Features – TrevEchoes Online

Trevecca alum makes it to the Saturday Night Live Stage

7Dec

By Grace BecknerNo Comments

Alumni, Features

Trevecca alum makes it to the Saturday Night Live Stage

By Grace Beckner James Austin Johnson, pictured fourth from left, during the opening of "Saturday Night Live" When Zachary Swafford, a senior vocal performance major, first heard the news, he was rehearsing for Trevecca’s production of the musical Freaky Friday. “We were at rehearsal, and they had announced that [James Austin Johnson] was going to be a new face on SNL,” said Swafford. One of Swafford’s professors told the group there was going to be a Trevecca alumni on Saturday Night Live, but Swafford had no idea that alum would be the first person he would see when the show opened--doing an impression of President Joe Biden, no less. Johnson starred in the opening sketch of his SNL debut on Oct. 2. He co-starred in three other sketches that night. “We just thought th...

12Nov

By Grace BecknerNo Comments

Features

Religion professor serving community through foster care

By Grace Beckner Without the open heart and home of a single woman, Mary Schmitt, assistant professor of biblical studies at Trevecca, might not be here today. Schmitt’s grandmother was born to a mother who died not long after childbirth, and to a father who was unable to care for a newborn baby. The father put the child in a home with a family, and when he could no longer pay them to care for her, she was brought to an orphanage. Schmitt’s grandmother was taken in by a single woman who saw how sick she had become and thought she would not do well in the orphanage. So the woman, after gaining permission from the orphanage and the child’s father, took the baby home. “She was never allowed to adopt her, because she was a single woman, and you weren’t allowed to do that until ver...

Immunocompromised TNU faculty member finds way to connect with community

10Nov

By trevechoesonlineNo Comments

Features

Immunocompromised TNU faculty member finds way to connect with community

By Claudia Villeda Wells teaching Intro to Speech Communication via Zoom Around 25 students are gathered in a classroom in McClurkan waiting for their Theories of Communication course to start. A teaching assistant is sitting at the front of the room with a camera next to her. Students are groggy but still chatty. Everyone looks to the front of the room when a face is suddenly projected on the whiteboard. This semester face-to-face 15-week classes are back. The fall 2021 semester might feel like a return to normal for many students and faculty after almost two years of living in a pandemic. For immunocompromised people, the realities of the pandemic are still very present in their lives. Jeffrey Wells, chair of department of communication studies and assoicate profes...

5Oct

By trevechoesonlineNo Comments

Features

Students Recall Damage Caused By Flooding To Their Hometown of Waverly, TN

By Diana Leyva Student Body President, Hunter Elliot, woke up early on the morning of Aug. 21. He grabbed his phone, checked Facebook and saw that 66 miles away, in his hometown of Waverly, massive flooding was taking place. According to the Humphreys County Emergency Management Agency, 20 people were killed, 270 homes were destroyed and 160 suffered major damage. Flood damage along Trace Creek in Waverly. Photo courtesy of The Associated Press. In shock, he began calling family members. Initially there wasn’t much concern from his family, but as time went by the water began to rise. “I tried to call my mom, and she was like yeah the water is starting to get really high. She said I'm just really scared right now,” he said. As the hours passed Elli...

One year of COVID-19: life in a pandemic as college students

26Mar

By Naomi OverbyNo Comments

Coronavirus, Features

One year of COVID-19: life in a pandemic as college students

Just over a year ago, Trevecca’s campus cleared out for spring break; many students and faculty unaware that those classes would never resume in person. Some would never again set foot in a Trevecca classroom altogether. Students went from celebrating an extended spring break, to the harsh reality of a pandemic—an email asking them to return to campus when possible, gather their things, and transition completely online for the remainder of the semester as a precaution for a rapidly spreading virus. “I was definitely heartbroken when they officially told us we had to pack up and head home,” said Allie Tracy, an intercultural studies major who graduated last year. “I was not going to get to say goodbye to people. Not to friends, not to professors… I said goodbye to my r...

