Issue 1 | Sept. 11, 2015

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Editor-In-ChiefNatasha Jones

Assistant EditorsTrenton CanadaAshton Rector

Design EditorChristin Rottenberger

Faculty Adv isorJeremiah Massengale

Sta ff WritersAutumn Cooney

DJ HiteLydia Jay

Shyann Norris

Sta ff PhotographerEric Ford EdwardsJay Sanksakulchai

Editor ia l Rev iew BoardLisa Bartram

Marianne Worthington

- 7000 College Station Drive Williamsburg, Ky 40769

(606-539-4172

/patriotnewspaper @UCThePatriot

*thepatriot@ucumberlands.edu

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The Patriot is the biweekly student publication of the University of the Cumberlands. Our goal is to provide timelyand original content by highlighting campus news and views.

Award-winning member of the Kentucky Press Association.

CONTENTS

UCTHEPATRIOT

The Beginning of an Era

Convocation Renovation

Letter from the EditorThe best is yet to come.

Hello, students! Welcome back, upperclassmenand welcome to campus and our to UC family, classof 2019. I hope everyone has transitioned well and isgetting into the swing of things. The beginning of theschool year gives students a new start and the oppor-tunity to seize the day and accomplish new goals aswell as making new memories with friends duringtheir time here.

All of campus is buzzing with excitement as somany incredible changes are upon us. Students havealready witnessed the innovations inside the BowellCampus Center and the all the new space in The Grillas well as the patio seating available, but the best isyet to come.

We at The Patriot hope that students will join usin the journey throughout this year of changes andnew opportunities available on campus. We are always trying to reach out and representthe voices of campus through our social media and reader response. In addition to our al-ready established social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we have aSnapchat (ucthepatriot) available to keep in touch with our staff. We hope to use this appto allow users to see what we’re doing when developing the publication before its printdate, and engage students in our contests as we often do throughout the year.

In this issue we inform and spotlight some of the changes that have been made andexplain why they happened. We hope you will enjoy this issue and the work we will dothis semester.

From all of us here at The Patriot, we wish you all the best in your endeavors this se-mester. We look forward to serving you to represent the voice of the student body morethan ever before, as you serve our campus and community.

Sincerely, Editor- In- Chief

Natasha Jones

Cumberlands Yesterday,USA TODAY

10 You Are Not Alone

Cover Photo by Bill Turner

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BY CHRISTIN ROTTENBERGER

Sta ff Writer

Rush Week, hosted by Bigs and Littles, recently took over campus. Theweek consisted of a different event each day for the girls to be welcomed aswell as meet new people. Rush Week had an ice-cream social, tye-dye night, ascavenger hunt, and a nostalgia game night. All of these events were great waysfor the girls to mingle and get to know their possible big or little.

While many universities across the nation pride themselves on the amountof Greek life they have on their campuses, for students at the University of theCumberlands, however, Greek life isn’t an option. Instead, a group of womenand Baptist Campus Ministries came together to put their own spin on Greeklife. In the fall of 2013, UC was greeted with Bigs and Littles, which is nowherenear a stereotypical sorority.

The group was started as an effort to bring the young women of UC togetherto support one another and find new friends. Bigs and Littles is different than atypical sorority because it does not have the hazing and partying that manywomen’s Greek life groups have at larger universities. As of last semester, Bigsand Littles was made up of 47 women that came from different sports teams,clubs, organizations, majors and backgrounds. Juniors and seniors are the “bigs”and are assigned one or more “littles,” making up a little “family.” At the be-ginning of each semester there is a reveal where the littles find out who theirbig will be. This semester, the reveal will be held on September 13.

The Bigs and Littles have sponsored many different events on campus, suchas the Winter Breeze formal dance, a black light party and a Halloween partywith a costume contest. The events are to fundraise for the group and to bringladies of UC together in friendship and sisterhood. Bigs and Littles is hosting atoga party on September 11 from 8 p.m. until midnight at the band field.

Bigs and Littles also holds weekly meetings to plan events and service op-portunities as well as to get all of the young women together and hanging out.A time and place for weekly meetings hasn’t been decided yet, so be on the

lookout for further information.Whitney Johnson, the president of the organization, says, “The vision was

to bring girls from all over, whether its sports teams or even different countries,together. It’s mainly where we can help freshman girls adjust to being in collegeand where we can help senior girls de-stress and help out with community serv-ice.”

Community service involvement is a large portion of Bigs and Littles. Dur-ing the 2014 semester, the women traveled to the Laurel County animal shelterto help feed, clean and give shots to cats and dogs. Johnson stated that they arealso looking into making trips to homeless shelters as well as teen homes. Lastsemester, the ladies baked cookies and wrote thank you notes for the variousUC workers that continued working and providing for the students during thesnowstorm that hit Williamsburg in February.

