With the beginning of the fall semester here at Richland Campus, changes are happening everywhere. From a new building under construction on the east side of campus to new students and organizations and the new switch from Blackboard to D2L Brightspace.

Richland Collegiate High School has a new principal, and many may be wondering who he is and what students can expect. Stephane Rovelo is an alumnus and now principal of RCHS. Rovelo was a graduate of the Richland Collegiate High School in 2010, and as he likes to put it, he was a “solid Bs student.” He remembers his time at RCHS fondly, having created tight-knit relationships with those around him, ones that still exist to this day.

The Richland Chronicle staff attended the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA) annual convention March 23-25 in Fort Worth and brought home five awards and seven honorable mentions. TIPA members include student media from two and four-year schools in Texas. The association holds an annual convention, inviting students from across the state to attend seminars and learn from some veterans in the journalism industry.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become more and more popular as part of life. On the other hand, writing is an essential part of our daily routine, from sharing our lives in emails to taking notes in class. It should not be a surprise then that AI for writing and other creative tasks such as image generating and brainstorming has become a new reality. According to anyword.com, AI writing programs are based on spell checkers on computers since the ’80s. Richland Campus English professor Dr. Kendra Unruh created a developing AI session for faculty in order to inform her fellow professors about the new technology. She explained that even though there are professors who are against the use of artificial intelligence in generating content for their classes, there are others, including herself, who support the use of this technology as a tool to do schoolwork.

Texas governor Greg Abbott announced a statewide model security plan for the state agencies, including institutions of Higher Education, to address the security concerns of using TikTok and other software on smart devices from personal to stated-issued devices at the beginning of February, according to information provided on the website gov.texas.gov. All the state agencies will have until February 15, 2023, to come up with a policy to implement this plan.

“We’re incredibly proud and fortunate to have Dr. Williams in this role,” Dallas College Chancellor Justin Lonon said. Dallas College has a new vice chancellor. On Jan. 23, Chancellor Justin Lonon named Dr. Bradford Williams to in the leadership role. Williams has served as president of the El Centro campus since 2021. Williams also spent six months as interim chief marketing officer of Dallas College. His role as vice chancellor will have him overseeing functions of Finance, Marketing and Human Resources. During the COVID-19 pandemic while at El Centro, Williams played a critical role in the return of post pandemic student and staff culture.

For over 40 years, Dallas College Richland Campus Music Department has been a nurturing and thriving program that offers a huge variety of instrumental and vocal instructions in performance and theory through music courses. The department is looking to expand its course offerings in the next two academic years with even more options for instrumental, vocal and music theory instructions.

Dr. Abel Rodriguez, a music faculty member, said that while registration is lower than that of 2020, the department is working to build back. “Before the pandemic, I would say that we would typically have between 30 and 40 music majors a year with each semester of new students. While we still feel the impact of that crisis, the numbers of students that are enrolling are getting close to what they were before.”

The Honors Student Organization at Dallas College is made up of students who strive for great achievement and success with high grades and active student involvement.
Officers from HSO were recognized for their efforts from the previous conference they attended on Nov. 2-6.

When Juan Olivares students signed up for his class in U.S. history class, little did they realize they might be helping to create it. Olivares is a history professor at Richland who decided to encourage some of his students to become participants in history. Therefore, he and one of his classes went to Guadalupe Hall to cast their votes.

“Being a history teacher, you are teaching the long history of how we got this political right so far in the 21st century. It took 200 years of activism, revolts [and] civil wars to get that political right, and what is going on in 2022? A lot of problems affect society, our politics. So what about if I provided an open space and opportunity for my students to make a big difference in this midterm election?” Olivares said.

On Aug 24, President Joe Biden said students who have an outstanding student loan debt up to about $10,000, may be eligible to qualify for the Student Loan Forgiveness plan. Those who accepted Pell Grants during their education can qualify up to $25,000. If the student has the said amount piling up, and their income (or their parents) is less than $125,000, they will be eligible, according to the Associated Press.

Students at the Richland campus of Dallas College had their opinions about this proposal. Peter Cho, lab specialist of the Art Department t said, “I think that it’s brilliant to have student debt eliminated.” Cho is an Iraqi war veteran and didn’t need to apply. He was supported by a GI Bill from his service with the U.S. Army. He said that he had to apply for the bill to also help pay for his expenses.

All Dallas College accounts now require multifactor authentication to log in as of May 13. These include eCampus, Self-Service, and the Office 365 apps.

If students didn’t pre-enroll before May 13, they will now be shown a setup screen when trying to log in to a Dallas College-only service. Multifactor authentication, also known as MFA, adds a protection layer to students’ accounts.

In one month, many things can change. It has been one month since Dr. Justin Lonon became the chancellor for Dallas College. Lonon was interviewed on the Dallas College ‘Spotlight’ series, a series where they interview guests over their accomplishments.

Lonon expressed his gratitude for being chancellor and how it presents new responsibilities for him but also wants to make employees feel at a place of belonging, especially when issues are to be resolved.

“I feel the weight of the responsibility in a very different way than I did even in my previous role.”