Author: Layla Fonseca

History

DMC desegregated ahead of the curve

Layla Fonseca

Two years before Brown v. Board of Education mandated desegregation, Del Mar College voluntarily desegregated in 1952.  Del Mar was founded in 1935 and in the late 1940s a separate campus for African American students at Solomon Coles high school was established, called Coles Junior College. The school was in the segregated area of Corpus Christi, which was the Washington-Coles neighborhood on the north side of the city. At that time, the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson stated separate facilities among different races were constitutional if equal. “The idea that these schools or any of those other facilities…

History

Del Mar’s Radio-TV beginnings in 1980

Layla Fonseca

Del Mar College’s Radio-TV program began in the Fall of 1980, offered by the speech communication department ran by Jack Ashford and Dr. Lorayne Doegey.  A history building classroom was remodeled into a TV studio, with a news set, interview set and black and white and two-color cameras that rolled around the cement floor on heavy mountings. Floor to ceiling drapes on a three-wall track gave a backdrop along with muffling echoes. An adjacent office was turned into a control room with turn tables and control board along with tv monitors.  “Rooms H117 and H117A will be converted this summer…

Campus

McKinney spoke about how ceramics inspired by a mans manipulation of the environment

Layla Fonseca

William McKinney draws ceramic inspiration from man’s manipulation of its environment. McKinney spoke at an artist talk held in Del Mar College’s Richardson Performance Hall on Thursday, Oct. 2. Growing up in West Virginia, McKinney was surrounded by elements that would later inspire his creative process in the future. His home state is known for its clay and he spent his childhood navigating the woods, finding rocks that had been impacted by the glass industry. While attending West Virginia University, where he graduated from in 2013 with his bachelors degree, he took a trip to Jingdezhen, China. Known as the…

Campus

DMC Choirs to perform acclaimed composer’s work

Layla Fonseca

Del Mar College Choirs accompanied by the music department will perform a “Celebration of Rosephany Powell” Nov. 6 and 13. The Nov. 6 performance begins at 7 p.m. in Wolfe Recital Hall on the DMC Heritage Campus while the Nov. 13 concert begins at 7 p.m. at St. John’s United Methodist Church, 5300 S. Alameda St. Both performances are free and open to the public. Powell, a professor of voice at Auburn University in Alabama, is an acclaimed composer, vocalist, conductor, and scholar whose works have made a significant impact on the modern choral repertoire. “I chose to feature her…

Campus

Dia De Los Muertos memorial hosted by Del Mar College

Layla Fonseca

Dia De Los Muertos is a day to honor loved ones who have passed and commemorate with an altar, typically celebrated on Nov. 2. Del Mar College’s Heritage Campus will host a morning program and community ofrenda, or altar, on Thursday, Oct. 3, in the White Library, Room 218 from 10 a.m. to noon.   This event has taken place every year since 2004, with ofrendas placed at every campus, but the main morning program will take place in the White Library.   The White Library hasn’t always hosted the ofrendas. They have also been hosted in Spanish classrooms, the…

Campus

Constitution Day lecture to feature Harvard professor

Layla Fonseca

Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will discuss the U.S. Constitution and the impact it continues to have on our country and government during a Constitution Day 2025 lecture on Del Mar’s Heritage Campus. Serving as the structure of the United States, the Constitution outlines the principles of the federal government, and the rights reserved for citizens, which are still standing today.  To pay tribute to the signing of this document, and its lasting effect, Constitution Day was pronounced a federal observance by Congress in 2004. The…