“School’s hard enough, and finding friends can be hard for people,” saidJohnson. “It’s just a place for girls to go where everyone is welcoming and openand loving. It helps the girls feel like they belong.”

Although the group is small, Johnson says, “It doesn’t really matter howmany girls are in the group. If we’re influencing and helping out one girl’s lifethen that’s good enough and our job is accomplished.”

That doesn’t stop them from wanting as many ladies as possible to join Bigsand Littles.

“There are a lot of girls that hang out with just one group of people or feellike they don’t belong. There are so many great people on this campus, so it’s agood way to expand and network,” Johnson says.

The group will gladly welcome any female UC student that wants to joinwith open arms. Ladies of UC can join this club or request information by con-tacting Whitney Johnson or Hannah Foster via email or Facebook.

A Little group,Photo by Eric Ford Edwards

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a Big impactUC’s sorority, Bigs and Littles, gears up for a new semester

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Photo submitted by Tedarrius Teasey

BY NATASHA JONES

Editor-In-Chief

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“It’s not something I was looking for when I came here, but it’s an honorand a privilege,” explains Dr. Larry Cockrum in response to how it feels tostart his reign as president of the UC this fall.

Dr. Jim Taylor and Cockrum had known each other for many years beforeCockrum came to UC. Before working at UC, Cockrum coached basketball atTexas A&M University, was a senior level principal at large schools in Texas,and then he worked at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, wherehe was the dean of administration for about 15 years. As dean of administra-tion, Cockrum essentially worked with construction, maintenance and almostevery aspect with the exception of academics.

In his time at College of Ozarks, he had come to know Taylor through as-sociation as a friend of his former university president. Taylor had been tryingto get Cockrum to come to UC and Kentucky for a while and when Cockrumdecided to leave his position at College of the Ozarks, he called him up on hisoffer.

“I drove down to campus, and I walked around campus that morning andwatched the students and to me they were the ‘salt of the earth’ type kids. Kidsthat were here to try and better themselves; I watched the faculty and the fac-ulty looked like they were here for the right reasons to try and teach studentsand help them as best they can.”

When Dr. Cockrum took the position Taylor offered him, he was to be anassistant to the president, and six months after that he took the position of theacademic dean. Now that Cockrum has taken the position as president, hehumbly says that it doesn’t feel any different than any other position he’s beenin, but hopes to keep UC on the progression it’s been on for the past 127 years.

“The world changes so you have to change with the world. And you mustembrace that change. So you figure out how you keep the school mission andintegrity intact, in a moving world and that’s what I try to do. And if we doanything outside of our mission, it wouldn’t work,” says Cockrum.

One of Cockrum’s biggest priorities to accomplish in his time as presidentis to improve the experiences students have on campus, and make an impact

in retention. He has collaborated with Dr. Emily Coleman, UC’s vice presidentof Student Services, formerly the student success coordinator, to help hear theopinions of the students and meet their needs.

“I did get a chance to collaborate with him when he was the vice presidentof Academic Affairs, and needless to say we’ve worked together since he’smoved into his new role and I look forward to seeing what’s to come. It’s anexciting time on campus,” says Coleman.

Coleman and Cockrum worked together over last year, innovating incom-ing new student orientation, which later established UC Prep and PASS100.According to Coleman, more incoming students returned to UC last year fortheir second semester rather than transferring or dropping out.

Dr. Jerry Jackson, vice president of enrollment and communications, alsonotes that Cockrum’s dedication to serving the student body is an excitingthing to witness. “I sense a very positive energy on campus. He is committedto the student body and working closely with Dr. Coleman to give the studentsa voice about their future and the future of UC. Dr. Cockrum's entrepreneurialleadership and forward thinking attitude will continue to move the Universityof the Cumberlands forward. I feel blessed to work under his leadership,” saidCockrum.

In getting to know the student body, Cockrum came to Student Servicesand asked of opportunities to get to meet students individually. This sproutedthe table at the CAB’s Patriot Party where Cockrum had hundreds of studentsto line up waiting to shake the new president’s hand and receive a free t-shirtdesigned by UC graduate student Abbey Cherry.

“I hope to be able to meet each and every student when they come in. It’sinteresting. You’ll see some that are very bold and full of spirits, then you’llsee some that are very meek and hard to make eye contact with, and my hopeis that, over the next four years or so those students will grow and mature. Ilook forward to shaking their hands when they walk across the stage at grad-uation,” said Cockrum.

