WEDNESDAY Oct. 4, 2017
Vol. 101 • No. 10
www.therambler.org
OPINION
Rams to share their stories Hannah Onder
hlonder@txwes.edu
DeVos rolls back previous guidelines on sexual assaults.
On Sept. 22, the Department of Education announced there will be changes made to Title lX.
NEWS
There are so many ways to volunteer on campus. Students have the opportunity to volunteer with the TxWes Food Pantry, Socktober, and more.
CAMPUS
Do you know how Wesleyan came to be? Wesleyan student Gene Leonard talks about when his family gave the land that the university sits on.
A&E
Are you ready for things to get stranger? Stranger Things 2 is one of the most anticipated televison series of the fall season.
SPORTS
Ever since her high school years almost twenty years ago, Tamika Reynolds has been working to publish her poetry. Three years ago, Reynolds accomplished her goal and published A Whirlwind of Life. It sold more than a hundred copies when it was first released in 2013, but Reynolds has never gotten the chance to do an official book signing event until now. Reynolds, the administrative assistant to the dean of the School of Natural & Social Sciences, will finally get the chance to talk about her book and do a signing at the second annual Wesleyan Local Author Day event on Oct. 12 at the Eunice and James L. West Library. This free event is from 12:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. and will consist of a panel discussion and a book fair featuring students, staff, and alumni authors. “[Wesleyan Local Author Day] is an attempt to get people out of their offices and classrooms, and let them wear their writer’s hat a least for an hour and a half,” Reference Library Assistant Risa Brown said. “I’m always on the look-out for new people to get involved in our event, because people who write fiction, poetry, and memoir, whether they’re self-published or with a traditional publisher, don’t tend to advertise the fact that
Graphic by Hannah Onder The second Wesleyan Local Author Day is Oct. 12 at 12:15 p.m.
STORIES. page 3
Students react to security issues Peyton Prudhomme
pprudhomme@txwes.edu
Jason Plog and Tyler Gerwig are both Texas Wesleyan seniors, but they share something else: feeling safe while on campus. “I definitely have a sense of security here at school,” said Gerwig, a senior finance major. “My first year here I had a sense of vulnerability around campus because there were no gates surrounding the perimeter, but now that they have the perimeter covered there is a great sense of safety for me.” Plog, also a senior finance major, says being at Wesleyan used to feel dangerous, but not any more. “I feel like the security does a re-
ally good job of covering the school and it seems like they are constantly working around the clock,” he said. “A few years ago, this place didn’t feel that safe, but now it feels like home.”
lice officer and Wesleyan’s contract account manager of security. “We ultimately plan to move our location to the bookstore. It is bigger and we can operate better off Rose-
“I feel like security does a really good job of covering the school and it seems like they are constantly working around the clock.” - Jason Plog With two security heads with extensive police backgrounds, the plan now is to transition Wesleyan’s campus security into campus police, said Tim Allen, a current Pelican Bay po-
dale,” Allen said. “At first it was just Chris [Beckrich, director of campus safety and security] here. Me and Chris work really well here and he asked me to join the force here, and
it seemed like an opportune job for me.” Allen said he was motivated to join the campus security force because Beckrich had a plan to turn the campus security into a campus police force. “Almost every college in the country has a police force on campus,” Allen said. “Tarrant County, TCU, UTA, to name a few, so we ultimately want to turn this into a campus police and that sounded like something I would love to be part of.” One major difference in security on the Wesleyan campus this semester is that the time that gates remain
SECURITY. page 3
Wesleyan grows service opportunities Hannah Onder
hlonder@txwes.edu
Wesleyan professor integrates sports with science. Thiebaud has begun to enlist his students to assist with his many research projects.
ONLINE
Rams take on Texas College. The Rams football team heads to Tyler on Saturday.
they’re writers.” Last year the event featured three different panels, but this year Brown, the event’s organizer, plans to do the event a little different by combining those panels into one followed by a book fair. “[At last year’s event] I’m afraid that we missed some people who might like to have heard the panel discussion, because they followed their friend or the people they were interested in out here to the book fair, while we still had another panel discussion going on,” she said. Brown also plans to keep the panel fresh for returning attendees. “We’re having all new authors on our author panel,” Brown said. “If you come to hear the talking it will be a completely different set of people. On the panel so far, we have two people who are staff members that are admins in different offices on campus, we have an alumnus, and we have a student. “It doesn’t mean the authors who were here last year have not be invited, because we did invite them to come out and participate in the book fair. That will be the part out here in the main room of the library where [authors] they will have their books for sale, will autograph those books, and will be glad to talk to you about writing.”
