of this organization. They are nurturing their minds and sharing what they have learned either from school or through their own research. It’s minds like these that will drive this world. As kids—and I think I speak for everyone on this—we have questions about any and everything and we look to our parents who often don’t have an answer other than, “Because I said so.” That answer can only work for so long, until the child starts to look for other sources of information and begins to educate themselves. There’s a certain point of “adulthood” or life after college where that desire for learning starts to fade away. Our hope is to keep this drive for learning beyond this organization and life after college. During our meetings we usually talk about a variety of subjects ranging from things like the environment, culture, society, etc. But HSA isn’t always so serious, we like to have fun at these meetings as well and can discuss topics like movies, tv shows and even food.

I am proud to announce to you that this great organization is working on a project that will include the whole community!  We are hosting a Waco Ciclovía!

What is a Ciclovía and where did we get the idea?

It all began, in Bogota, Colombia. Each Sunday and public holiday from 7 am until 2 pm several main streets are blocked off for cars and runners, skaters, and bicyclists take over the streets. The event takes on the feeling of a fun health festival with different groups setting up spaces for aerobics, yoga and other fitness and health activities.  In Bogata, the weekly Ciclovías are used by over 2 million people. (about 30% of the population).  (Ciclovía)

Ciclovía began in Bogota in December of 1974.  It was started by a man named Jaime Ortiz Mariño. In 1976, the city officially adopted the program, which was promoted by the city government and the transportation department. In 2007 a Colombian congressman proposed a law banning Ciclovías, stating that they caused traffic jams. Many cyclists, Ciclovía users, city council and congress members protested this law and the law was soon defeated. Since then, every Sunday Bogota closes down ten of their busiest roads for the Ciclovía.

Our hope for this event is that through true social networking – human interaction – we can strengthen our community and stress the importance of things like our environmental impact. It is also to show how easy and fun it can be to exercise for just minutes a day. Another hope of ours is to expand this event beyond the campus of McLennan Community College and make this a city-wide event. We believe what we are doing matters and our event is just as important as many of the other festivals and events that have gained popularity around town. 

The Hispanic Student Association is currently accepting donations  for this event and will continue to accept contributions during the event —anything and everything helps. We are also looking for volunteers, so if you would like to help follow the link below. Our Ciclovía will take place on November 9th at 8am-12pm, in the center of MCC Campus. I hope you and your family and friends will join us!  

Volunteer:   ​https://volunteersignup.org/Q7Y3Q<https://volunteersignup.org/Q7Y3Q

Donation:    https://commerce.cashnet.com/mclennanem1pay?ITEMCODE=EM1-HSA

Ricky Galindo graduated from McLennan Community College with an associate’s degree in the visual arts. He is a photographer and has won two awards for his photos. He has appeared in three of MCC’s literary magazines and in one in Florida. He photographs bands, people and things on the street he finds interesting. He has also helped with photography for Analog Waco. He loves reading books and having good conversations with people and doing normal people things. 

By Stacy Burger

McLennan Community College has received a special recognition highlighting its devotion to faculty and staff.

The Waco college of about 9,000 students was named a “2019 Great College to Work For,” a designation recognizing 85 colleges and universities nationwide. MCC was one of 25 two-year institutions recognized.

MCC received special honors in two categories: teaching environment and compensation and benefits.

The Great Colleges to Work For program utilizes a two-part assessment: results of an internal faculty, administrative and support staff survey and a comprehensive questionnaire of employment data and workplace policies and practices.

The college serves a diverse community that encourages faculty and staff to go beyond the norm in the classroom.

“We would prefer, as academic leadership, that you try innovative and exciting things and take some risks, than just always do what you’ve been doing,” said Dr. Chad Eggleston, Dean of Arts and Sciences.

To develop innovative teaching and trust inside and outside of the classroom, MCC has focused on building the relationship between faculty and staff.

“I think we have a culture that tries to have an administrative faculty and staff relationship that trusts one another,” Eggleston said. “So when we’re all doing that, you’ve got a culture of trust and a culture of collegiality. And that’s part of what makes this such a great place to work.”

