SUMMER 2017
Engineering Solutions Senior engineering science students design improvements for emergency water supply stations
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An Accidental Entrepreneur Success in the News
An Apple a Day Alumnus is vice president and chief financial officer for Apple Retail “I believe that when you build great gathering places, fill them with the best people, and trust them with the mission of inspiring the world with Apple
Nick Severino ’88
products and services, the outcome will be nothing short of breathtaking.” So says Nick Severino ’88, the vice president and chief financial officer for Apple Retail, crediting the success of Apple Stores to their ability to bring communities together. As a student, Severino served on the Trinity Admissions Council’s special events committee and as treasurer and fundraising chair of the Catholic Student Group. He says one of the most enriching experiences during his Trinity years was a China and Japan study tour that taught him how important it is to be aware of a country’s history and culture and understand how that impacts a country’s endeavors on the international stage. Since joining Apple in 2005—“before the iPhone and iPad and the incredible array of new software and services that have been introduced,” he says—Severino has fueled the growth of Apple’s direct business from a few stores in the U.S. to 493 physical stores in 18 countries, most recently in China, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Turkey. He has also established digital stores in 36 countries, most recently in Thailand and Malaysia.
The Trinity Perspective magazine is produced quarterly. Through these pages, explore the many facets of life at Trinity University and get to know the students, faculty, and staff that call Trinity home. With the vibrant city of San Antonio as a backdrop, discover the many benefits and opportunities our community has to offer. Oh, and we may throw in our favorite restaurants around town for you to check out while visiting our 125-acre campus.
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ABOUT TRINITY Trinity University is a private, residential, co-educational institution with an undergraduate focus. So, what does that mean? It means that we are here to focus on YOU. We connect you with the best possible resources, caring and engaged faculty members, committed staff members, and world-class students destined to have a positive impact on our community.
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NOW NEWS FOR THE
Experience at TigerTV
provides solid background for producer/anchor
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By Mary Denny
While many folks are trying to stay awake for the 10 p.m. news, Claire Richardson’s “day” is just beginning. That’s when her work as producer and anchor for the morning news show for WHSV, the ABC affiliate in Harrisonburg, Va., is just getting underway. While it took some time to adjust to the overnight hours, Richardson’s favorite part of the job is working with her great morning team. “Even though the hours can be brutal, and the job stressful, everyone is always dedicated to pulling their own weight to make sure everything gets done,” she says. Harrisonburg doesn’t have as much breaking news as larger markets, making one of Richardson’s biggest challenges finding enough local stories to fill a two-hour show. That requires working with reporters and affiliate stations to gather content
Even though the hours can be brutal, and the job stressful, everyone is always dedicated to pulling their own weight to make sure everything gets done. Not in the Harrisonburg, Va., area? You can still watch Claire during her morning show live online at whsv.com/livestream
from around the area. Contrary to popular perception— and adding to the stress—her morning show does not have a large crew. Indeed, she reports, “a few people do it all.” She even runs the teleprompter herself with a foot pedal under her desk. “When news breaks, we have to get the information, write a script, make a graphic, put it on the web and produce it into a show during one of our two-minute commercial breaks,” she says. Although producing is the majority of her responsibility, Richardson also anchors. That’s where the real fun comes in, she says. She gets more of an opportunity to show her personality than she would on an evening show. “Yes, it can be tiring to go to the desk and exude energy after a night of producing,” but Richardson copes by reminding herself that “anchoring is what people see, and they’ll judge me on that two-hour portion of my ten-hour day.” The daughter of an Air Force officer, Richardson
was born in Japan and attended high school in Germany. With family in Austin, she began looking at Texas colleges and chose Trinity after its stateof-the-art communication center caught her eye. She had known since high school that she wanted to study communication but wasn’t sure which aspect of that career field she would pursue. Working for Trinity’s student-run TigerTV enabled Richardson to practice news writing, become comfortable on camera, and accumulate enough clips to create a talent reel. Her senior capstone project involved interviews with San Antonio television anchors, which proved helpful after graduation. Thanks to the contacts she made during that project, Richardson was invited to shadow producers on the KABB Fox News First morning show. She arrived every morning at 3 a.m. to learn from the producers. After a month as an “honorary intern,” Richardson landed a job at News 4 WOAI, where she honed her writing skills, joined
morning photographers on shoots, and further built up her talent reel. Within months she landed her current job as producer/anchor for WHSV. “After getting the position at WHSV, I received multiple emails from former professors wishing me well. Hearing from these professors and knowing that they were still invested in my success, even though I had been out of school for a year, meant a lot to me,” she says. She is especially grateful to communication professors Bill Christ and Jennifer Henderson who were helpful as she worked out a plan to “get a foot into the industry.” Hardworking and extroverted, this young producer and anchor plans to stay in broadcast journalism with hopes of moving up in media markets. However, she adds, “At this point, I’m not sure where I want to end up location-wise, but I’m hoping that’s something I’ll figure out as I move up in my career.”