Graphic by Hannah Onder Contact Barbara Barnhart at bbarnhart@txwes.edu to start volunteering.
Texas Wesleyan’s food pantry, which started as a budgetless volunteer project, has exploded this semester. “This semester has been absolutely phenomenal in terms of volunteering, so much so that we have managed to open the food pantry five days a week for a good portion of the day,” Dr. Alison Simons said. “Freshmen this semester have been absolutely awesome and so willing and able to contribute however they can.” With expanded hours and more volunteers, Simons, an assistant professor of sociology is thankful for Polytechnic United Methodist Church member Eddie Castlow’s help and couldn’t be more excited to see her project take off. Simons and two members of Wesleyan’s staff say that Wesleyan’s volunteering may be flourishing in some areas, but there are places it could improve. Staff is working to both strengthen current opportunities and to create new ones. “I’ve just been trying to finesse
what [volunteer opportunities] we have been doing,” said Barbara Barnhart, assistant director of student engagement. “I think it’s not making more, but making the experiences that we have better. Allowing students to reach out for their passions is very important to me.” Currently the opportunities that students do regularly with student affairs are the Trinity Trash Bash in the fall, alternative spring break, graduation hooding and robing, and a women’s leadership symposium. However, there are other volunteer opportunities out there. “Throughout the years we have had different organizations throughout the community and region that ask for volunteers,” Barhart said. “We don’t see the same ones very regularly, but I’ve gotten asked for volunteers for Cycle Fort Worth, the Trinity Turkey Trot, the Fort Worth Parade, children’s hospitals, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth. It’s kind of just a sprinkle all over the community. Any time you’re interested in any kind of community
SERVICE. page 3
2 | Wednesday | October 4, 2017
Opinion
TheRambler.org | For news throughout the day.
DeVos will not protect victims EDITORIAL
The problems for colleges and universities dealing with sexual assaults on campuses have ranged from officials covering up student complaints to administrations micromanaging students on the multiple ways a person can “consent to sex” to athletes being told that rape is okay as long as it was a mistake. After seeing schools like Baylor University and Penn State being engulfed in sex scandals, you would assume issues of sexual assault would start to decrease, especially when, about six years ago, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights offered new guidelines to colleges and universities to assist with clarifying how disciplinary proceedings would occur in cases of sexual assault complaints, according to latimes.com. The guidelines told schools to treat both the accuser and the accused equally in that the decision of discipline would be based off the evidence offered by the accuser, according to latimes.com. The guidance was set as a way to combat the recent alarming survey that showed roughly one in every five female students experience some form of sexual assault while enrolled in a college or university, according to aau.edu. Now, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is wanting to change the guidelines set by the Obama administration on how to enforce Title XI, which is a federal law banning sex-based discrimination. On Sept. 22, the Department of Education rescinded the Obama adminis-
tration guidelines and announced it will establish a new set of guidelines, according to cnn. com. DeVos especially wants to change the evidentiary standard, which basically means she wants to make it much more difficult for a victim to show evidence against an accused assailant. To DeVos, the guideline definitions on assault and harassment are not clear, which is why she wants to change them, according to slate.com. This is not the time to create rollbacks on an established guideline; we need to focus on a universal definition of what rape and sexual harassment are. If we don’t have these definitions in place, how can we determine how to punish someone for these crimes? In 2016, the Department of Education was having to handle more than 240 investigations into how almost 200 colleges and universities handled sexual assaults under Title IX, acGraphic by Shaydi Paramore Sexual assault victims that insist on staying in school suffer dramatically after an incident. cording to slate.com. In most cases, the investigation into sexual assault allegations take four years to deal with tions. Only 20 percent of all sexual assault cas- violence on college campuses, Biden warned and most colleges or universities never deter- es on campus are ever reported, according to against the “new challenges” students would mine who is responsible for the assault, ac- rainn.org. The number will go up because the have to face with the rollback, according to cording to slate.com. alleged assailants are the ones DeVos is hop- cnn.com. According to aau.edu, the most common ing to focus on protecting through her newest By creating this rollback, DeVos is protectreason for assault victims to not report an in- guidelines. ing sexual assault assailants and giving the cident of sexual assault is feeling that the issue The announcement made by the Education opportunity for sexual assaults to increase on is not considered “serious enough.” Or the stu- Department quickly received backlash from campus. dents feel embarrassed, ashamed or believe re- multiple advocacy groups. Issues with sexual assaults on campus will peating the scenario is too difficult to discuss. In a video for the three-year anniversary for continue to increase, especially if there is an By making these rollbacks, DeVos is stating “It’s On Us,” a group created by former Presi- increase in rollbacks to guidelines that are atthat she will no longer stress the importance of dent Barack Obama and former Vice Presi- tempting to protect students. victims coming out and explaining their situa- dent Joe Biden that focuses on curbing sexual