The Beginning of an EraDr. Larry Cockrum takes over as President

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With this new adaptation, many things have transitioned and changed aswell. In regard to Baptist Campus Ministries moving to the old Campus Ac-tivity Board house, Cockrum explained, “BCM wanted to get closer to theChapel. We tried to move CAB back into The Grill so it’s right there for thestudents. The movements that were made were movements requested by thosein those positions to make things more convenient for the students and organ-izations to be closer to the students,” said Cockrum.

Dr. Cockrum also said when looking into expanding undergrad residenceon campus, he would prefer to move into the direction of apartment complexesavailable for undergrad. Apartment complexes for graduate students are al-ready built or are breaking ground in the next month, but he hopes to securethe resources to offer apartments in additional to the already established dor-mitories. Cockrum said he thinks the traditional dorm-styled residence holdsmany benefits in building communities on campus but would like to offer his

students some more resident opportunities. However, nothing is set in stonetill funds are secure, and buildings are built.

To the incoming class, who will be the first class at UC who began collegeunder leadership of Cockrum, he says, “Some say college years are a timethat can make you or break you, probably has some truth in the statement. Itis in my opinion that you need to have discipline in order to graduate. Manychallenges and temptations are associated with college. My advice is to keepyour head straight and make wise decisions, I’ll tell you what I told my fourchildren when they were making their journey through college. There are con-sequences for the decisions you make. Don’t study too much, don’t party orplay too much. Find a balance and enjoy your time. It’s never as good or asbad as it seems.”

“The world changes so you have tochange with the world. And you mustembrace that change. So you figureout how you keep the school missionand integrity intact, in a moving worldand that’s what I try to do. And if wedo anything outside of our mission, itwouldn’t work. ”

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BY ASHTON RECTOR AND TRENTON CANADA

Assistant Editors

Convocation Renovation

During the 2015 summer term, The University of the Cumberlands’ con-vocation program underwent a departmental change. Convocation, which waspreviously headed by Dr. Rick Fleenor, is now sponsored by the UC StudentServices, specifically vice president Dr. Emily Coleman.

Responsibilities of the convocation program will be shared among StudentServices and Fleenor. Student Services will work with any student appeals orissues regarding convocation while Fleenor will schedule events and handledepartment requests for event submissions.

When asked why the alteration of sponsorship has occurred, Coleman tells,“Dr. Fleenor has increased travel responsibilities with the church relations sideto his job… It was really a collaborative decision on that because he was goingto be on the road so much. We wanted to make sure that students still had accessto have their questions answered.”

Coleman also adds, “He [Fleenor] did a great job with convocation, butthe hope is that being here in Student Services, where we work with a lot ofother activities when we plan our department events, we can watch out for con-vocation nights to try to not double book things, to spread out activity oppor-tunities, and not hurt attendance in other activities because it’s a convocationnight.”

The Office of Student Services is located in the upper level of the Boswell

Campus Center outside of The Grill, where a majority of student traffic takesplace during the school week. Any student with appeals, questions, or issuesin regards to convocation will now need to visit student services for assistance.

Student Services has already brought a number of changes to convocation,including utilizing a new email system that converts emails to be mobilefriendly. Many university students receive emails on their phones or tablets,which means that the new system will allow more students to be informed aboutupcoming convocation events. Coleman hopes that this will aid in raising at-tendance and keep more students from failing each semester.

In addition to the new email system, Student Services has installed threenew 65-inch television screens in the Boswell Campus Center. According toColeman, Student Services will be able to announce upcoming events and con-vocation dates and locations on the screens through a new system called Bright-side.

“It’s going to be bright, colorful graphics. There will be one in the grill,one in midlevel, and one in the new game room when it opens. That will haveconvocation rotations based off of the calendar. So, a few minutes before a con-vocation gets ready to start, the screen can be taken over to grab the students’attention,” said Coleman.

UC’s convocation program now sponsored by Student Services

Rush of Fools per forms at opening convocation on September 1, 2015.

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Features

Photo by Er ic Ford Edwards

Coleman hopes that the new notification systems will be successful, and shehopes that the use of technology and new innovations will expand in the future.

“Social media is definitely something that we can look at,” Coleman added.In an article published in the April 24 issue of The Patriot, students and

faculty were presented with confusing aspects about the current convocationprogram. The policy of convocation still remains with the update made in 2013.

One of the more confusing policy matters about convocation centered onthe graduation component. Dr. Coleman addressed this by saying, “I want tosay this exactly as the catalogue states it…You have to be enrolled until youhave 96 credit hours [senior status]. Students who do not meet attendance re-quirements will receive a failing grade of F, and those students are not eligiblefor academic honors, but it does not say anywhere that you cannot graduate.”

