Every semester, students struggle to figure out where they are in their academic journey and what courses to pursue. That is where academic advisors like Katie Hixson come in to put students on the right track. As an advisor, her role at Texas A&M University – Texarkana is to assist all undergraduates in graduating through “timely academic planning,” she says. This includes meeting with students regularly to discuss where they are at in their academic career, and where they are going.

Hixson has 8 years of experience in academic advising, career academic counseling, recruitment, and retention planning as well. “I have provided, identified, analyzed, and solved problems and successfully handled conflict resolution in assigned areas,” she says. While it may sound like a stressful job, she says that being able to empower students to work toward their academic and career goals and being able to mentor them fuels her motivation.

One of her favorite parts of the job is witnessing students’ journeys. She says, “I enjoy helping and guiding students from their first step on campus and watching them walk across the stage at graduation.” She has found her career fulfilling, and as a result, strongly recommends any job in higher education. For those looking to pursue a future in education, she says “to connect with resources on campus to broaden their own connections and develop self-sufficiency.”

At the end of the day, Hixson just wants students to live their best lives. She says her message to every student would be, “Always remember to find your ‘Why’ and to begin with the end in mind. Look inside yourself and discover what your philosophy is and design your short- and long-term goals when tackling any new endeavors.”

Anyone who has had the opportunity to take a class with Dr. Doug Julien, Chair of the Humanities Division, knows that it is not an experience they will likely soon forget. With his unorthodox teaching methods and his penchant for sentence enhancing language, Doug has a different philosophy than some about teaching. His reason for teaching? He says, “It’s that idea that I can still learn shit from people.” 

As a professor of the humanities, Julien doesn’t deal in absolutes and hard skills. However, he places a high value on the “quantum soft skills” that the humanities can teach. Rather than hiding behind a long reading list, piles of homework and multiple-choice tests, Julien believes in giving students a path towards success by letting his students forge their own way. As he says, “Let me show you how to deal with that shit, so that you can go out and find your own shit and use these tools to deal with it.”

Julien states that the real issue with humanities is that “too often the humanities are seen as only in service of everything else.” While he believes in the importance of a well-rounded education, he also sees the humanities as foundational to the human experience. Rather than an education in humanities being in service of getting a nursing, biology or engineering degree, they provide their own value. Julien says, “Humanities help you critically think. The humanities help you communicate… Humanities help you understand human nature and all these things.”

According to Julien, the humanities aren’t just about life skills either. Without the humanities, he believes that we would be left without the little things that make life enjoyable.  He says, “There’s also just simply a fundamental joy in the act of reading.

There’s joy in listening to a song, right?” 

The important lesson that Julien wants his students to remember is that “reading is reading” Whether it is instruction manuals, trashy romance (which he would tell you is not trash at all) or crusty old philosophers, it is all the same transaction. He will tell you that there is “a lot of value in supposedly low-culture stuff” and that sometimes, as he says, you just “need to have taco bell.”

Throughout her career Dr. Karen Parker has worked with child victims of sexual assault, youth foster-care and veterans. These experiences have influenced her thirty years teaching higher education. She has been an associate professor of psychology at Texas A&M University-Texarkana since 2020.

Dr. Parker worked 20 years for non-profit organizations. She decided that it was time for something different as a result of a traumatic event she experienced while working at a group home for boys. She had gotten close to one of the boys and decided to get him a fur companion.  “I had gotten [the boy] a pet rabbit, and then he ended up going into a foster home and he left the pet rabbit back with the boys. Two of the boys were rebellious and had a lot of stuff going on. They killed the rabbit,” she said. 

However, the beginning of her career in the counseling field was just as jarring as the end. She recalls her most memorable case being one of her first ones involving a three year old girl that had been raped. The case was memorable to her because of the severity of the matter and because she was able to provide comfort to the girl. “In I guess two-three months she crawled up in my lap and laid her head right here in my chest. That was telling me that my relationship with her and my rapport were important for her and she felt like she trusted me. One of the most moving moments in my entire career,” she said. 

Dr. Parker’s research has been bringing focus into art inspired by her own experiences. Her PhD dissertation followed her journey navigating the grief of the passing of her wife through the paintings she did while her wife battled cancer. This experience influenced her dissertation and encouraged her to write her own ethnography. Ethnographies are scientific studies of people and their cultures from their point of view. Dr. Parker’s auto-ethnography focuses on the prejudice she experienced from the medical community during her wife’s cancer treatment. This auto-ethnography was published in the “Journal of Feminist Family Therapy” in 2021. Dr. Parker emphasizes the importance of narratives and auto-ethnographies in research saying that “a lot of times you can read research that has a thousand people that they interviewed or that they get a questionnaire on, but a personal story makes that research real.” 

New faces – we see them frequently. In college, students and teachers come and go. Dr. Laura Blount Carper is the newest addition to the team of mass communication professors at Texas A&M University – Texarkana (TAMUT).