Standing out as an indiviual, not a statistic Shaydi Paramore Editor in Chief ssparamore@txwes.edu
At a young age, I was considered a statistic. My mother was a dropout who got pregnant with me at age 16. My dad had barely begun first year at a community college when he was told about me. The minute I was born, I was born a statistic. “Your parents are smokers; that makes you more likely to smoke.” “Your parents dropped out; that makes you 50 percent more likely to drop out.” Oh, and I can’t forget about my favorite one. “Your mom had you when she was 16, you are 50 percent more likely to be pregnant at that age.” Nothing against people who drop out and get pregnant at a younger age, it’s just that wasn’t me. I wasn’t a statistic. At the age of ten, I had an epiphany. I needed to become a film director. I wanted to run away from our tiny retirement town and head to New York to study at the New York Film Academy. So I started working harder to get a step closer to where I wanted to be. While kids at my school focused their time on cow roping, preparing their goats for show or constantly practicing their sport, I was researching how to write a script. Usually I would be seen writing what I thought would be the next inspirational teenage rom-com or telling my friends about how the animation was done in certain Disney movies. I had a goal and was driven toward it. Then I met my fiance. I began noticing peo-
ple looking at me differently again. I wasn’t that weird kid who drew tattoo designs, dyed her hair crazy colors, or constantly talked about upcoming movies. I was seen as part of a couple, as Shaydi and Robert, not just Shaydi. I became shy to tell me people I was in a relationship, because I wanted to be looked at as an individual, not as part of a couple. The minute I announced my relationship, people began to look at me as a statistic again. I began to have people ask me personal questions. “Do you want to get married?” “When
ferred to a love for graphic design. It only made sense that my interest in animation would aspire me to have a love of creating designs. I picked up my love for writing again, but instead of writing about teenage heartthrobs my focus was on the news. I started stage-managing theatre productions, assisting with directing shows and working as an editor in chief for the student media group at my school. I became excited to see what my career would become. When asked what I wanted to be, I would
I became excited to see what my career would become. When asked what I wanted to be, I would laugh and say, “I don’t know, but it’s going to be something cool and different.” are you going to?” “When are you going to have kids?” “Do you want kids?” “How many?” “What’s your dream names?” I would just have to smile and say, “One day, it will happen.” I kept a calm and relaxed appearance when these moments occurred, when all I wanted to do was yell at the person that it wasn’t any of their damn business. Deep down, I wanted to tell these people my dream was to marry this amazing man and have a beautiful family with him. To tell them I dreamed of having a quirky, weird kid that looked exactly like Robert. I wanted to tell them I was ready to settle down and have a family, but I couldn’t give up on my dreams. I couldn’t become a statistic. When I began my years at Trinity Valley Community College, my love for film trans-
laugh and say, “I don’t know, but it’s going to be something cool and different.” But as my excitement for my career grew, I became nervous at what my life was becoming. While guys and girls my age were settling down and starting class, I was preparing for my next exam. While my friends were excited about their pregnancy, I was excited about my newest poster design. It became hard to relate to others or talk about my life with them. Even scrolling through on Facebook would be difficult at times. My friends or colleagues from high school would be posting photos of their weddings, their baby announcements or their home decor and all I could think about is, Why can’t that be me? Why do I have to continue at college? Why do I have to have a degree? Why can’t I stay at home with a cute baby, make dinner for my family on a daily
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basis and clean my cute little apartment? I became jealous of others when they announced their pregnancy. I wanted that to be me. I would constantly ask myself, Why the hell am I doing this? Even worse, I started to become worried about if Robert was going to leave me so he could settle down and start a family with someone else. He didn’t deserve to be dragged along by some independent girl who was two hours away pursuing her college degree. He didn’t deserve to come home every night to an empty home while his fiance is hanging out with friends at a bar playing The Office trivia. I didn’t deserve him. When I told him my worries, he would just laugh at the idea of him leaving me, give me hug and kiss and tell me how proud he was of me. How excited he was to see my newest design or read my stories in the newspaper. How he loved having the ability to see and read my work before it got published. I began to notice my love for my creativity increased. I began to focus more time on writing, designing and creating than focusing on who recently got married. My love for my craft began to grow as I noticed his interest for my work continued to spike. When I had writer’s block, he would sit with me and discuss ideas of what to do next in a story. When I got stuck on my graphic designs, he would show me a funny video to cheer me up. He became the reason for my hard work. I don’t continue to work hard at school to get a degree or a cool job in my future. I do it to make Robert proud of me. To make my mom proud of me. Or my sister. Or my grandma. I especially do it to make me proud of me and to show everyone I am not a statistic.
