Volume 80, Issue 14
www.brevard.edu/clarion
SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
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December 10, 2014
Volunteers pose with 4th graders at the Porter Center.
Brevard College hosts campus
tour for local 4th graders
By Michael Heiskell
staff Writer
On Dec. 5, a few other college students and 1 volunteered to help show groups of 4th graders from
Pisgah Forest around Brevard College.
The kids were swarming with questions and seemed eager to learn about what college was really
like. While one group was away seeing the campus, another group stayed behind to hear about what
we thought of college.
We always started out by asking what they all wanted to be when they grew up. Answers like “Nurse”,
“Engineer” and “Scientist” were not uncommon and even more wanted to play in the NFL or NBA.
It’s always interesting seeing what kids want to be when they grow up and these kids seemed to have
a pretty good idea.
They asked us a wide array of questions, but no matter what group it was someone always asked
what we ate at college. They seemed amazed that we had the possibility of ice cream for breakfast if
we felt like it and I think more than a few of them didn’t even believe us. Hearing about ice cream
really got the groups excited and changing the subject off of ice cream proved difficult. Although they
all were also interested in what classes were like and often amazed at how different things are in col
lege than they are in the 4th.
We wanted to let them know that if they worked hard, college is always an option. Perhaps some of
them had never heard this before, but we were more than willing to let them know. It’s always exciting
to see so many young kids excited about their education. With someone to believe in them and faith in
themselves these kids could go anywhere. All it takes is a little hard work and a dream.
Editor's Note
By Kara Fohner
Editor in Chief
I did not transfer to Brevard College in the
Fall semester of 2012 with intentions to join
the Clarion. As a creative writer, my emphasis
was poetry, and as an editor, I preferred literary
magazines. I also harbored a vague notion that
I might enjoy teaching. Organizing information
and synthesizing it into a structured article
seemed like a clinical and laborious process.
Clearly, I was wrong.
When former Editor in Chief Patrick Veilleux
lured me in as a staff writer, he didn’t realize
that my previous journalistic experience was
limited to my position as Layout Editor at the
Montreat College Whetstone. When he sent me
out to write an article about plumbing damage
in Dunham, I called him and said something
like, “You know I’ve never interviewed anyone
before, right? How do I do this?”
I remember with painful clarity that my first
few articles were terrible. I struggled with the
concrete reality of deadlines, and as a perfec
tionist, I procrastinated because I was afraid of
producing comically awful writing. The first
feature I wrote was about Director of Residence
Life, Michael Cohen, and I remember hating
the article so much that I couldn’t look him in
the eye for weeks. It just wasn’t good enough.
I wasn’t good enough.
In Spring of 2013, I was invited with a few
other English majors to speak at a meeting
of the Board of Visitors. There, I met Paul
Morgan, a former professor of journalism. In
the following weeks, he introduced me to staff
at the Brevard College Office of Communica
tions, and they took me on as a summer intern.
Morgan knew that I had little experience in
journalism and none in Public Relations, so
he offered to teach me how to write. He then
took time over the course of three months to
show me how to tell a structured, concise, and
engaging story. He offered a detailed critique
of every article that I wrote. It was one of the
kindest things that anyone has done for me.
Because I have been workshopping my po
etry since I was around 11 -years-old, 1 could
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