Features

Story and photos by ERIK MEDINA From Feb. 10 through 13, the annual Community College Legislative Summit took place in Washington, D.C.  This is a summit that Pima Community College has participated in for several years. This year, Pima attended the summit with two student representatives.  This issue, we’re focusing on Pima student Matthew Gowan, a Navy veteran and family man.  Matthew Gowan  Many individuals leave high school without a clear mindset of what they want to do whether it be work, college or military they can’t decide the right path to take.  This was the case for Matthew Gowan, who was born and raised in Lawton, Oklahoma. He graduated from high school in 2002, but after that, he didn’t have a plan for what to do after.  “I just wanted to make money and hang out with...

  Story and photo by ERIK MEDINA For 16 years, John Reynolds has been teaching geology and geography at Pima Community College.  Reynolds came to Tucson because of his wife’s job at Texas Instruments transferred her. This was around the time Reynolds was retiring, so they took advantage of that.  Q: Did you always see yourself wanting to teach?                             A: “I taught when I was a graduate student in astronomy. My real love was being in industry but once I retired, I looked around, I thought ‘I am not the rocking chair type.’ I like to stay busy. I like to stay active and I like doing things that are meaningful. I remember a story back when I worked in Mobil where one of the best petrophysicists in the field retired from Mobil at his retirement party he told everyo...

Story and photo by ERIK MEDINA From Feb. 10 through 13, the annual Community College Legislative Summit took place in Washington, D.C.  This is a summit that Pima Community College has participated in for several years. This year, Pima attended the summit with two student representatives.  Fatuma Salat is a first-generation college student who plans to become a dentist. Matthew Gowan is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and plans to pursue a career with the Drug Enforcement Administration.    Alongside Salat and Gowan were Chancellor Lee Lambert, Vice Chancellor Lisa Brosky  and several Governing Board members. “Fatima Salat and Matthew Gowan were extraordinary advocates and ambassadors of Pima Community College,” Demion Clinco said. “Their perspectives and generosity in sharing personal s...

By Hank Robichaud   There is professional football ... I repeat, there is professional football in Tucson. The Sugar Skulls, a new Indoor Football League team based in Tucson, has started their inaugural season. The Indoor Football League is an eight-on-eight football game on a 50-yard field with walls that resemble that of a hockey rink. This speeds up the game, making it more of a backyard high scoring type of game resulting in high scores and a ton of high-contact football. It’s great for the fan experience and brings a new entertainment choice to Tucson. The Sugar Skulls look to make an impact in their opening season by going into it with very high expectations. “Maybe I’m a little too hard on myself and my players, but our expectation is that we are trying to win a champi...

By JOSH GRAY Carol Carder is Pima College’s Marketing and PR Coordinator for the Center for the Arts and Pima Arts. Carder moved here, from the Midwest where she worked in the marketing department for another college, to be close to her daughter. She has been with Pima for 14 years now. Q: What do you do at Pima? A: What I do is promote the Pima Arts. I work very closely with the Pima Art’s faculty and performance directors and promote their events that are held at the Center for the Arts. I also work with the Center for the Arts to promote what they do for the college. So, I work for two aspects; I work for the Pima Arts and the Center for the Arts. Q: Why Center for the Arts? A: I am an Arts major myself, both digital arts and visual arts. I’m very passionate about the arts I love ...

By KYLE KERSEY Kenneth Vorndran has been an instructor at Pima Community College for 15 years, but in the mid ’90s, he found himself at a crossroads. A veteran Maryland high school English teacher of over a decade, Vorndran had come to realize that it wasn’t a job he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “It wasn’t about the students as much as it was about the systems,’” Vorndran said. ‘“A teacher’s day at the high school level is consumed by hall duty and lunch duty and parent teacher conferences and pep assemblies and, ‘Oh, can you check the bathroom closest to your room between classes to make sure people aren’t smoking?’ and principals reading a book in the summer and deciding ‘We’re going to do everything different this year’… It’s not really a heartfelt thing.” He needed to mak...