This story/opinion was published in ForbesBrandVoice on Oct. 12, 2017. Western Carolina University (WCU), my beautiful campus tucked away in a Blue Ridge valley, had high expectations for the 2016 election. The civic engagement team I led as a student coordinator hoped for a 10-24% increase in student voter turnout; and, until recently, we believed […]
Is Black History Month still necessary?
March 1, 2017 by
My senior year of high school, I was with my dad when he was pulled over for running a stop sign. Instead of being met with the face of an officer as he rolled the window down he was met with two guns telling him to pull out his license and registration. Fear was evident […]
Joanna Woodson: Your voice matters, dammit
December 6, 2016 by
It wasn’t until three weeks after the election that the Jackson County Board of Elections finally sat down for canvassing day. Until this year I wasn’t aware that canvassing day–a time after the election board members go one by one through questionable provisional ballots and determine which ones will count–existed. To me, provisional ballots existed […]
#BringBackTheBeerRun
April 29, 2016 by
*The author of this article works in the WCU athletics department.* It has been brought to the attention of the WCU community that on April 20, 2016, when the Western Carolina Catamounts played Virginia Tech in a baseball match up, there was an incident involving a player on the opposing team. While we cannot discuss […]
Show Review: The Oh Hellos @ The Orange Peel
April 17, 2016 by
Listening to modern folk band The Oh Hellos’ current release, Dear Wormwood, I imagined the band to be a relaxed, inconspicuous presence on stage. I couldn’t have been more wrong. While breezy, earthy vocals take precedence over the instrumentals on most of The Oh Hellos’ recordings, the live performance shows off the complicated conglomeration of […]
Stop Legislating Hate, North Carolina!
March 25, 2016 by
This post was previously published on CandidCeillie, Ceillie Simkiss’s personal blog. I am disappointed and disgusted with my state this week. For those of you who don’t know, North Carolina’s General Assembly wasted $42,000 yesterday calling a special session in order to pass an “anti-discrimination bill” that gives homophobes and transphobes the ability to be […]