Providing fair compensation and benefits packages to more than 850 employees was another major factor in the recognition.

The seven-member Board of Trustees and the administration has worked to bring compensation to state and regional standards. MCC was able to provide substantial increases in compensation over a three-year period, starting in the 2018-19 fiscal year.

“Every employee has specific circumstances in their life and has priorities when making employment decisions,” said Dr. Stephen Benson, Vice President of Finance and Administration. “Our hope is that we offer a combination of compensation and other benefits that make us a top choice.”

Benefits such as health insurance, retirement contributions, 90-minute wellness allowances per week, generous vacation time and free tuition for MCC classes have rewarded employees for the value they bring to the college’s mission of increasing access to higher education.

“The health insurance coverage provided to employees is at no cost to the employee,” Benson said. “We provide a generous leave plan and free tuition for employees and dependents to take courses at MCC. We also offer an excellent work environment that shows we value our employees.”

As MCC continues to invest its resources in its employees and in the classroom, the college always aims to improve even more.

“We’re always going to be innovative as teachers,” Eggleston said. “We’re going to learn as much as we possibly can on the faculty side.”

Stacy Burger is a Marketing and Communications Intern at McLennan Community College. She is a senior at Baylor University studying Marketing & Public Relations and hopes to work in sports or entertainment. As a Colorado native, she enjoys all things outdoors.

By  Phillip Ericksen

In May, the McLennan Community College Board of Trustees, a seven-member board of elected officials that represents different parts of the county and provides oversight of the College, approved a new set of values meant to guide all decisions related to student success.

Here are the new values:

People matter – We will be honest, humble, respectful, and gracious to our students and to each other.  We best serve our students, colleagues, and community when we work as a team. 

Inclusiveness matters – We will seek to appreciate and understand our students and each other, actively seeking different viewpoints.  We will work to create a civil, welcoming environment where our diverse community of students and employees learn, teach, and work together. 

Integrity matters – We will work with the highest level of integrity, taking responsibility for all of our actions. We will tell the truth and seek to be fair in our decision-making and actions.

Communication matters – We will be open, collegial, and courageous in our communications with students and with our colleagues. We will listen before we speak.  We will communicate decisions and the reasons for them.

Excellence matters – We will strive for excellence in all that we do.  We will actively plan for the future, seeking new and innovative ways to accomplish our mission.

A new mission statement was also approved:

Our mission is to educate our students – improving their lives and enriching our community.

So why are these words important? They set the stage for the future of MCC – a college that serves almost 9,000 students and places them on a road to success while offering services meant to combat food insecurity, mental health setbacks, and more.

MCC President Dr. Johnette McKown said a series of listening sessions with students, employees, and community stakeholders helped shape the values. The College’s leadership team read two books that provided important background during the process: “Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization,” and “Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution.”

“We anticipate these values of People, Inclusiveness, Communication, Excellence, and Integrity will guide our future and our culture,” McKown said. “We must all be working together to make a difference for our community. These values frame our vision for today and for the future.”

The values reflect MCC’s strategy for the next 10 years: help all students succeed, take care of people, impact the community, and develop resources to fund success.

For example, College administrators plan to redouble their efforts in addressing students’ pressing personal issues, like transportation, food insecurity, and financial insecurity. Partnering with local entities to solve these problems and exploring ways to cut costs should take pressure off students looking to advance in their careers and improve their lives.  

Improving communication and collaboration across campus will also help all employees serve students and the community. McKown, for example, hosts monthly hour-long events for faculty and staff known as “Coffee and Conversations,” where she can hear their feedback.

Living out these values on campus and in the community will further position MCC as an institution that is welcoming, affordable, and relevant within higher education.

Phillip Ericksen is the marketing and communications specialist at McLennan Community College. For about four years, he was a journalist at the Waco Tribune-Herald covering higher education and local government. He enjoys following the news, reading books and drinking coffee. As a San Antonio native, he is an avid fan of Mexican food and the Spurs basketball team. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Baylor University.  He can be reached at [email protected].