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…But Not a Drop to Drink
Senior engineering science students design improvements for emergency water supply stations By Allyson Mackender ’17
In recent years, Brooks County, located just three hours south of San Antonio, has become one of the deadliest stretches of land for migrants crossing the border into the United States. According to an article in the Texas Observer, “migrants must leave the highway and hike through the rugged ranchlands” in order to circumvent the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. This detour is often deadly. In the grueling south Texas heat, hundreds of migrants die each year from heat stroke and dehydration. Recognizing this, community organizer Eddie Canales founded the South Texas Human Rights Center (STHRC), an organization located in Falfurrias, Texas, in 2013. This year, as part of Trinity University’s engineering design projects, STHRC asked
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Trinity senior engineering students for help to improve their Emergency Water Supply Station project, a series of 90 barrels with six jugs of water and an aluminum flagpole, spread over 1,200 square miles— implemented to alleviate dehydration and disorientation often fatal for migrants. Education professor Angela Breidenstein ‘91, ‘92 made the engineering senior
design pitch on behalf of STHRC and in collaboration with the Borderland Collective, and the International School of the Americas, Trinity’s professional development school partner. Excited by the opportunity to complete a project with immediate implications, 13 students asked to participate in the design project, a group almost three times larger than normal. With the help of engineering professor Mehran Aminian, the students have worked tirelessly over the last two semesters to make the project a reality. “What appealed to me about this project was the urgency of it,” says engineering science student James Regan ’17. “A lot of engineering projects can help people, but when we are done, [STHRC] will probably
Engineering is about making a difference and being ingenious. This project allowed us to do just that, and I think we all look forward to continuing our education and career with this spirit in mind. start using the design right away.” “The South Texas Human Rights Center wants light identification so the water barrels can be identified at night when the majority of movement happens, a way to track the amount of water in the barrel, and a durable and insulated container,” engineering science student Kathryn Schoer ’17 explains.
In order to accomplish these tasks, the 13 students working on the project split into five groups: water station structure and base; website; communications; weight sensor; and power supply and identification. All of these components will eventually be combined to create a life-saving and approachable structure to be placed in Brooks County. Despite the current political climate, Schoer reiterated the Emergency Water Supply Station is not a political statement. “We are not trying to encourage or discourage people from crossing the border,” Schoer says. “We’re just trying to respect the sanctity of human life.” “It’s an academic challenge,” Schoer adds. “Sometimes we face a problem that we could have never predicted in class so we need to be innovative to solve it.” Despite this challenge, the students agree it has been a rewarding glimpse into what life as a professional engineer looks like. “This project has demonstrated how all the fields of engineering work together,” Schoer said, “You can’t have just a mechanical engineering project or just a chemical engineering project. You have to work with everyone.” This lesson is certainly important as the students graduate and pursue graduate school and careers.