A Louisiana native, Dr. Carper graduated from Louisiana State University (LSU) with her Ph.D. in communication studies. Having both attended and taught at larger Louisiana universities, the move to TAMUT – or downsize, rather – has been a bit of an adjustment.

“By far, these are the smallest classes I have had,” said Dr. Carper. She recalled teaching 100-person sections at LSU. “The unity that’s at TAMUT is much more family oriented than I have seen at other institutions,” she said.

Outside of teaching, family is a big part of Dr. Carper’s life. A mom to three children and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, she values spending time together. She is often told that she is motherly, which she attributes to being the oldest of her siblings. These values carry over into her role as a professor.

“I want to be the person that you’re comfortable coming to, to talk about your life, even if it’s not about class,” said Dr. Carper. She describes herself as a kind and loving person, and she places emphasis on being an open, caring, safe space for her students.

Although she is a teacher, Dr. Carper has a passion for learning. “Just as much as students learn from me, I learn from them,” she said.

So, if you see Dr. Carper around campus, stop and have a chat with her. Break the ice by asking her about the relationship between birthdays and hurricanes (spoiler – she was born during one).

The transition from high school to college treats everyone differently, but for most it represents the growing pains of transitioning into adulthood. Jordan Ortega is an eagle guide, the marketing manager of the Hispanic Student Organization (HSO), and a student worker at TAMUT’s bookstore. 

Like many others, Jordan expected college to be somehow like highschool. “I didn’t expect to be as involved,” he said “I just went to [high] school, got it done, and that’s what I was expecting [in college].” However, the experience that awaited him was far from those expectations. Graduating with a class size of 900 students from MacArthur High School, the shift to a small school seemed to not only benefit Jordan, but also everyone and everything he has had an impact on. Recalling one of his first memories at TAMUT meeting new people during SOAR, he said “It’s a moment that I never thought would lead to something else.”

A year later, Jordan has found himself getting to know new people everywhere he goes. After joining the HSO thanks to his professor Dr. Luz Mary Rincon, Jordan has taken a crucial part in the growth of the organization. “I asked [my friends] to join, and we were all a big part of how this club came to grow, […] we just had events, recruited some people, sent out emails asking them to join and now we have 20 to 21 members,” he said. Last spring the organization had two events during TAMUT’s Spring Fling Week, ‘Aguas Frescas’ hosted in the campus’ soccer field, and later in the week a ‘Kickback at the Park’ event hosted in Bringle Lake Park. This semester they have participated in TAMUT’s Spotlight on Texarkana and have scheduled events for Hispanic Heritage Month, including a Hispanic Heritage Trivia night on September 16th and a ‘Loteria’ event on September 26th. 

Growing up with four older siblings and two younger ones, Jordan sometimes finds it conflicting to have his family acknowledge the changes he has gone through his first year in college. Working two jobs, being a member of the HSO board, and renting his own apartment have all been experiences that have allowed him to transition into adulthood. But being back home, it feels that nothing has changed. “I had to be like a little kid again. I had to ask for permission, I had to act a certain way, I was expected to do certain things, to be a certain way” he says, “I love my parents, I love my siblings, but I also love getting to be myself and getting to do my own things, and not having to prove to my parents or siblings [that] I’m an adult now.” In order to cope with it, he has decided to remain true to himself and everything he has learned while being in college, “this is who I am, this is what I’ve learned, this is what I’m gonna keep doing. If they don’t like it, well I feel like I have the right to do my own thing” he said. 

Texas A&M University of Texarkana (TAMUT) student Christian Cuellar is in his second semester at the university. Besides working on his major in software engineering, Cuellar’s focus on campus has been finding ways to contribute to the community. “I’ve always wanted to just try and do good for the environment or others.” He participated in the university’s annual “Big Event” earlier this year where he helped paint houses. He’s also in the process of joining the Circle K International club on campus. He knows the school offers a lot of opportunities for students, and wants to take advantage of more this year.

Cuellar’s motivation to apply himself at TAMUT comes from a lackluster experience at University of Arkansas Hope / Texarkana. “I really didn’t like it there,” he says. Cuellar admits he did not try his best at UAHT, but also puts some blame on the college’s professors. He appreciates how he can better communicate and socialize with his professors at TAMUT. Socialization, according to Cuellar, is a “key aspect of college”. This, of course, extends beyond professors. His involvement in campus clubs and events has led to him making new friends and rekindling relationships with lost friends. He says this has made his college experience more enjoyable, and recommends new students to put themselves out there and create those connections. 

Aside from school, Cuellar also works a labor job at Fastenal. While the job is not comparable to his future in software engineering, he says it has improved his work ethic overall, and thinks the set schedule will be good for any future jobs. To balance having both a job and a full school schedule, Cuellar takes a majority of his classes online. This has helped him plan his schedule out easier. While Cuellar might not have too much free time, he enjoys playing video games, watching TV, and reading books. He hits the gym when he can and otherwise likes to stay home and “chill”.

