Computer manipulated images meant to communicate the artist’s personal and varied experiences with epilepsy comprise a unique exhibit now on display in the Southern Light Gallery at Amarillo College.

The exhibit is called Measured Disorders and was created by Andrew Joseph Ortiz, an associate professor of art and history at the University of Texas at Arlington, who has dealt with the physical challenges of epilepsy for more than 30 years.

Amarillo College sophomore Eliza Pearson was about 10 years old back when she first lugged her cello into the Music Building and became a member of the renowned Suzuki Program for young and aspiring musicians at AC.

These days she’s toting that stringed instrument of hers just a couple of miles farther down the road – a relatively short jaunt that nevertheless propels her instantly from academia, esteemed though it may be, to genuinely rarefied air.

The Education Credit Union Foundation today made a generous and impactful gift of $500,000 to Amarillo College to establish five endowed scholarships for students in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering or math.

In honor of the gift, the College has co-branded one its primary learning spaces in its STEM Research Center and christened it the ECU Foundation STEM Lab.

Amarillo College, which is ranked the top College in the nation by the Aspen Institute, will host an Employer Summit to honor the contributions area businesses have made over the past year in support of work-based initiatives for AC students in the STEM, Business, Childcare, Education and Creative Arts fields.

Amarillo College has selected a longtime member of the faculty at its Hinkson Memorial Campus in Hereford to become the next dean of campus operations there.

Dolores Arambula, a lifelong resident of Hereford and herself a graduate of Amarillo College, has served as interim dean of the Hinkson Campus since the untimely death last January of longtime Dean Daniel Esquivel.

Like most kids in the West Texas towns he once called home – Paducah, Matador, Abernathy – Terry Smith was intrigued by various aircraft that passed overhead. What set him apart is that his curiosity about planes never waned.

Smith’s desire to fully fathom the upkeep and precision necessary to keep those flying machines aloft and humming optimally became a full-fledged passion and led him to launch a long and successful career in aviation maintenance technology.

“Officer Buckle and Gloria” is an award-winning book that has charmed little kids for years, but when a real-life police officer reads the story about Gloria the police dog to a class of young students they tend to become downright riveted.

Through an outreach program dubbed Books & Badges, officers from the Amarillo College Police Department (ACPD) have been reading that book and others to enthusiastic young audiences comprised so far of pre-k, kindergarten and first-grade students at Hamlet Elementary School.

If a literature class that focuses solely on the short stories of celebrated author George Saunders piques your interest, then knowing the award-winning writer is planning to visit the class to conduct an in-person Q&A should be doubly alluring.

That’s exactly what’s in store for students who enroll in ENGL—2341 Selected Studies in Literature, a unique class being taught next spring at Amarillo College by Dr. Chris Hudson, assistant professor of English, who in addition to creating the course has dubbed it “Precarious Realism: George Saunders and the Contemporary Short Story.”

A cherished Amarillo College tradition that was interrupted by the pandemic will be revived in a big way when four outstanding individuals receive AC's Distinguished Alumni Award, which was last presented in 2019.

The honorees are Dr. Pablo Diaz-Esquivel, Dr. Clint Esler, Mr. Matt Griffith, and Dr. Paul Matney, who not only attended the College as a freshman but went on to serve as its president from 2009-2014.

The Academic Success Division at Amarillo College is pleased to announce that it has been named a fully certified tutor-training program by the internationally recognized College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA).

As a result, all Academic Success Centers across five AC campuses are staffed by CRLA certified peer and professional tutors.

Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe, Distinguished Research Scientist at Amarillo College, and Lisa Soper, instructional designer at AC’s Center for Teaching & Learning, soon will present findings of their collaborative research at a conference in Spain.

Ranasinghe and Soper have been invited to the 26th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL) Sept. 26-29 in Madrid, where they will share the results of a study they conducted at AC on the viability of virtual science labs.

Last fall, FirstBank Southwest made the largest gift in its history when President and CEO Andy Marshall announced a $3 million commitment to Amarillo College, establishing the Bank as “Founding Sponsor” of AC’s resurgent intercollegiate athletics program.

In recognition of that generosity in 2022, AC named its freshly renovated athletics facility FirstBank Southwest Center; but to further honor the bank and the man at its helm, the AC Foundation in 2023 has named FirstBank Southwest as the recipient of its yearly Chairman’s Award.

Amarillo College has received a grant that positions AC to acquire cutting-edge equipment essential to the redesign of its Industrial Technology program into an Advanced Manufacturing pathway that includes a specialization in automation.

AC was presented with a $346,340 Jobs and Education for Texans (JET) Grant by leadership of the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) during a ceremony on Sept. 14 at Frank Phillips College (FPC), which also received a grant.

René West and Mark Penland have been creating collages ever since they could hold scissors, but on their present-day digital odyssey they don’t need scissors.

West, associate professor of photography at Amarillo College (AC), and Penland, a freelance photographer and photography lab manager at Tarrant County College’s Northeast Campus, are now creating art with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The Amarillo College Construction Technology Program is pleased to announce that one of its talented students, Jacques Rukundo, has received a $2,000 academic scholarship from the Texas Builders Foundation.

Rukundo, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is in his second year as a construction technology major at AC. Married and the father of five children, he will receive the monetary award in two increments – $1,000 for the fall 2023 semester, and $1,000 for the spring 2024 semester.

Once again, the Machining Technology Program at Amarillo College has produced a student who has been accepted into the prestigious two-year machinist apprenticeship program at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Travis Johnson, 20, will graduate from AC in December with an associate degree in advanced machining technology. But the Canyon High School product will not have to wait that long to begin his career-building adventure; his apprenticeship through LANL’s Machinist Pipeline Program (MPP) begins Sept. 25.

Amarillo College Athletic Director Mark White has announced a restructuring of the Athletic Department’s administration, including a pair of internal promotions and a change in leadership.

Badger cross country coach Sean Hargrove is set to become Amarillo College’s new athletic director on Jan. 1, 2024, effectively concluding White’s successful three-year tenure as AD.

The Amarillo College Music Department is pleased to announce its schedule for the 2023-24 Art Force Piano Series, a lineup of compelling musical events to be alternately performed by accomplished guest artists and AC faculty members.

The Piano Series, sponsored by Art Force Amarillo, will feature four hourlong concerts over a seven-month span, and all are free and open to the public.

Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart resigned today after nine highly successful years as president of Amarillo College. His letter of resignation is effective Sept. 30, after which he plans to move into a new role as chancellor of the Austin Community College District.

“Leading Amarillo College these many years has been my greatest personal honor,” an emotional Lowery-Hart said. “AC will be forever locked in my heart.”

Zeinab Ali is a December 2022 graduate of the nursing program at Amarillo College (AC) who works full time in the medical-surgical unit at Northwest Texas Hospital. She also tutors aspiring nurses part time on AC’s West Campus.

From the outside looking in, hers is yet another heartening, albeit not uncommon, success story authored by what is, according to the Aspen Institute for Community College Excellence, the finest community college in the land.