Author: Mark Young

Campus

Get career-ready now

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com @foghornmark The fourth floor of the White Library is now not only the place to go to get help on your essay, but it is now also where you can get help on your resume. The Title V program created a new Career Readiness Institute, which will be aimed at helping students for their journey after Del Mar. They will offer resume services, teach soft skills, provide interview tips and also help students start on a career path toward their dream job. “This has been in the works for around four years and began two years ago…

Campus

Regents approve new tax rate

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com Regents passed one of the highest combined tax rates in nearly five years at their Sept. 12 board meeting, and also censured Regent Guy Watts for a fourth time. The new tax rate will see a maintenance and operations tax rate of $0.205700 per $100 valuation and a rate of $0.053463 per $100 valuation for the college’s debt service budget, to cover the new building projects. This tax increase comes shortly after a 9 percent increase in the overall budget, accounting for salary raises, new projects on campus and extra costs associated from increased enrollment. Overall the…

Campus

SGA sets semester’s priorities

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com The first Student Government Association meeting of the fall semester put in motion some new campaigns that students will be seeing around the campuses this year. President Danielle Garza has multiple things planned for the semester, with a “Viking Vandal” project to write helpful information in the bathrooms across both campuses. Garza also brought up the possibility of a meal card that could be bought with financial aid. “Larger schools usually have programs like that,” Garza said, who added that such a program at Del Mar could be helpful for students; however, they would have to have…

Campus

SGA leader helps others

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com On the Monday night after Harvey had hit the Texas coast, Danielle Garza and her family got a boat and headed toward Houston. Seeing the devastation in Houston, Garza, the Student Government Association president at Del Mar, decided she could help. Helping others isn’t a foreign idea for Danielle or her family. Her husband, Ricardo, is a volunteer firefighter in Mathis, where the two reside. Having that connection through the fire department was part of the reason they went and helped. “We got a heads up on where to go and when we could go at all,”…

Campus

Hurricane Harvey Spares DMC

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com In the grand scheme of things, Del Mar College escaped Hurricane Harvey relatively unscathed. Most of Corpus Christi escaped the worst of the storm, as it veered north shortly before landfall. Del Mar received minor damage from the storm, with a little over of half the buildings receiving damage from the wind or rain. “There was minor damage to several buildings, primarily from wind-driven rain that seeped under doors and around windows. College operations are temporarily impacted in the William F. White Library that had several feet of water in the basement at one point,” said Claudia…

Campus

Board of Regents passes tentative budget

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com The Board of Regents passed a tentative budget for the 2017-18 school year at their Aug. 31 meeting, with the key word being “tentative.” The new budget is expected to see a 9 percent increase from last year’s budget, with an emphasis on salaries, maintenance and various other departments. The budget, which has been worked on for the majority of the summer, was expected to be passed in full on Aug. 31, but has seen some discomfort from some of the regents. Regent Ed Bennett expressed his discomfort after noticeable errors were seen on the Powerpoint presentation…

Campus, Food

DMC Pepsi sign deal

Mark Young

Students may notice a few changes in Campus Dining this semester, especially the new fountain drink machines. The machines, as well as the new decor, are part of a more than half-million-dollar deal Del Mar College signed with Pepsi Cola Co. and Sunrise Vending. The deal runs through April 30, 2019. David Dávila, director of purchasing for DMC, said deal differs from previous ones by having more exclusivity. “We looked at all the offers we had and found that Pepsi would be the most beneficial for the campus,” Dávila said. The money from the deal will go toward a variety…

Campus

Watts censured again

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com @foghornmark Regent Guy Watts is once again at the center of controversy, having received a third censure at the Aug. 8 board meeting and a possible fourth on the way. A censure is the highest form of discontent that the Board of Regents can give to one of its members. However, a censure has no real consequences and is more of a public slap on the wrist to show the public that the board does not approve of what one of their members is doing. The board has issued three censures since April 2016, with investigations preceding…

Campus

Construction ongoing at East, West campuses

Mark Young

Mark Young myoung@foghornnews.com @foghornmark Students who took the summer off will notice there is one less building on East Campus. Five decades after it was built, the English Building was torn down in preparation for the new General Academic and Music Phase II building. The project was funded by a $157 million bond passed by voters in 2014 and is estimated to cost around $46 million. The building, a project of Richter Architects and BRW Architects, is expected to be completed by August 2019. The 127,500-square-foot project will house the Division of Arts and Sciences and the Departments of English…

Community

Corpus Christi to have its first pride parade

Mark Young

While pride parades celebrating the LGBTQ community are common in most big cities, Corpus Christi hasn’t had one, but that is about to change. The parade, which will be apart of many pride themed activities for the weekend of June 2-4. Other events for the weekend will include a block party, a LGBTQ youth prom and art shows focusing on gay content. Sarah Hedrick, the head organizer of the parade, got her start last year after planning a memorial after the Pulse massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. that left 49 dead. “My biggest hope is that this…