Amarillo College Badger Buzz

We've brought back the Food Holiday Calendar for the month of November. This year's calendar includes a special recipe my family makes every year to celebrate our Native American heritage. You'll find the Google Doc linked to the PDF on Native American Heritage day. I hope this recipe (and all the other recipes and information on this calendar) bring happiness and maybe something new to your table this month.

Home Safety:

Traveling Safety:

Packages:

Shopping:

Holiday parties:

Blog written by Scott Acker, Chief of Police

As the holidays are approaching, there can be several areas of stress, anxiety, and grief that make this meaningful time of year also feel complicated. Watch this video as Will Ratliff and Adam Gray share some things to keep in mind as well as some practical ideas on how to navigate the holidays in healthy ways.

Use a credit card or debit card that includes excellent protection against false charges to your account. Try to use payment systems that have good built-in protection, like Paypal, Shop Pay, Google Pay, or Amazon Checkout. It is much more difficult for a criminal to steal your card info if you use these types of payments during checkout. If you are shopping on an unfamiliar site and the checkout has a plain old form to fill out your credit card info (if it also does not provide alternative ways to pay like PayPal, Google Pay, etc.), be wary.

Serving Our AC Family

The original purpose of the AC Foundation was to obtain gifts and grants to further the development of Amarillo College through loans for students, enrichment of the educational program, and necessary expansion of the campus. The Scott Lumber Company Fund was the first loan fund set up at the Foundation and although we no longer give loans to students, we now use the Scott Lumber Fund to give emergency loans to employees. The AC Foundation now raises funds for scholarships for our students and support funds for programs at AC along with funding to support the No Excuses program. We also solicit funding through grants for institutional programs at AC. We currently have a $63 million-dollar endowment which is one of the largest endowments in the state of Texas for a community college.

As I wrote about a few months ago, my wife Missy (who was one of the guests that were interviewed on The Little Things series…such a great job BTW, Panhandle PBS team!) and I sent our youngest child to college back in August, and as I write this, we are just four weeks into the empty nest phase of life! Season-of-life transitions are a meaningful and natural part of things. So much is happening all at the same time – one season is coming to an end, which usually brings both expressions of gratitude as well as a natural sense of loss; there is an in-between season of reflection, preparation and anticipation where things are not quite normal in this liminal space; and finally, there is the beginning of the new season and all its excitement, anticipation, challenges, and adjustments. I have had such a strong sense lately of the changes and transitions happening in my own life as well as around me lately. There are the familiar, annual transitions like the beginning of the semester; and I have also connected with many faculty and staff who are in seasons of transition, like beginning a new job at AC, having a baby, retiring, or even grieving and adjusting to a new normal when you lose a loved one.