NW Mosaic Project brings dancing to arts festival

HOPE SMITH managing editor hope.smith393@my.tccd.edu

On Fort Worth’s red-brick street, NW campus Mosaic company dancers gathered in a pop-up dance performance surrounded by the artists and vendors of the Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival.

The performances made of selected excerpts from the upcoming Spring concert this Thursday were chosen for their upbeat, engaging vibe.

“For today we selected a hip-hop class, tap and one of our African fusion pieces called Soul Fusion,” Amy Jennings, associate professor of dance at NW, said.

Lacreacia Sanders, an associate professor of dance at NW as well, said that the pieces were chosen to attract the crowd, get them moving along with the dancers and feel uplifted at the festival.

They danced through rain and shine—at some point both—to various different dancing styles.

NW student and dancer of the Mosaic company Melanie Diaz grew up dancing in ballet but got into more styles later on. Because of this, she said learning these al lowed for her to expand as a dancer, like pop, which was applied in the performance.

“Pop is very new to me, but I mean, over the weeks you get it in your system,” she said.

Tap dancing was introduced when a dancer arrived with a circular wooden board to place on the ground.

Jessie Martinez, an alumni in the program, said the tap dancing piece they performed was a tribute to past dancers and had a very Y2K, nostalgic feeling.

“This was the first piece of the semester, and we didn’t really get that long to learn it,” she said. “So a lot of it has been watching videos and just watching the other dancers, I think it was like 2004, 2008 or something like that, so a long time ago.”

NW student and Mosaic dancer Kara Hawkins said that when she was a kid, she liked making noise with her feet more than she enjoyed doing ballet, thus tap. For her, she preferred being louder than the poised nature of a ballerina.

“It’s just always more fun, more sounds.

It’s also really cool when you get a trick,” she said. “I feel tricks in tap dance are more satisfying than a turn.”

Andrea Faber, an instructional aid alum- ni for the company and NW student was already familiar with the performance and wanted to perfect it. One she had recognized was the African fusion piece.

“We have an anniversary show and that’ll usually be our big finale number, so I’ve learned that years ago,” she said.

The Mosaic itself is an audition based

TCC weighs in on potential benefits of AI

NINA

campus editor nina.banks@my.tccd.edu

ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence have the capacity to change the world of education.

Artificial intelligence, or more commonly referred to as AI, has made large strides in the world of technology and is increasingly accessible to the general public. ChatGPT is an AI that allows users to be serviced in a variety of ways.

It can be used like a search engine for general information like Google. ECHS student Dee Ediale uses ChatGPT as a tool to help research assignments.

“I use ChatGPT to help me research topics and facts for informative papers,” Ediale said. “ChatGPT is really useful when it comes to researching information or topics you know nothing about because it gives a broad idea on what you want to gain knowledge from.”

However, ChatGPT and other AI similar to it have been under fire after many educators have caught students using it to write their assignments.

“I consider myself to be a good writer

Election

touring company, as Faber said.

“We do a lot of outreach stuff. We’ve been in high schools, spring shows, we’ve gone and done career days for elementary schools,” she said. “It’s more for people that just want to expand a little bit and do some things around the community.” so I don’t use it to write my essays,” Ediale said. “I’ve seen my classmates only use ChatGPT for research purposes or short paper responses. ChatGPT is perfect for a 3 paragraph response because it doesn’t require a lot of effort.”

Though ChatGPT does “not have thoughts or opinions” as AI, it asserts that using the platform to cheat is unethical and can lead to potentially harmful consequences.

“It is important for individuals to develop their own knowledge and skills through independent learning, research, and critical thinking,” ChatGPT said. “Dependence on AI language models for completing assignments can hinder this development and can lead to serious consequences such as academic penalties, loss of credibility, and damage to reputation.”

Like other English teachers, SE English instructor Kathy Quesenbury uses the plagiarism and AI detection software recently added to TurnItIn for students.Although she has seen an uptick of students using AI, Quesenbury does not believe that there should be extreme concerns towards it.

“No, because I think it’s like anything else,” Quesenbury said. “The calculator

(continued from page 1) determine whether the money they are spending on projects such as the construction of NW and SE is justified. He also said he would be analyzing the diversity, equity and inclusion policies in place. He said he has received calls from multiple faculty members who are dissatisfied with the way TCC is run right now.

“With the Brandon administration creating such a toxic environment and hiring people based upon race and not on merit, this is not good for the entire county, is not good for our state, is not good for our country,” Carpenter Jr. said. “We will put an end to this, but first off, we have to get people in position that are willing to tackle that, and that’s one thing I’m willing to do and work towards.”

He also wants to focus on special education programs and see what the board can do to improve them.

Greenhill said the main aspects he has enjoyed as a trustee is going out to community events and seeing TCC students and staff, and that’s one of the main reasons he put his bid in again.

He said he is incredibly proud of the actions that he and the other trustees have initiated over his past terms and looks forward to, if reelected, continuing that work for the sake of TCC.

“The main goal of these times is ensuring – budget wise – keeping the college affordable for all and having quality education and affordable education, as you might expect we have,” he said.