Rams up Thumbs up to the Entrepreneurship club making an impact with Trulee snack company. Thumbs up to giant sand art in the sand volleyball pit. Thumbs up to the Blue+Gold=Green recycling plan starting on campus. Thumbs up to the annual School of Arts and Letters stuffed bear drive.
Rams down Thumbs down to roofing construction at West Village. Thumbs down to West Eatery Express replacing brunch burger with beef poutine. Thumbs down to the Women’s Leadership Symposium being rescheduled. Thumbs down to an increase in car burglaries on campus.
Wednesday | Oct. 4 2017|3
News
TheRambler.org | For news throughout the day.
STORIES
continued from page 1 Reynolds will be one of the new staff authors; the other will be Jacqueline Dobson, the executive assistant of finance administration, whose short story was published in The Plight Before Christmas, a collection of short stories that’s registered in The Library of Congress. Both are excited to participate in Wesleyan Local Author Day. “[I’m looking forward to meeting] possibly others that are in the same book writings as me,” Reynolds said. “Because I’m a poet, I love poetry. It’s just one thing that I really enjoy,
and I read a lot of poetry, too. Hopefully I’ll get to mix and mingle with the other authors and stuff.” Dobson is excited to meet a new group of writers, since she’s been involved with several including the North Texas Christian writers who published The Plight Before Christmas. “I was just excited to hear that there was a group of local authors that meet and got together,” Dobson said. “I would just love to meet them and find out what all they do, how they do it, and just enjoy the time together
with other authors.” Dobson enjoys talking with other writers, because there’s so much to talk and get advice about. “It’s always fun to talk about writing, and it’s a whole new world to find out all about writing and then marketing and publishing,” Dobson said. “It’s just a really big area and there’s lots to talk about, so it’s just fun to have groups like this. They really challenge people to be involved with each other.” Brown hopes students take advantage of the
opportunity to support their fellow staff and students and get involved in this chance to get hands-on writing advice. “I just want to see more people,” Brown said. “I think that we have such an exciting event going on that when people realize what we got going on they will appreciate it. Last year was our inaugural year, so I think people started talking about it. This year I hope more people will take advantage of the expertise that will be available from their peers.”
squeeze out behind one another and it just was becoming a big problem for us,” Allen said, “so we felt that reducing the time would make people more cautious of rushing in and out.” Students, however, have mixed emotions about the gate change.
“I feel like people are going to hit the gate no matter what and now they are going to get hit more because people are going to be rushing behind other cars and maybe even cause accidents,” said junior mass communication major and golfer Leo Mathard.
If you have any questions or concerns about security, call (817)-531-4911 for emergencies and (817)-531-4290 for non-emergencies. People can also look up information at txwes.edu/ security.
ent, human resource coordinator. Tallent said volunteering is important to everyone, because it gives people the opportunity to serve others by using their gifts as well as having a purpose in their lives. “I think that when we give back we have more joy in life, life is more fulfilling, because there really isn’t anything better than helping someone else that can’t do something themselves,” Tallent said. “I think [volunteering] it will empower students individually, and make them more confident and ultimately happier. When you serve others you’re more joyful in general and it just makes you a happier person. There’s nothing negative about it, and it will also bring student organizations closer together too, because they’ll be working hand and hand.” Since Tallent is so passionate about volunteering, she would to see it improve at Texas Wesleyan by centralizing the opportunities for volunteering and increasing local opportunies. “I think we do an OK job, but I think we could really improve,” Tallent said. “I think that’s only going to happen through people coming together, talking about it, and bringing ideas together. There are organizations around our campus and just down the street that could use our help and could partner with us on certain things. On a scale of one through ten, I’d say we’re a four, but I’d like to see us at a ten.” Barnhart also agrees that she’d like to see some more local volunteering. “I think that’s really hard [to say an area where I wish we had more volunteers] actually, because I’m the type of person that thinks that you should play to your passion,” Barnhart said. “I wish that we did more community out-
reach though. That’s more of the things that I wish we participated in, so doing more local experiences that really effect the Poly-community area, because we are so connected in that particular experience. We are a part of this community that we don’t really intentionally interact with it every day, so I wish that there was more of that.” Simons also believes in giving back to the community. “Community is important and everybody is a part of the community,” Simons said. “Giving back to the community not only makes you feel good, but helps other people out who are less fortunate. I think it’s important for college students to learn about the community, and to learn by giving back.” One way Tallent hopes to improve local volunteering is by developing a new sub-committee through the Blue Zones initiative that would be called something like Texas Wesleyan University’s Purpose and Action committee. “[We need to] bring people together, a committee, people who are real passionate about serving others, identify the current volunteer initiatives that are already here and organized and any partnerships we have with organizations that would need our help,” Tallent said, “and then just make a plan, an annual plan.” Tallent plans to start formalizing plans for a kick-off for this committee now that the multicultural committee kick-off is done, so that students can start getting involved in these service opportunities, too. “We did our multicultural kick-off, so now it’s a good opportunity to start focusing on that,” Tallent said. “We just want to be very