Still, another aspect of convocation that is concerning to students is that ofseating for major convocation events, such as Hanging of the Green. For thoseevents, which are commonly housed in the Gatliff Chapel, seating is limited.

“I don’t see Hanging of the Green moving to the Rollins Center becauseyou’ll lose the atmosphere if it’s moved to a gymnasium,” said Coleman, “butwe will definitely try to make sure the venues match the audience that we have.That’s something that I will look at more with Dr. Fleenor when it comes toscheduling.”

While official policy did not change as the sponsorship shifted, Coleman

explains that this does not mean that modifications cannot occur in upcomingyears. As a former UC student, Coleman understands students’ concerns aboutconvocation and is open to hearing from students and working to address thoseissues.

Coleman comments, “We want students to know that when they speak, welisten and we try to respond to their data…I want to see them all succeed. Wewant to see every student successful here, and I don’t want to see convocationas a barrier to them being able to receive academic honors or to hurt them whenit comes to grade point average in the future, and so I really encourage themall, when you find you are running into a barrier to come in and see me.”

Photos by Jay Sanksakulchai

Brent Gambrell, of A Door to Hope Ministr ies, speaks to

students at opening convocation.

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Photo by Jil lian Carpenter

BY TRENTON CANADA

Assistant Editor

Photo by Eric Ford Edwards

With the rise of social media and advancement into the technology age,media and news seems to have become increasingly prominent among collegestudents and popular topics have found their way onto campuses throughout theUS. At the University of the Cumberlands, this is no exception. Yet, many arenever allotted a behind-the-scenes look at how these trending topics and newsstories are fashioned and published for the world to read. Far fewer have theopportunity to actually feel the esteem that comes from having their work readon campuses throughout the country.

Yet, Natasha Jones, 21, has achieved just that. This past summer, Jones, aUC senior majoring in journalism and editor-in-chief of The Patriot newspaper,contributed to USA TODAY’S college writing program, and while the programselects only a handful of college applicants to pitch story ideas and draft articlesto be published on the USA TODAY College site, Jones has already writtenthree pieces for the news outlet and has done so with great success. Her article“8 classes all college students should take” has received over 7.7 thousandshares and was a top trending story on the site.

In this interview, Jones talks about her freelancing work with USA TODAY,how she arrived at this point, and what is in store for her future.

What motivated you to apply for a position with USA TODAY?

At the end of last year’s fall semester, in my journalism practicum class, myprofessor, Jeremiah Massengale, asked me to prepare a pitch of an article that Ifelt could be accepted and published on USA Today's college website. We madeit a goal that in 2015 I would get published there. In addition to that, it was mypersonal goal to become familiar with how to successfully pitch story ideas andlearn a little more about freelancing. In March, when I attended the NationalCollege Media Conference in New York, I actually met the managing editor,Kristen Rein, and introduced myself and learned a couple of informative thingsabout their summer writing program, and my adviser urged me to apply, so Idid. Jeremiah told me how competitive the entire internship was so initially Iwasn't sure what to expect.

What was the application process like? Could you walk me through someof the general steps?

The internship selection process has three rounds. For round one, I had to submita résumé, cover letter, two writing samples and an optional letter of recommen-dation, which I asked Jeremiah to write for me. About a week after the applica-tion window closed, they sent out the results to those selected. I was prettyfloored at hearing that I had been selected for round two, especially knowingthat hundreds and hundreds of college journalists applied. For round two, theyasked me to write a news story that was inspired by one of USA Today's articles,and it had to be original, exclusive to them, with a college take on it. That wasincredibly challenging as they don't run many news stories on the college siteanyway and taking the few news stories that had been ran and trying to findsomething that was news relevant and that had happened on my small southernBaptist campus. They also asked me to compose a tweet that I might use to pro-mote the story I had written. I didn’t make it into round three, but I did get se-lected for their Contributing Writer Program and would be passed through round1 for the fall application process automatically and had access to the USA TodayCollege system, meaning I could upload full-length stories to be considered forpublishing rather than sending a pitch and waiting to hear back.

To what do you credit that success, both with USA TODAY and with yourtalent as a journalist?

