Join us October 27-28, 2022 at the Amarillo Civic Center, North Exhibit Hall for an interactive expo showcasing each of our nine Communities and how they align with career endorsement areas. The event is open to all high school students who are considering AC or already committed to attend in 2023.

Space is limited. Register today! See your CCMR or counselor if you need help registering.

Amarillo College is pleased to announce that it has received a $3 million gift that provides its athletics program with a “Founding Sponsor” and a prestigious name for its new home, which henceforth will be called FirstBank Southwest Center.

The highly visible FirstBank Southwest Center, which rests on the corner of Washington Street and SW 24th Avenue, is presently undergoing a massive renovation that will be completed sometime around the first of the year.

Amarillo College today launched the public phase of an ambitious $45 million fundraising campaign that supports three specific initiatives intended to transcend the College and transform the economic vitality of the region.

Badger Bold is the first comprehensive campaign in the school’s 93-year history, and the public phase follows a highly successful “quiet phase” that since 2020 has garnered $31.5 million in gifts and commitments – a full 70 percent of its goal.

The unusual two-dimensional photomontages of noted Metroplex artist Mark Penland will be on display Oct. 7-Nov. 16 at Amarillo College’s Southern Light Gallery.

Penland is a freelance photographer who serves as instructional associate in photography and photography lab manager at Tarrant County College’s Northeast Campus.

Amarillo College will conclude its observance of Hispanic Heritage Month with the presentation of a special musical project honoring the Latin American immigrant population living in the U.S.

Headliner Javier Jara and his team of collaborators will present “Our Rhythms, Our Voices” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14 at the Concert Hall Theater on AC’s Washington Street Campus.

The Amarillo College Theatre Arts Program is pleased to present a classic comedy by famed English playwright Noël Coward as its first show of the 2022-23 season.

Blithe Spirit, which is under the direction of Monty Downs, veteran instructor of theatre at AC, takes the stage for a four-day run beginning Thursday, Oct. 6 at the Experimental Theatre on the Washington Street Campus.

For the first time in its history, Amarillo College completed the crucial first step in its reaffirmation of accreditation by receiving what amounts to a perfect score for its on-site visit: zero recommendations for compliance with the 72 standards under review.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) completed its on-site visit to AC on Sept. 22. Along with offering zero recommendations, the SACSCOC committee fully endorsed the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which is the cornerstone of AC’s reaccreditation efforts.

When his high school physics teacher veered from the problem at hand to offer a few insights on Platonism, Michael Hannen was so tantalized by the topic that he plunged forthwith into the depths of a scholarly rabbit hole and thereby discovered his life’s work.

“One day our physics teacher went off on a long digression that was basically Plato’s Allegory of the Cave,” said Hannen, program coordinator for humanities and philosophy at Amarillo College. “I’d refer to it as metaphysics today, but at the time I just thought it was the wildest thing I’d ever heard.

It was like a breath of fresh air when Amarillo College launched its Respiratory Care Program back in 1972.

Prior to the program’s inception, the city of Amarillo’s four dynamic hospitals had been compelled to recruit and import trained respiratory therapists from well beyond their service area.

But in 1972, the city’s first respiratory therapist, Gary Gerard, who had been recruited to Amarillo from New Mexico four years previously, joined with Dr. Ted Nicklaus and Bill Young to develop the program at AC.

The Hispanic Student Association (HSA) at Amarillo College will observe Hispanic Heritage Month with a trio of special events on the Washington Street Campus, the first of which is open to the community and promises fun for the whole family.

Hispanic Heritage Month is Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, and it is designed to recognize the achievements and contributions of Hispanic-American champions who have inspired others to achieve success. The 2022 theme is “Unidos: Inclusivity for a Stronger Nation.”

Caviness Beef Packers Ltd, a steadfast supporter of Amarillo College – with gifts to the College now totaling in excess of half-million dollars – has been named the recipient of the 2022 AC Foundation Chairman’s Award.

The award was announced during the AC Foundation’s 58th Annual Meeting held on Sept. 13 at the Amarillo Club.

The Amarillo College Music Department is tuning up to present an outdoor concert influenced by Latin-American music called “Fiesta Under the Stars.”

The concert, which is free and open to the public, will be from 6-7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24 in the amphitheater and mall area south of the Music Building and the Experimental Theatre on the Washington Street Campus.

The Southern Light Gallery at Amarillo College has launched the fall semester with an exhibit featuring a variety of photographs by AC students.

The gallery is located on the first floor of the Ware Student Commons on AC’s Washington Street Campus and is free and open to the public.

The works currently on display are selections of AC student photographs previously featured in the Amarillo College/West Texas A&M University Student-Faculty Show presented earlier this year at Amarillo Museum of Art.

An innovative plan to increase the number of teachers in Texas Panhandle school districts was announced Sept. 12 by West Texas A&M University and Amarillo College officials.

One2Teach will significantly reduce the time and costs for high school students who want to become teachers.

“We think this new collaborative effort addresses the significant challenges of recruiting teachers and of student debt,” said Dr. Beth Garcia, assistant dean of graduate programs and professional certifications in WT’s Terry B. Rogers College of Education and Social Sciences. “High school students who know they have a passion for teaching but are concerned about the cost and time of pursuing that degree now have a pathway to their own classroom that will begin even before they earn their high school diploma.”

While approaching Amarillo College’s stately Ordway Hall in the fall of 1967 to conduct his very first freshman composition classes, Tom Hodges admits to feeling as though he’d bitten off more than he might could chew.

“On my first duty day there, those cornerstone statues, the gnomes flanking Ordway Hall’s main entrance, struck me as formidable,” Hodges said.

Amarillo College has no benefactor more consistent than Amarillo National Bank, which on Sept. 6 – and for the 34th year in succession – announced a gift to the College. This one, though, is eminently generous and distinctly transformational.

Amarillo National Bank and its owners, the Ware family, presented Amarillo College with $1.2 million, funds that will support three specific initiatives:

The Art Force Piano Series at Amarillo College will present four compelling and distinctive concerts throughout 2022-23, and they will be alternatively performed by accomplished visiting pianists and AC faculty musicians.

The concerts will be conducted on Tuesday evenings at the Concert Hall Theater on AC’s Washington Street Campus, beginning with some time-honored Americana on Oct. 4, and all four of them are free and open to the public.

The island nation of Cuba had long been an alluring destination for Patricia D. Richards, a photographer and educator whose perseverance ultimately gave way to an exhibit currently on display at Amarillo College’s Southern Light Gallery.

Richards, who spent years trying to obtain a necessary visa, finally reached Cuba in 2011 and began creating Unexpected Cuba, an ongoing photography project viewable at Southern Light Gallery through Feb. 2.

When Rocky Banda learned he had been named a 2022 Coca-Cola Leaders of Promise Scholar and would receive a $1,000 award that goes with it, his first inclination was to look ahead – to consider how he might one day pay it forward.

Banda, 41, is a psychology major at Amarillo College who has endured drug dependency leading to homelessness and incarceration. His goal these many years since is to become a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor (LCDC) and help others with similar experiences to his own get back on their feet.

Two Amarillo College machining students have been accepted into a prestigious career-building apprenticeship program and will spend the next two years honing their craft in northern New Mexico at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Joseph Meraz, an advanced machining major, and Emma Womack, who obtained both welding and basic machining credentials at AC, each are beneficiaries of AC’s inclusion in a distinguished Consortium, an advantageous grant, and their own wherewithal.