SECURITY
continued from page 1 open has been reduced from 35 to 15 seconds. Allen said this was done because two or three people were hitting the gate each day with their cars while they were leaving campus. “People were hitting the gate trying to
SERVICE
continued from page 1 people that are really interested in Hurricane Harvey right now, you just approach me, and I find the person to connect you with.” Barnhart helps students get involved with volunteering passions by connecting them to the right people or helping to create an opportunity for them. “I take it [volunteering requests] both ways [with some people having ideas and some not],” Barnhart said. “I had a student that was super, super passionate about going to New Orleans last year, and assisting with clean-up of New Orleans that is still happening from Katrina years later. With that, we talked about how to construct alternative spring break to assist with that particular inspiration. But I’ve also had students that are like, ‘I’m really excited about Habitat for Humanity,’ and I’m like, ‘Great. We have a local chapter, so let me connect you with them.’” Some sponsors on campus, like Simons, are fine with students just going up to her and asking to volunteer. “[If students want to volunteer], they just come and ask,” Simons said, “and tell me how they want to volunteer.” Another new volunteering opportunity on campus is the multicultural committees. There is one each month focusing on different themes like Hispanic Heritage, LGBTQ Awareness, Women’s History Month, Disabled Awareness, and so on. “The committee decides on how people are going to celebrate, how we’re going to bring awareness to the campus, and what outside organizations that we currently have partnerships with or that we can partner with [to make those ideas happen],” said Christi Tall-
Graphic courtesy of freeimages.com A handprint image symbolizing community.
strategic with everything that we do. It’s so good to be excited and passionate about stuff, but you want to make sure you’re planning it correctly and you’re thinking about the big picture before you just roll with it.” With more organization, Tallent hopes to increase the desire for students to participate in successful annual service opportunities in the local community. However, students do have an area of volunteering they’re really strong at on campus. “I think students are a lot more excited about hands-on projects in regards to like building things or assisting with relief,” Barnhart said. “I’ve gotten a lot [of requests] with the Hurricane Harvey thing, clean-up for Katrina, and Habitat for Humanity. I’ve had a lot more assistance in relief and aid [than in the local area].” However, no matter where and how students choose to volunteer, Barnhart, Tallent and Simons agree on the importance of doing some kind of volunteering during college. “When we talk about the institutional mission in regards to building better members of society, I think volunteerism and service really help round people out in regards to humbling them,” Barnhart said. “Reaching out to people with aid and seeing the world in a more global perspective versus a more internal perspective,
4 |Wednesday October 4, 2017
Campus
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Leonard follows in his family’s footsteps Heather Olivia Shannon hoshannon@txwes.edu
When Gene Leonard steps on Texas Wesleyan University’s campus, he feels the strong presence of his family’s history. “It is mind-boggling to think that years ago, this is where my family members tread and walked,” Leonard said. “Even in the music building, where we are right now. The auditorium was previously the second Polytechnic Methodist Church. And I think my God, my family probably went to church services here.” Leonard, a freshman-junior music major, said his family’s history goes back to donating land for Texas Wesleyan to be built on, as well as land grants for family heirs. His relatives were his great-great grandfather Archibald Smith Hall; his brother William Davis Hall; their cousin George Tandy; Archibald’s daughter Eva Hall Leach; and her husband Dr. Hubert Felix Leach. “A.S. Hall, W.D. Hall, and a cousin, George Tandy, gave the land for Polytechnic College now [Texas Wesleyan University,]” said Leonard, who graduated from Tarrant County College in 2017. “A.S. Hall, known by the family as ‘Pee Paw,’ along with his brother W.D. Hall and cousin George Tandy, gave land grants to the heirs of A.S. Hall, W.D. Hall, and George Tandy.” The Halls were pioneers from Kentucky and
moved to Fort Worth, said Associate Professor and University Archivist Lewis Sherwood. Fort Worth was a small village in the 1880s and Polytechnic Heights was a barren prairie covered with grass. “They cut and trimmed timber with which to build log cabins,” according to the Texas Wesleyan archives, which also notes that the family traveled from Kentucky on horse-drawn covered wagons. “These pioneers brought with them plowshares, spinning wheels, equipment for looms, seeds and stock with which to begin farming.”