Greenhill said he thought his opponents were turning this nonpartisan office into a partisan election with their campaign strategies. He said he focuses more on what the college is doing for the community and the student’s experiences.

“This is something that I feel like it’s important to do because community college, as you well know, has a huge impact on our community,” Greenhill said.

Greenhill, a corporate attorney for Haynes & Boone, has held other community college leadership positions such as being a former chairman of the Community College Association of Texas Trustees.

Pritchett is currently a Tarrant County Republican precinct chair 4340, and is also the director of North Texas for Restore Liberty, a group dedicated to restoring the original values and doctrines of the Constitution. The main issues addressed on her website are also to stop over taxing, eliminate Critical Race Theory and DEI and to focus on job skills instead of larger tuition.

In District 5, Hornsby was initially elected in May 2021 in a special election due to his predecessor Mike Evans being elected as mayor of Mansfield, and this marks his first full four-year term . For Hornsby, the position of trustee means serving to ensure the future economic success of Tarrant County through the way TCC prepares their students for future careers.

“I have a love for TCC as a former student, employee and now as a board member being to serve the community and the students in particular to make sure that they receive the best education, have the best opportunities to increase their ability to earn income in our community, thereby having a great economic impact in our came out and students still can do math. I think if we in education have time to learn it and learn how to teach students to use it rather than students just use it, yes I think it could be beneficial.”

Concerns about AI taking over the roles of educators or the academic integrity of students have risen in recent months. Dee understands the concerns, but also the potential of AI as a tool in the classroom.

“I mean to an extent because of how quickly a human can be replaced by a robot who doesn’t need to be paid for their work,” Ediale said. “I’m not sure especially how current students use it to write full on essays. Some educational systems and districts might even ban it before it can be recognized as a good tool.”

Because AI is presumed to continue to advance further in its educating capabilities, ChatGPT maintains that students should only use it to provide aid.

“It is important for individuals to use AI language models responsibly, as a tool for learning and improving their understanding, rather than as a shortcut to bypass the learning process,” ChatGPT said.

Board approves Title IX guidelines

ALEX HOBEN editor-in-chief alexandra.hoben@my.tccd.edu

TCC’s board of trustees approved of a change to the college’s Title IX policy, and were given presentations in the recent board meeting.

During April’s meeting, the board discussed and approved a cumulative $2 million dollars spent for the acquisition and installation of new furniture for the SE Campus. There was also a presentation regarding the Marketing, Communication and Public Relations department given by Reginald Gates, the Vice Chancellor of Communications and External Affairs.

Everything on the consent agenda was passed, but there was a discussion held for item 4b, regarding an update to the Title IX statutes of DIAA, FFDA and FFDB.

“The changes in policy that the staff is asking the board to consider deal with our existing Title IX policies,” Carol Bracken, general counsel for the board of trustees said. “The policies we have in place were passed in 2020 in connection with changes that were made by the Department of Education at that time.” community,” Hornsby said.

The main change will be a move from the original Association of Title IX Administrators model policies and will now be moved back to the Texas Association of School Boards model. This change, Bracken said, will make it so when the Department of Education adds new policies for Title IX, the change will not be so drastic.

“If our policies are in line with TASB’s, it will make it much easier to conform our Title IX policies when TASB’s updates the policies,” she said.

Trustee Shannon Wood motioned to have 4b removed from the agenda and moved to be considered in September due to a recent bill that passed through the Texas Senate.

Stroba, an Arlington ISD educator, is committed to performing a financial audit on the budget, lowering the property tax burden, prioritizing education over administration, eliminating race-based hiring practices and wants to prioritize tradebased program enrollment.

Neither Pritchett nor Stroba responded to messages seeking comment by press time.

District 4 covers West Fort Worth, North Richland Hills, Azle, Haslet and Haltom City while District 5 extends into Arlington and Mansfield.

“Voting is always important, no matter who you vote for,” Hornsby said. “Exercising your right to and to make your voice known is always important. If you don’t vote, you’ve said ‘I don’t care.’ And then if you don’t care, you shouldn’t complain about anything that happens or how anything goes.”

“This will be a moot point come September, so I just see extra work for our faculty and staff to do all this work and then it’s going to be changed in September,” Wood said.

Bracken said that while she has read the bill, it mainly dealt in the DEI initiatives of colleges and universities rather than Title IX.

Bracken is anticipating having to come to the board again soon with updates to these and other policies if and when they are passed through the Texas House of Representatives.

The meeting also included student highlights. Three students were featured: NE student Jordin Bryan, Connect student Daniel Sanni and SE student Mohamed Yahia. The stories were not without a few tear-jerking moments.

When trustee Bill Greenhill read Bryan’s experience of how she had started and stopped college three times over 15 years, and was able to pass her first semester without dropping out at TCC, Bryan started to tear up at the podium.

“I owe a lot to this school and the people that work here,” Bryan said while wiping tears.

“I owe a lot to the programs, and the advisors, to my boss, to VP [NE vice president of student affairs Terese Tann] Craig and I just really appreciate what y’all do for us, thank you.”