She Speaks, Everyone Thinks: Hailey Adkisson

She emerges from her office and makes her way to the classroom, class starts in five minutes. Her face is seemingly expressionless. She clutches a tan hydro-flask with one hand and a clipboard with the attendance and lecture notes in the other, and marches to the classroom. It's a Tuesday afternoon and the weather is wonderful in Albany, Oregon and first year professor Hailey Adkisson is about to give a lengthy lecture on conflict in her communication 218 class.

Adkisson turns the corner to greet a few early students waiting outside with smiles. She unlocks the door, turns on the light and assumes her position behind a tall wooden, beige podium. More people come in and make themselves comfortable in their seat until the classroom is filled up with two dozen students.

Before class begins she gives details to the class about the upcoming final and how the criteria will be broken down. The shortest person in the room, but undoubtedly the most recognizable, commands attention with each sentence. Some take notes even. Unfortunately for those who aren't comfortable speaking aloud to the class, the final exam will be a verbal presentation about some of the positive experiences gained from exploring another culture.

"Time limits?" one student asks aloud to the front of the classroom.

"No more than five minutes, no less than two." She replies. Then there are no questions.

Adkisson gives each student a number one through four, instructing them each to say their number as the room counts up then tell them each to group up with the number they got. The students group into fours and fives to a corner of the room.

At this point she announces the students are to "write the word conflict on the whiteboard and brainstorm a list of names, phrases, or emotions when you hear the word conflict."

The four groups exchange a flurry of ideas and thoughts. The only challenging part about this exercise, put your thoughts into words and have a discussion. Adkisson sits atop her desk, left leg over her right and looks on to each of the five groups, smiling in content with the state of each group discussion.

This idea of social interaction and constructive ideas being shared among minds young and old is also a theme for the discussion board that the Civil Discourse Club uses to understand other points of view.

Mark Uristo, the official advisor for the Civi Discourse Club, said he "reached out to Hailey for help [with the club] because she has a lot of experience with facilitating civil discourse based on her work at North Dakota State."

Adkisson gets her desire for civil discourse from a former advisor she had during graduate school. She said that "she had a big influence on me, not nessecarily teaching, but I just really respected her teaching style. The bulk of it [the class] was just sitting around discussing ideas. She would challenge you to think, you would respond, and she would say 'tell me more'". Adkisson goes on to say "her advise translated well beyon the classroom."

Infact, before she entered NDSU for her MA in Speech Communication, she spent two years as an AmeriCorps VISTA serving in Winatchee, Washington and Moorhead, Minnesoda.

Linn Benton's History of Extra Curriculars

The year is 1991, the only club that exists at LBCC is the Horticulture club. Being the agricultural hub that Linn County is, there was no surprise to see a Horticulture club among the campus's extra curricular activity. Then came ASCET, or the american Society of Certified Electric Technicians.

LBCC has had numerous clubs come and go such as: Biology club, Geology club, Swing Dance club, and many more. A list of clubs on campus, active and inactive, can be seen here: http://www.linnbenton.edu/current-students/involvement/institutional-equity-and-student-engagement/clubs-and-co-curricular-programs. Clubs to the students on LB's campus serve as a staple to the community and a place to meet many other people with similar interests.


The club has been disbanded in it's 25-year history only once, as it has "ran out of seniors [upperclassmen] to fill office positions" says Ric Costin, the adviser for ASCET. "It died about two years ago to be brought back again after a low enrollment of students".Perry Carmichael serves as the department chair for ASCET and is an instructor in Computer Aided Design and Drafting, or CADD. He said that the "club isn't very focused on research and development", contrary to other beliefs. The club doesn't have any partnerships or sponsors, but

The end of fun clubs and co curricular activities are almost inevitable, as numerous clubs have been disbanded only to be brought back, like ASCET and many others. Heather Morijah, who is the program assistant of Clubs & Student Engagement at LBCC told of a process clubs regularly attending clubs have to go through, as well as the direction disbanded clubs must take to become active again. "If a club has been inactive for several years, then the leader [of the club] needs to fill out a petition for club charter". Morijah goes on to say, "To have a club, you need eight students that are currently enrolled, and an adviser."

If you're an LBCC student and you have a profound interest in a set of activities that aren't validating of your interests, start your own! Make sure that you have a theme that is suitable for a school environment and go make yourself some friends doing what you enjoy.

'These Two Facts Exists", an exhibit by Ron Linn

The new exhibit in the SSH Art Gallery ‘These Two Facts Exist’ features many different drawings by Portland native Ron Linn. Linn’s graphite composite comes after local print maker Tallmadge Doyle’s, ‘Pollination’.

On March 5, 2018, a reception and talk was held to show his drawings and give students a chance to ask questions about his work and talk art. Here is a website with all of the information concerning the gallery and art staff: https://www.linnbenton.edu/current-students/involvement/art-gallery/now-showing-in-south-santiam-hall-gallery.

Linn has bounced around as an artist, as he has spent time at an art residency in Iceland for two months, and in Nevada, where he studied art. He recalls his time in Iceland as a “really intensive, focused time to explore my art at a bookbinding workshop.” Soon after, he obtained a bachelor's of art at the University of Oregon. He currently teaches at the school he got his undergraduate degree in Nevada.

Landscape is a very critical theme in his art, as he said, “My artwork seems to come back to this idea of place and trying to connect with place.” Linn recalls an old geologist roommate he had that looked at things differently than he did in relation to the landscape. “Whenever we’d go hiking, he would see things entirely different than I saw.”

All of the work on display is done in pencil. In fact, Linn claims he would “use mechanical pencils, mostly.” Using pencil on all of the art depicts calm but intricate lines with this particular medium.

 Ron Linn (Left) is talking about his art with Anne Magratten (Right).

Though there aren’t many colors, rather shades, Anne Magratten, a professor in LB’s fine arts department, said of Linn’s work: “It’s a wonderful reminder as I see you [Linn] stepping in and out of these different ways of working that this is the blessing of contemporary art. It’s the flexibility to occupy many different artistic positions.”
The art piece seen on the floor is a drawing of a windsock. Linn gives a profound interpretation to this, as explains the idea of “windsocks as this empty body that reveals invisible forces. You don’t see the wind, but when it interacts with this tool used to measure the wind, you can finally start to see it.”

"These Two Facts Exists" gets its name from “this idea that a drawing of something being looked at as an object, and the object itself as two different things. So you have a drawing of a rock, that exists and you have an actual rock is a second fact that also exists.” He goes on to say, “We would privilege the actual object as being the ‘true thing’, but in many ways there’s something very true about the drawing of the object. Through interpretation and conversation, it is a fact that exists.”

The exhibit will be on display in the SSH Art Gallery until March 29.