Since 2021, full-time Amarillo College students who are Pell-Grant eligible have been welcome to apply for free or reduced on-campus child care through the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) Program.

Yet that federally-funded program for low-income parents became even more of a game-changer in 2022 when it was expanded to include scholarships in the after-school program at the Maverick Boys & Girls Club – open daily until 1 a.m.

As a newcomer to Amarillo College in 2021, Makayla Caudillo fully intended to bypass the cluster of exhibits that comprised Badger Connect, the showcase of clubs and organizations presented each semester during Welcome Week.

“I was a freshman, shy and nervous, and I was going to walk right past all that stuff on my way to class,” Caudillo said. “But before I could get past it, a guy who was vice president of SGA (Student Government Association) approached me.

The shoes he set out to fill were spacious, but Cade Foard, a music major at Amarillo College, was driven by familial allegiance and undaunted by the challenge.

This past August, the gifted AC violinist earned a seat on the Amarillo Symphony, where his father, the late Orin Foard, had impeccably performed as a bassist for more than 25 years.

Few will be surprised to learn that a member of Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society has been chosen to serve as student speaker for Amarillo College’s Fall Commencement, which is at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16 at the Amarillo Civic Center.

But the news did catch the speaker herself just a bit off guard.

In a testament to its transformative efforts in support of the state’s strategic plan for higher education, Amarillo College has been presented with what essentially is the gold standard of laurels earmarked for post-secondary schools in Texas.

AC received a prestigious Star Award from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) during that august body’s Higher Education Leadership Conference Dec. 7 in Austin.

Amarillo College is pleased to announce that it is one of three recipients of a Recognition of Dedication to Educational Outcomes (RODEO) Award courtesy of the Texas Success Center.

The Texas Success Center (TSC) is housed at the Texas Association of Community Colleges and operated through the Texas Community College Education Initiative, a nonprofit. It supports the community college districts in Texas to redesign the student experience through Texas Pathways.

The Amarillo College Theatre Arts Program is pleased to present On the Verge, a play that follows the jocular adventures of three highly independent lady explorers on an extraordinary journey that seems to take them through time.

While on a frolicsome jaunt that begins in 1888, they begin to absorb knowledge from the future, while meeting strange and wondrous characters, learning slang, and even debating the appropriateness of a lady wearing pants.

It will be a memorable milestone in more ways than one when the Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) program at Amarillo College conducts a Nursing Pinning ceremony for the 100th time in its storied history.

AC’s 100th Nursing Pinning, which will honor more than 100 AC nursing graduates, is from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15 at Central Church of Christ, 1401 S. Monroe St. The landmark celebration is open to the public.

A compelling twin bill awaits concertgoers in December when both the Amarillo College Community Concert Band and AC’s Brass Ensemble will perform sequentially in the Concert Hall Theater on the Washington Street Campus.

The joint concert is scheduled from 7:30-9 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12. The event is free and open to the public.

Amarillo College had two vocalists use standout performances to place in the upper tiers at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) – Texoma Region – Student Auditions conducted Nov. 9-12 at West Texas A&M University.

AC’s Cadence Lowery-Hart was named a finalist in the Sophomore Treble category and therefore qualified to apply to enter NAT’s national competition; and Mariah Godwin of AC advanced to semifinalist status in Freshman Treble.

Amanda Tinker uses a large-format camera and historic processes to create evocative images of uniquely arranged elements in nature – photographs that will be on display for several weeks at Amarillo College’s Southern Light Gallery.

Tinker, who was shortlisted for the Hariban Award, International Collotype Competition in 2018, will display her series, Small Animal, Nov. 21 to Jan. 26 at the College.

Eric Fauss admits he was not an outstanding high school student, yet he entered college with newfound vigor and swiftly became an honors student. But he faced a major dilemma, quite literally, once there: whether to major in music or history.

While notions of becoming a classical pianist happily frequented his head, it was the pursuit of history that eventually won his heart.

Joe Bill Sherrod is a consummate professional with a proven track record of success in higher education fundraising, and today he was presented with a prestigious award in recognition of his cumulatively impactful achievements.

The Texas Plains Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals named Sherrod, vice president of institutional advancement at Amarillo College, its Outstanding Fundraising Professional for 2022.

Amarillo College Student Media won 14 awards at the Texas Community College Journalism Association convention held Nov. 11 at the University of North Texas. The annual convention brought student journalists together for a day of workshops and an awards ceremony.

The contest recognized work published by AC students during the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semesters and included submissions by former editor-in-chief of AC’s student newspaper “The Ranger,” Raygan Lopez, as well as Daniel Antillon, Jo Early, Shawn McCrea and others.

Amarillo College on Oct. 27 shared how it will create the equitable and affordable on-campus environment core to achieving its “No Excuses 2025” strategic goals by launching a partnership with a noted course-to-course solution provider.

The College launched EduNav SmartPlan and EduNav Insights, award-winning completion platforms, as it works to transform its community and economy through learning, innovation, and achievement.

Amarillo College is pleased to announce that its Communications and Marketing Department emerged from the 10th Annual Education Digital Marketing Awards with five national collegiate marketing awards – three at the topmost Gold level.

The Education Digital Marketing (EDM) Awards are endorsed by Higher Education Marketing Report and recognize the best digital content, electronic communications, mobile media, social media and educational websites.

Although Casey Niccoli, a mass media major at Amarillo College, readily admits that a “rough second semester” had given her a mild case of the self-doubts, at no point did the notion of giving up enter the aspiring filmmaker’s mind.

“I was still struggling with learning the technical aspects of filmmaking, but I had to keep creating,” Niccoli said. “I needed more than ever to see my artistic vision come to life.”

Community colleges are not often recognized as hotbeds of academic research, but at Amarillo College, once again a finalist for the nation’s foremost community college accolade – the Aspen Prize – research is a highly tangible pursuit.

The Amarillo College Foundation recently underscored the veracity of that assertion when, in support of its ongoing comprehensive campaign Badger Bold, it made a generous $250,000 bequest to establish the inaugural Distinguished Research Scientist endowment at AC.

Any pianist would have been hard-pressed to squeeze an entire rendition of Chopin’s Minute Waltz into the fleeting interval between Dr. Bruce Lin’s arrival at Amarillo College and when he actually began powerfully impacting students.

As segues go, it was Flight-of-the-Bumblebee seamless.

Seriously though, Lin hit the ground running at AC, and there is no denying his meteoric rise since joining the music faculty in 2020; for in two short years the adroit pianist soared to the rank of assistant professor and captured the College’s most prestigious faculty accolade, the John F. Mead Faculty Excellence Award.

A significant majority of Amarillo College faculty who responded in 2022 to a job-satisfaction survey developed at Harvard University said they were not only satisfied with their workplace, but that they would choose to work at AC if they had the opportunity to make the decision all over again.

That was just some of the positive feedback generated when AC renewed its partnership with the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education through The Harvard Graduate School of Education to conduct the COACHE faculty survey. AC previously administered the COACHE survey to its full-time faculty in 2019.