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.

By Cheyenne Atchison

Thirty-six percent of students at 66 surveyed colleges and universities do not have enough to eat, according to a Temple University and Wisconsin HOPE Lab study. Food insecurity among college students is a growing concern across the United States, and universities are working to find solutions to address this problem.

McLennan Community College is fighting food insecurity with Paulanne’s Pantry, a campus food pantry that provides meat, produce, canned and other nonperishable items to MCC students and faculty in need. As the associate director of MCC’s Completion Center, Letitia Monsey oversees the pantry. Before coming to Waco in 2017 to be closer to family, she worked at the University of Texas at Austin – a different campus experience than MCC.

“People go to a community college for different reasons,” Monsey said. “At UT, a bachelor’s degree was always the end goal. Here, there is a lot more diversity in the student body, which is what I was looking for.”

Many of the services provided by the Completion Center were also offered at UT, but in multiple offices rather than one. Since Monsey first came to MCC, changes have been made to allow Completion Center staff to allocate their time and resources to specific projects, such as the food pantry.

The earliest records of an MCC food pantry date back to 2007. At one point, it may have been housed in a staff member’s office. It was later reopened, and by 2015, it moved to its current location in the Completion Center. The next goal was to secure finances and use a standard budget for long-term sustainability.

As more students started using the pantry, the Completion Center staff found that issues concerning academic performance and attendance were related to food insecurity. Some students dropping out of school said they needed more time to work so they could purchase food. Conversely, some students may have spent all their money on food, forfeiting other payments for electricity or water bills, which could also lead to decreased attendance.

“We found so many students that had a need,” Monsey said. “When we had students sit in our offices, we could build enough trust to learn that they didn’t have food. It was having those conversations that allowed us to give them what they needed.”

Most of the food provided in the pantry comes from the Central Texas Food Bank. MCC established that partnership prior to 2017. MCC places an online order for the food, then twice a month, the Completion Center staff along with interns from the Tarleton State University social work program pick up the order from Acts Church. The food is then unloaded and organized in the pantry. Each load weighs between 1,200 and 1,900 pounds and averages around $250 at the discounted rate provided by the food bank. The MCC Foundation handles the food pantry fund and provides the funds to purchase food.

For daily operations, the Completion Center staff will check students in, walk them through the process, and stock the pantry shelves, along with a handful of volunteers from around campus. Volunteers must be trained in handling sensitive topics and student privacy.

When the building was due for a renovation, the pantry was expanded and received a $5,700 grant from the Texas Higher Education Foundation, which provided the funds to improve the check-in process and purchase a new refrigerator and freezer. With the ability to hold more produce and proteins, and some decorations, the pantry is now more accommodating and welcoming. It was reopened and renamed “Paulanne’s Pantry” last month in honor of Paulanne Ream Hoover, who left a portion of her estate to fund an endowment for the pantry.

As for the future of the pantry, Monsey wants to continue to serve the students and faculty of MCC, but she hopes there will eventually come a day when their help is no longer needed.

“Ideally, society will answer the problem to the point that we don’t need the pantry,” Monsey said. “Until then, we will continue to serve students and meet their needs. Right now, we’re at a good pace of what we have: we anticipate need, and we meet it. I want to sustain that.”

The Completion Center serves as a resource to provide the additional help students need to be successful. The purpose is to remove obstacles that hinder a student’s ability to progress and complete their goals. Like an intake center, the staff at the Completion Center talks with students to pinpoint areas of distress and find the right resources in a compassionate way.

“That’s where we’re different from other offices on campus,” Monsey said. “They are very distinct in what they do, we do whatever needs to be done to help the student. We take a holistic view of other things that are needed to complete the degree.”

To make a financial donation to Paulanne’s Pantry, contact the MCC Foundation at 254-299-8606 or email Kim Patterson at [email protected]. 