Wesleyan Provost and Senior Vice President Allen Henderson was taken with surprise by Leonard’s interesting story. “Texas Wesleyan has a rich history,” Henderson said. “There are many scholarships that are related to people’s families at Texas Wesleyan such as the Tandy’s.” People can see a glimpse of Leonard’s family history at the Oneal-Sells Administration building. A plaque on the front entrance states that A.S. Hall, W.D. Hall, and George Tandy donated the land for Polytechnic College. Leach and Eva Hall were both Polytechnic
“I am carrying on the legacy, being the third generation of my family to go here. I am very proud of my family and honored.” -Gene Leonard The archives also note that A.S. Hall and his wife Martha sold 25 acres out of 165 acres of land to Polytechnic College; William Davis Hall and George Tandy also gave land grants to the school. A committee under the direction of Bishop Joseph S. Key explored locations for a campus and settled on the land donated by Leonard’s family, according to txwes.edu.
Photo courtesy of Lewis Sherwood This photo shows what Polytechnic College looked like in the late 1800s.
College students in 1891 to 1892. She was the president of the Susan M. Key Literary Society and was a voice pupil in the music classes, according to the archives. “My great grandmother [Eva Hall Leach] came here and she met her husband [Dr. H.F. Leach] and they were the first couple to be married in the college chapel,” Leonard said. One of the first churches on campus was the
Polytechnic Methodist Church; it is possible the chapel the couple married in was the one from 1894, according to the archives. “Poly Methodist moved several times because their congregation outgrew the church buildings,” Sherwood said. Eva Hall Leach later taught education and religion at Polytechnic, Leonard said. The Leaches had two daughters, Mamie and Sue; Mamie (1901-1974) was Leonard’s grandmother, he said. Sue Leach graduated from Texas Wesleyan College in 1920, her sister in 1924. The Hall’s family home was on top of the hill of Avenue E, in Polytechnic Heights, and that land was theirs also. Leonard grew up in Fort Worth and going to the current Polytechnic United Methodist Church. He said listening to the pipe organ inspired him to get involved in music as a child. “I love the present church, especially the rose window in the sanctuary, with the turquoise, the purple, and the reds, it is so beautiful,” he said. Leonard was drawn to Wesleyan because of his family’s history. “I am carrying on the legacy, being the third generation of my family to go here,” Leonard said. “I am very proud of my family and honored.”
Photo courtesy of Lewis Sherwood
The land was given by A.S. Hall, W.D. Hall, and a cousin, George Tandy, to be used by Polytechnic College. This sketch shows the land that was given.
Casey reads The Rambler to keep up with the world of Wesleyan.
Casey belongs to TWU Provost Alan Henderson & his wife Peggy.
Send photos of your pet(s) with a copy of The Rambler to IMG Director Grace Fisher, gafisher@txwes.edu, to have them featured in the next issue.
Wednesday | October 4, 2017
|5
Campus
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Photo courtesy of Gene Leonard Mamie Leach attended Polytechnic College and graduated in 1924.
Photo courtesy of Gene Leonard Gene Leonard stands by the plaque that was erected by Polytechnic College. The plaque is located at the entrance of the Oneal-Sells Administration Building.
Photo courtesy of Gene Leonard
Photo courtesy of Gene Leonard
TWU RAMS Gameweek Don’t miss these exicting events leading up to kickoff! Oct. 9
Oct. 10
Oct. 11
Deck Out Tacobout PowCampus a Lip - derpuff (noon) & Sync @ 7 Game @ Ram Rally p.m. 6 p.m. @ 10 p.m.
Oct. 12
Oct. 13
Freshman Taste of Class WesleyPhoto an @ 6 @ free p.m. period
Presented to you by Student Engagement Rams Up!
Oct. 14 Tailgate @ 11:30 a.m. Farrington Field
Photo courtesy of Lewis Sherwood These photos are of Polytechnic Methodist Church when it was first established in 1894.