I don't really know that there is anything specific to accredit the success to otherthan just the ability to learn how to write for an audience whose readership lieswith what's current and trendy in today's society, and knowing that a time-framereally has a to do a lot with how popular a story will be or won't be. My mostpopular article really didn't pick up a lot of shares at first, but rather about aweek after it was published, which I believe is because that’s when college stu-

Cumberlands yesterday, USA TODAY

UC senior Natasha Jones speaks on her work with a major news outlet

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dents were back on campus and the window to add or drop classes was aboutto close. And learning how to really think on a broader spectrum and how tomeet the needs of your reader really has a lot to do with it. That's somethingthat I've been told many times in my journalism classes by Jeremiah and Mrs.Marrianne Worthington, that you have to be intentional with your writing andhave a direct emotion or audience in mind when you set out to write a story.

What thoughts come to your mind when you think that, collectively, closeto 10 thousand people have liked and shared your articles?

It feels very unreal honestly. It's mind-blowing to think that that many peoplehave taken interest in something that I wrote or that I've written something thathas appealed and been picked up by a publication that has such a wide and na-tional spectrum.

Those professors and friends at UC who have had you in class and encour-aged you, how have they reacted to your success with USA Today?

Everyone has been really kind and congratulated me. Many have asked mewhat was coming up next or if I feel the need to compete with my past articles,and I'm not entirely sure yet. Right now they aren't sending out any emailsabout pitch requests because it's still early into the fall contributor program.

This is your senior year at UC. With that in mind, do you see yourself con-tinuing to work as a journalist with USA TODAY or even applying for amore permanent position there?

Like I said, I'm already committed to the program for the fall semester again,and I have to at least write one article a month, but I have several ideas that I'minterested in pitching to them, but whether or not they'll get pitched or pickedup all kind of depends on what the editors are looking for.

I do hope to continue contributing to USA Today College and take any otheropportunity they reach out to me. I can't quite predict the future, but, if time al-lowing, I see freelancing as being something I want to continue in the futurefor a lot of reasons. One being that I do have such a huge love for writing fea-ture stories and human-interest pieces, as well as writing for a constantly chang-ing, trendy society.

Overall, what do you take away from this experience and how do you applythat to your future career as a professional journalist?

What I've learned from this experience is that the journey as a writer is neverreally over, that there's always room to continue to become better than I amnow and there's always new challenges with every pitch and piece, and thatyou never really know how your writing will be perceived or what the reactionwill be, especially online, which is probably one of the most exciting partsabout the experience overall. I highly anticipated my dorm life cheats articleto be the piece that got thousand and thousands of shares because of how hu-morous it was and how much fun I had writing it, so to see my article overclasses any college student should take beat it by thousands was pretty unex-pected. I'll take what I've learned and the thrill I've found in constantly tryingto be better than I am or my last story and apply it in my career years and yearsfrom now.

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Photo by Eric Ford Edwards

“I am not alone, I am not alone. You will go before me, you will neverleave me.” As I listened to this wonderful song by Contemporary Christiansinger, Kari Jobe, I began to think of the many times I have felt alone orforgotten. Though I truly was never alone, sometimes it was so easy to tellmyself that. This initially hit me when I moved into Gillespie 214 last yearas a freshman at UC. I didn’t really know what was going on. I knew I hadso many people around me who loved me, and I knew that truly God wouldnever let me be alone. I struggled with feeling as if I needed someone toconstantly talk to me, and if I wasn’t talking to someone, the feeling justgot deeper. That is when I began to look at His promises to me and quit re-lying solely on friends and family to constantly remind me “they were therefor me.” Though that worked temporarily, nothing satisfied me 110 percentuntil I rested in His arms awhile and fully trusted in God’s promises for mylife. This seemed, at first, to be a full-time job to me. I wanted to do it allby myself but God wanted to do it all Himself. The first step was letting goand letting God.

After I realized nothing would change without Him, I began a lifestylechange. Though to many this might have seemed ridiculous and irrational,to me it was a huge struggle in my everyday life and still can be some days.I began to pray for signs everywhere that God would give me peace andshow me He is always with me and He did just that, more than I could’ve

ever imagined. I really relied on Isaiah 41:10 during this time, “Fear thounot; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthenthee; yea I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of myrighteousness.”(KJV). How wonderful it was and still is to know that wehave no reason to fear loneliness for we are truly never by ourselves in any-thing we face.

I know with the many transitions we all face when moving back toschool and having to switch to the real world after being at home with ourfamilies and loved ones that it is so easy to feel alone and as if no one isthere for you; however, God never leaves you, he never forsakes you, andyou can feel safe in His presence. Joshua 1:9 says, “Have I not commandedthee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dis-mayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” (KJV).In the bible it says “do not fear” or “be not afraid” over 100 times. This, tome, was an eye opener that The Lord truly does not want us to fear or beanxious for anything but to solely trust on His goodness in every situation.

You are not aloneA devotional

BY SHYANN NORRIS

Sta ff Writer

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