Although the students intend to pursue professional engineering careers, this project exposed them to the idea of volunteer engineering. “Most engineers have the newest technology and access to the best tools, but that isn’t the case in many places across the globe,” Regan says. “I’d love to volunteer and use my engineering expertise to help people more directly, like this project is doing.” Regardless of their plans, the senior engineering students working on the Emergency Water Supply Station project certainly have promising futures. “Engineering is about making a difference and being ingenious,” Schoer says. “This project allowed us to do just that, and I think we all look forward to continuing our education and career with this spirit in mind.” The senior engineering science students working on this project are Rebecca Bond, Joshua Bradley, Christine Campbell, Amanda Dinh, Erika Edrington, Yasmeen Farra, Brad Hood, Clay Lansdale, Sneha Pottian, James Regan, Kathryn Schoer, Katherine Walls, and Andrea Zavala.
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The Accidental Entrepreneur Trinity graduate catapults into startup career By Bria Woods ’16
Picture this: I’m on 6th Street in Austin with my best friends, and we’re having a great time when all of a sudden we realize one of our friends is missing. We have no idea where he is. We search the bar–he’s nowhere to be found. We call him repeatedly–no answer. We text him—no response. We roam 6th Street—all to no avail. Perhaps you’ve experienced that heart-sinking moment when you can’t find a friend or a loved one. It’s instantly sobering, and immediately all of the worst-case scenarios start playing in your mind. I felt helpless in that moment. This, and other similar stories I was made aware of as a resident assistant at Trinity University, completely changed the way I thought about safety. It provided the inspiration for GLO—which stands for “Good Looking Out”—a personal safety app designed to make it easier for friends to keep track of each other during an outing, and one that will automatically notify your friends when you’ve made it home safely. But how did I go from that night on 6th Street to being an official speaker at South by Southwest (SXSW)? A series of happy accidents. It all began my senior year at Trinity when I took a one-hour entrepreneurship class. What
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Woods developed prototypes for GLO using resources in the Innovation Studio at Trinity’s Center for the Sciences and Innovation.
started as a group project blossomed into my first startup. Hence the reason I titled my talk at SXSW “The Accidental Entrepreneur.” I started my talk by asking the audience at Casa San Antonio what chocolate chip cookies, penicillin, and GLO have in common (more on that later). To answer this question I went back to where it all began in that group project in my first and only entrepreneurship class at Trinity. My first group project focused on raising awareness about rape and sexual assault on college campuses. In our research we learned that one in five women and one in 13 men will be raped or sexually assaulted during their college career, and this is especially high for college freshmen during the red zone (August through Thanksgiving). We didn’t even need the stats; we had the gut-wrenching stories from our best friends to fuel our mission. We pitched our idea at the Stumberg Competition in April 2016. We were one of five finalists who won $5,000, a spot in the 10-week Trinity University Accelerator program, a free membership at Geekdom, and access to the best San Antonio has to offer in the way of entrepreneurship and innovation. During the Accelerator program we pivoted the scope of the problem we were trying to solve. We wanted to be proactive, change the conversation, and provide a bold step people could take at the beginning of the night so they wouldn’t have to worry about the end of the night. I pitched the idea for a safety app at a 3-Day Startup competition at Geekdom in June 2016. After three days of intense work with an inspiring team, GLO was born. The development of the app began at the Global Roundup Conference in July where I won its first ever wireframe competition. A few weeks later, I found myself in the office of the Texas Secretary of State signing our business formation documents. It was at that moment that I thought to myself, “I guess I’m an entrepreneur now!”
Woods answers audience questions during SXSW 2017. Photo courtesy Choose SA.
Getting invited to be an official speaker at SXSW is a story of being in the right place at the right time. I explained at SXSW that what started as a fortunate accident quickly evolved into an intentional and purposeful part of my life. Going back to the question I posed at SXSW: What do chocolate chip cookies, penicillin, and GLO have in common? All were formed as a result of happy accidents. One moment I was sitting in a cool class just looking forward to graduation, and a few months later I found myself managing a startup. For the first time in my life I am consumed by a burning desire to realize a vision of a safer world – which is why we are starting right here in San Antonio, our backyard.
Woods spoke with Casa San Antonio at SXSW 2017. Photo courtesy Choose SA.