Wednesday | October 4, 2017
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Sports
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Lady Rams build on early victories Delana Lopez dmlopez@txwes.edu
With a preseason record of 5-1, and having outscored opponents 31-2 in three recent games, the Lady Rams are off to an excellent season. Head coach Josh Gibbs says that the four seniors that graduated last season helped build a solid foundation for the program. “They were exceptional student athletes and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of kids,” Gibbs said. This year, there are new, young faces and they bring a new style of play, Gibbs said. “You lose some great ones and you try to find new great ones to come in,” Gibbs said. Freshman Tameir Grosvenor is the team’s leading scorer with 14 goals in the season’s first six games, Gibbs said, but all the new players are making an impact. “It’s fun to see the old players mix with the new players to create kind of our identity,” Gibbs said. “It’s funny. We’re more of a bluecollar, hardworking, tough, physical team than we have been in the past. That happened organically and I’m pretty excited about that.” A good way to give an example of the team’s identity, Gibbs said, is that the players were more worried about the two goals scored against them in the recent games than the 31 points the team scored. “Our job is clean sheets,” Gibbs said. “Shutouts. We don’t want to give up goals so I think we’ve had games with offensive explosion, like Paul Quinn. It was 10 to 2 but I think when we walked away we were a little bit upset about the two goals that were scored against us. You can’t lose if you don’t give up goals and that is a big focus for us.” Gibbs said that the Lady Rams are not going to score 10 goals in most games, so they are really focusing on shutouts. In a conference like the Sooner Athletic Conference, giving up just two goals could be the difference between a win and a loss. The team started conference play last week; Gibbs said the team expects to win the conference. “The players are good and they know they’re a good team and they know the responsibilities each one of them has to perform like that team every single day,” Gibbs said, adding that he does not feel the team’s confidence is inflated; the players are simply very certain of who they are. Senior mass communication major
Photo courtesy of Little Joe Samantha Moore kicks the ball away from a Bacone College player on Sept. 28. The Lady Rams beat Bacone 5-0, according to ramsports.net
Marisol Saucedo believes communication can help with shutouts this season. “The biggest struggle for the team this year has been communication,” she says. Saucedo said that sometimes players do not take the opportunity to critique one another or the team, or if they do say something, other players don’t want to listen. This can hurt the team during games. “As we head into conference play, we expect to win every game,” Saucedo says. “It’s a bold statement but we only lost one game last season and we’re a better team this year. We’ve not had a full roster full of women that can be put on the field at any given moment and do the job.” Saucedo said each player plays the game well and that’s a key factor for the team. Any of the
players can be thrown onto the field at any point in the game and perform as they need to. “We just want to take each game one at a time,” Saucedo said. “To keep the focus on our competition for whomever we play that day will help us maintain our momentum for the season.” Senior education major Samantha Moore says the team as a whole has the same drive to have a winning season. “We’re all just focusing on one game at a time,” Moore says. “Our work rate and mindset that we have as a team is a huge factor in us having a winning season.” Moore said getting to play this final season at Wesleyan is super exciting. Each player makes a difference, which makes for a very diverse team and a deep roster that everyone can
count on. “I am so thankful this is the team I get to play with my last season,” Moore says. “I know we’re going to work together to make sure we are ready for each game. Josh has been a huge motivator for us and his mindset for this season is helping us get that much more excited.” Gibbs says the opportunity to have a great season is within reach. “We work hard during the week so we can celebrate our team on the weekends by playing and hopefully playing well,” Gibbs said. The Lady Rams’ next home game is 7 p.m. Saturday against Southwestern Christian University. For more information go to ramsports. net.
8 | Wednesday | October 4, 2017 TheRambler.org | For news throughout the day.