One year of COVID-19: the unforgettable experience of pastoring a college campus through a global pandemic

26Mar

By Caitlin LassiterNo Comments

Coronavirus, Features, Spiritual Life

One year of COVID-19: the unforgettable experience of pastoring a college campus through a global pandemic

When Trevecca chaplain Erik Gernand thinks back to his first reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic putting a halt to campus life as students knew it, it doesn’t take him long to remember the main concern on his mind. “I think the first pastoral prompt was how do we maintain some sense of connectivity as a campus community and how can we shift the content and the spaces we have to be able to try and address some of the current issues we’re facing,” Gernand recalls. In the early days of COVID-19, Gernand worked to create a YouTube series called “How Christians Respond in Times of Crisis,” where religion faculty, mental health professionals and medical workers joined him to speak about where faith fits into this new reality of a COVID world. Gernand also hosted a podcast with Tim G...

One year of COVID-19: how Trevecca’s educators adjusted to online teaching

26Mar

By trevechoesonlineNo Comments

Coronavirus, Faculty, Features

One year of COVID-19: how Trevecca’s educators adjusted to online teaching

By Diana Leyva Nine hundred and six LinkedIn Learn courses viewed, 2,471 active Blackboard courses (41 which are fully online for traditional students), 9,472 Blackboard video files, and 14,675 Panopto video views and downloads: These are just some of the statistics that can describe the spring 2020 semester at Trevecca. When the university announced that all classes would be moved completely online for the remainder of the spring 2020 semester, Director of Online Learning, LaMetrius Daniels and her team of instructional designers knew they had to be quick and strategic when it came to helping faculty understand how to deliver remote instruction. Normally, they would use a plan to approach online learning, but with the pandemic they had to steer away from the nor...

18Mar

By trevechoesonlineNo Comments

Campus News, Features

Self-defense class to be offered in fall semester

By Lindsey White Sarah Anne Colwell, a Trevecca student, was shopping at Macy’s at Greenhill's Mall, while talking on the phone. She noticed a young woman staring at her and immediately felt uncomfortable with the situation. The woman approached her as soon as she got off the phone and pleaded with Colwell, asking her to follow her to her car and buy some shoes she was trying to sell. “This did not feel right, there's something up. She just had this weird look on her face, I knew it was off,” said Colwell. Colwell remembered a tip she had learned in the self-defense class she took at Trevecca. She asked a sales associate to walk with her to her car and got out of there. “I wouldn’t have thought to ask a cashier to walk to my car with m...

Walden celebrates Black History Month on campus

22Feb

By Grace BecknerNo Comments

Events, Features

Walden celebrates Black History Month on campus

Walden, the student club on campus dedicated to building community around primarily African American and Black students, was determined to celebrate and share Black History Month with others despite barriers to planning events during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Black history actually does exist here on Trevecca’s campus, and so I think it is important that we celebrate it,” said Lea Bryant, the president of Walden. Walden held its first event of the month on Feb. 4 at Trevecca Community Church; a “get-to-know Black History Month” presentation for the students at KidPOWER, the on-campus after-school program offered free to families in the Napier-Sudekum Community. “Going through all the classrooms, there were really good discussions being held and the kid...

17Feb

By trevechoesonlineNo Comments

Features

Safety tips for online dating

By Lindsey White Paige Skaufel, sophomore history major, fixes her hair in the mirror and puts on her favorite outfit. Her phone dings with a text from her date letting her know he is waiting outside for her. With high hopes, she gets in his car, only to find the man she met on Tinder is much different than what she expected. “After meeting up with him, I made an excuse to go back to campus,” Skaufel said. According to a report released by Statista, 51 percent of college students used dating apps as of 2017. Due to lack of face-to-face interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic, college students have found online dating an alternative way to make new connections. The parent company that controls 60 percent of the dating app market, called Match Group, reported a 15 per...