A version of this article originally appeared in The Rivard Report in March 2017. Bria Woods graduated in May 2016 from Trinity University, where she developed a passion for entrepreneurship and raising awareness about rape and sexual assault on college campuses. She is currently attending graduate school in London while managing her personal safety app, GLO.
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A Step Ahead
5
graduate programs
100%
job placement rate for Master’s in Teaching
100%
job placement rate for Master’s in Accounting
97%
job placement rate for Master’s in Health Care Administration Class of 2015
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A graduate degree from Trinity University allows you to achieve your ambitious career goals and make a serious impact on your profession. Trinity has five first-rate programs that integrate conceptual and experiential learning. Master of Science in Accounting
Master of Arts in School Psychology
The Master of Science in Accounting program prepares students to take the national CPA exam and to pursue a lifetime of professional development.
The Master of Arts in School Psychology program has earned approval by the National Association of School Psychologists and offers immediate school experience as an important part of the educational experience.
Master of Science in Health Care Administration The program in Health Care Administration has achieved an outstanding national reputation and its alumni have attained key leadership positions in health care organizations throughout the U.S.
Master of Arts in Teaching The Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is certified by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and provides extensive assistance to graduates in obtaining teaching positions upon graduation.
Master of Education in School Leadership The Master of Education in School Leadership program is an innovative and intensive 14-month program that leads to a Master of Arts in School Leadership and a State of Texas Principal certificate, and prepares a select cohort of educators to take on the challenges of urban school leadership in the greater San Antonio community.
Interested in becoming a Tiger?
Apply Early! Applications open for first-year students applying for the Class of 2022 on JULY 1, 2017 via Apply Texas & on AUG. 1, 2017 via the Common Application.
Visit Campus It’s important to take the time to visit the college campuses you’re interested in. There’s no better way to get a true sense of what it’s like to be a student. We encourage you and your family to visit Trinity University—meet the people, try the food, see the sights, and explore our beautiful campus and sunny San Antonio. The Office of Admissions is open Monday through Friday (excluding major holidays) for tours and information sessions. We’re also open most Saturdays during the academic year and have some special visit programs throughout the year. Register for all visits at gotu.us/visit
The College Search An experience for the whole family The college search is a fun and exciting time for students and families. Students get to celebrate their academic and co-
Open House Events:
Summer Visits:
Trinity In Focus programs are open to all prospective students and their families. It is an excellent chance to discover the many opportunities available to students who study and live at Trinity University.
Campus Tours & Info Sessions 10 a.m. to noon
Monday - Friday beginning May 1, 2017
UPCOMING DATES: June 24, 2017 Sept. 23, 2017 Nov. 11, 2017 Jan. 20, 2018
curricular accomplishments and reflect upon their experiences as they chart their journeys forward. Here at Trinity, we appreciate the significance of the college search experience, and it centers on you. Throughout this process, we encourage future Tigers to discover new interests, grow existing passions, and become empowered citizens of the global community. Seek support from your
friends, family, and parents along the way. They can help you with your essays, be another set of eyes, ears, or taste buds on a campus visit, and guide you through the tough decisions that come along with the many opportunities in your future. Resources for parents and families are available online at gotu.us/parents.
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9:1 student-to
QUICK FACTS
faculty ratio
125 acre campus
located in a residential neighborhood
97% hold doctoral or terminal degrees
Private, residential, co-educational, undergraduate-focused Founded in 1869 10 minutes from San Antonio International Airport Located in America’s 7th largest city
2,299
undergraduates from 48 states and 44 countries 11% international students
74% live on
SAT Middle 50%*: Critical Reading: 580-690 Math: 580 - 680 Writing: 560-600
campus
7
minutes from downtown San Antonio
Have a question for a current Tiger? Get the inside scoop on student life at Trinity! Email AskATiger@trinity.edu Use #AskATiger on Twitter or Facebook Add us on Snapchat and ask LeeRoy himself!
ACT Middle 50%*: 27-32 *Range identifies the middle 50% of Trinity’s enrolled students. 25% of enrolled students scored above this range; 25% of enrolled students scored below this range.