Cheyenne Atchison is a junior at Baylor University studying Marketing and Public Relations, and currently serves as an intern in the Marketing and Communications Department at McLennan Community College.

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.

By Cheyenne Atchison

Frank Patterson sat in a slightly broken chair in his nearly empty office.

 “It’s my first day, and I already broke my chair!” he said.

In March, McLennan Community College welcomed a new staff member to its campus. Frank Patterson, who served as the Waco-McLennan County Emergency Management Coordinator, is now the emergency and risk management coordinator at MCC. Patterson started his career in fire service in 1983, leading him to a job in the petrochemical industry and eventually coming to MCC in 1997 to start MCC’s Fire Academy. Two years later, the city had an opening for an emergency services coordinator, and Patterson began his 20-year tenure there.

With his retirement at Waco-McLennan County and the new position at MCC, Patterson looks forward to a new program and direction. When he worked for the city, he built relationships with the local fire and EMS departments at both the state and federal level. Since some of the same disasters that befall a city can happen on a college campus, the same planning efforts he used at the County will be applicable at MCC.

“Weather does not discriminate. MCC is not separate from the city or county,” Patterson said. The training implemented in local and state emergencies can be applied to MCC on a smaller scale.

The West Fertilizer Plant explosion in 2013 shows how training is integral to responding effectively in a crisis. Patterson led and worked with the city to respond and recover from the explosion. Because of previous training exercises, everyone was able to respond according to what they had learned and practiced. Since they knew one another and their roles, they were successful, collectively.

With the Twin Peaks shooting a couple years later and other manmade and natural disasters, Patterson and his teams have learned from successes and failures. Although not every situation is the same, there are basic operational procedures to follow. Through training exercises, emergency teams become familiar with these procedures and gain the confidence to apply them to real situations. According to Patterson, the key in just about every circumstance is to find out how big the problem is, to have good situational awareness, and to stabilize the crisis.

“When it comes to public safety in this country, we train together, we exercise together and we respond together,” Patterson said.

Throughout the years, Patterson has seen Waco grow exponentially. This growth requires new ways to protect and care for the community. Patterson believes that the development near the Brazos River will be an interesting process to watch. As downtown grows and revitalizes, Patterson believes there is an increasing trend of living in more urban areas. The increasing popularity of Waco means more visitors and challenges, including events like Magnolia’s Silobration or a visit from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Each event has many moving parts regarding the safety of the city and spectators. With additional pressure and safety requirements, Patterson must collaborate with event organizers to assess risks and how they must respond.

“The city of Waco has always been primed to expand due to its location between Dallas and Austin,” Patterson said.

Although some of the same methods for ensuring safety can be used at both the city and campus level, Patterson made it clear there are some distinct differences; one of them being MCC’s size. With a smaller campus comes a higher concentration of people in one place, making some situations high profile and giving the campus a heightened sense of awareness. Patterson would like to train students and faculty on how to react to different situations. Ideally, he will create an Emergency Response Team of students, offering courses every semester to the various divisions on campus. By targeting groups with a stable membership, the program will be ongoing and sustainable.

“I think by engaging students and educating them, these safety measures will bleed into other areas,” Patterson said.

Patterson and MCC Chief of Police Clayton Williams previously worked together through the Waco Police Department and will now collaborate to implement and improve safety measures at MCC. For Chief Williams, his goal is the safety of everyone on campus, which means ensuring policies are in place and equipping everyone with the right tools to be safe on campus. Patterson’s new position includes coordinating those policies to drive response to a positive outcome through preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. With Chief Williams and Patterson both on campus, they look forward to providing for the campus community.

“This is it for me; this is coming home,” Patterson said.  “I will tell you I enjoyed it when I was here for the first time. The culture, the camaraderie, it was a great administration then, and it is now. That shows the amount of stability here on campus. This is it for me.”

Cheyenne Atchison is a junior at Baylor University studying Marketing and Public Relations, and currently serves as an intern in the Marketing and Communications Department at McLennan Community College.

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.