As for the future, Cuellar is looking for a career he can be passionate about. He’s been enjoying his journey as a software engineer, and wants to use those skills to leave a mark on the world. He isn’t quite sure where he’ll end up settling down, but plans to head to Dallas or wherever there is more opportunity. All he knows for sure is, “I don’t really see myself being in Texarkana all my life.” For now, Cuellar plans to finish his major in software engineering at TAMUT and possibly get a bachelors in physics later down the line. He is also committed to helping out the community whenever possible.

For Allison Wade, it all began in a little one-hallway elementary school in Malta, TX. Here she would find her passion for English, and in turn, her love for teaching. Even as a grade school student, Allison found herself in the position to help her fellow students who found themselves struggling with the lessons. She says, “I’m very thankful that I had that experience because one of my old classmates saw me and said, ‘You know, I couldn’t have done that class without you.’ … That helped drive me to where I am today knowing that I have a passion for teaching that started early on.” This ignited her desire to continue helping students, especially those who find school challenging.

Having always been academically driven, wrapping her self-worth up in her grades, Allison has found the experience of attending TAMUT has changed her perspective on what is important in school and life. Where insignificant test scores once drove her, Allison says, in her new university setting, “I just learned it is just like a blip in my whole life about what grade I’m making on this singular assignment. And it doesn’t define anything. So, I had to grow and change where my value was found.” So, she began finding her worth in the relationships and community she developed attending TAMUT. “Because if you surround yourself with fun, good people, you don’t really search for validation as much as you would if you didn’t feel like you belonged anywhere.”

Allison feels that her experience student teaching while at TAMUT has made her much more serious about her future role as an educator. What started with confidence, Allison has learned spending time in the classroom is far different than she ancticipated. She says, “It’s nothing compared to actually being in the moment… But it is so much more than I could have ever imagined.”

To deal with these new and exciting challenges of becoming a future educator, Allison relies on her faith to get her through the difficult times. She keeps a photo of her younger self on her mirror to remind her that we are all God’s creations and to follow the golden rule. Her faith and her church have been a large part of what motivates her to be a good teacher. Her driving force boils down to this: “What little mustard seed of faith I can put in people’s life, and it all came from the experiences I had.” 

Artist. Athlete. Singer. Jewelry maker. Crocheter. These titles describe TAMUT freshman and biology major Charis Minson. Charis is an avid singer with a deep connection to music. She finds herself singing while she crochets, makes jewelry, and draws. Anything you can do, Charis can do singing. Alongside her creative hobbies, Charis is an athlete. Today, she plays tennis and an occasional basketball game, but has experience in cross-country, volleyball, and track.

“I feel like I kind of do a little bit of everything,” she says.

Charis comes from a big family. She and her twin brother are the youngest of five total children; her father is the youngest of eight. She recalls spending Thanksgiving together, gathered around a traditional Cajun South Louisiana spread. Charis speaks highly of her family and is particularly inspired by her mom.

“She is like the most supportive and sweet person,” she says. She loves spending time with her mom, even if there is nothing on the agenda.

Every week, Charis goes to school, works, and attends church.  Her heap of responsibilities doesn’t allow for much free time, so she savors her days off. Charis’s perfect day consists of sleeping late, making breakfast with her boyfriend, doing some crocheting while watching a movie, and then making bracelets with her friends (extra points if it’s a rainy day – that’s her favorite).

Charis’s ultimate goals in life are happiness, financial stability, and travel opportunities. She dreams of experiencing the world and learning about the ways people live. Her five-year goals are to be married to her boyfriend, to be in medical school, and to be somewhere “not here”, she says. Charis has a solid plan and is actively building her future, equipped with an array of skills and expertise.

Mason Higginbotham is turning a childhood necessity into an avenue for students to explore their creativity.

“I grew up with a very poor family where I had to sew my own toys … I built an Iron Man suit out of scraps that had a working light bulb for the arch reactor,” Mason said. 

“I’ve always wanted … to give kids opportunities because I believe there should be a third place where kids can go to learn skills. And not all of them want to be in theater, but they want to learn how to 3-D print; they want to learn how to code; they want to learn how to make things.”

Mason, a 24-year-old Master’s of Arts in Theater student, is in his third year of teaching theater arts at New Boston High School. 

He first began his journey into theater as a high school student at Texas High. He said it was a way of following in his brother’s footsteps and meet girls.

“…I was like, ‘That sounds interesting.’ And, you know, I was a high school boy and there were girls in theater … I can do the tech stuff, I can build stuff, do all the manly stuff,” he said.

His first year, he worked in the technical and production sides of his high school theater program before trying out and winning a leading role in the high school musical. He continued to learn and grow in theater arts throughout high school and into college, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Theater with a minor in Film Studies from the University of Central Arkansas.

While Mason enjoys teaching at the high school level, his ultimate goal is to open a business where he can create a makers’ space for anyone interested in exploring creativity, no matter their economic status.

“I want anyone to have the opportunity to do things they can’t afford … I don’t want there to be barriers for a kid to want to be able to be creative,” he said.