Thiebaud teaches through research Karan Muns kemuns@txwes.edu
Many people take the same route to being college professors: they go to school, get a doctorate, and get a job. Dr. Robert Thiebaud didn’t. The Texas Wesleyan assistant professor of exercise science was going to be a computer science major just because he liked it, but switched to exercise science at Brigham Young University because it was taught in a more cohesive way than the computer science classes he was taking. “I just kind of decided I wanted to switch and try something different,” Thiebaud said, “but I still liked science. I also liked exercise. I love sports. I just went to the counselor and they told me about exercise science. I loved it and just stuck with it.” Thiebaud, affectionately called Dr. T by many of his students, said that he worked at several different physical therapy clinics, decided they weren’t a good fit for him, and then decided to pursue a master’s degree in exercise science at BYU. As a graduate student, Thiebaud could teach activity classes and conduct research. “I started doing it, and I really enjoyed it,” Thiebaud said. “Learning about new things is always fun. When you have questions, you can actually go and try to find the answer.” Thiebaud said he credits some of his success to the mentors that shaped him through graduate school. “They got me to go to a conference,” he said, “and kind of just built on from there until I decided that, ‘I’ll do this Ph.D. and do research because it’s fun.’ I enjoyed it.” Thiebaud earned his doctorate degree in exercise physiology at the University of Oklahoma in 2014 and began teaching at Wesleyan the same year. He said that at Wesleyan professors focus on teaching but are also expected to continue to do research. He combines the two and uses his personal experiments to teach students outside the classroom. “That’s the fun part, I think, is to get students involved in the research,” he said, “so they can see all the stuff that they’re learning in class and how it can be applied to different scenarios.” Thiebaud said research studies teach students more than just science; they also teach problem-solving skills, because no experiment can be conducted perfectly. “Seeing them progress and enjoy the experience and then having the students actually present some of that research at conferences is exciting,” Thiebaud said. Thiebaud finds experiment ideas through
his own interests and his students. “I always try to make [the experiment] more towards interests that I have, that I’ve done previous research on,” he said. “But the FitBit study that I did that wasn’t necessarily my area of research. It was a question some students had so I thought, ‘Hey, let’s do a project and figure out how accurate they are.’” Thiebaud has been impacting students at Wesleyan since 2014, according to txwes.edu. “Dr. T has shown me what it means to be an all-around good professor,” said senior exercise major Jacey Patton. “Not only has he been an incredible teacher, he has also helped in preparation for life after graduation whether that is graduate school or working in the field.” Patton said that assisting Thiebaud with research has taught her many things besides just research methods. “Conducting research has been very beneficial because it also taught me about myself,” Patton said. “I have been able to apply what I’ve learned in the classroom and have seen the aspects of research that I truly enjoy. It has shown me that I would like to continue conducting research and pursue higher education.” Thiebaud typically invites students to be lab assistants, she said. Since Patton has always loved to learn, she jumped at the chance to help conduct research. “I knew that I would have the ability to learn skills that would carry over into other aspects of life,” Patton said. “I was able to learn the process of conducting a research study and what it takes to conduct one of good quality. I was very excited to have the opportunity to put what I had learned into action.” Lab assistants have a lot of responsibilities, such as testing equipment and gathering supplies, she said. “I also help prepare the individual(s) participating in the research,” Patton said. “This includes things like placing electrodes in their proper place, fitting the equipment to the participant, making sure that they are aware of everything that will happen, and ensuring that they are comfortable throughout the testing. I also help in administering the test. This includes time-sensitive data collection, informing the participant of what will happen next, and making sure that the equipment functions properly throughout the protocol.” Chandler Henderson, a senior exercise science major, said Thiebaud is very intelligent and makes being in the classroom fun. Thiebaud gives quizzes and homework to prepare students for tests, and he’s always open to students stopping by for help if they’re struggling
Photo by Karan Muns Dr. Robert Thiebaud speaks to students about an upcoming test during one of his classes.
with the material. “I like that he takes an interest in each student,” Henderson said. “I like that he cares about his students and what he is teaching. He is a great man and a great professor.” Oscar Peña, also a senior exercise science major, said he enjoys Thiebaud’s classes because he is passionate about learning, even though he has a Ph.D. “He isn’t full of himself despite being a pretty smart guy,” Peña said. “He’s open to learning about new things and this kind of goes hand in hand with being passionate about teaching. If a student has a question about a particular subject and he isn’t able to answer it he will look into it and follow up the next class.” Thiebaud tries to teach critical thinking,
teamwork, and science using several different methods, Peña said. “He is open to constructive criticism and suggestions on his teaching approach,” Peña said. “In doing so, he’s made it clear that his prime objective is making sure that every student is able to thrive in his class.” Peña also said that Thiebaud has a great sense of humor and outlook on life that shine through in the classroom. “I enjoy that he’s caring, and that he puts in grades fairly quick,” Peña said. “He tells you what he expects, what you need to do to be successful, and helps you as best as he can. What else would you want from a professor?” For more information about Thiebaud’s studies, email rthiebaud@txwes.edu.
This Editor in Chief is ready to pass the torch! Now seeking applicants for Spring 2018 Editor in Chief of The Rambler.
Current Editor in Chief, Shaydi Paramore, living the dream.
Students can apply online through HR or send applications directly to Dr. Kay Colley at kcolley@txwes.edu Applications are due by October 25.