the current

November 2010the current 3campusNew club at LongviewCultures, Inc.by Antoinette BradleyClubs and organizations are essential to college lifeand can enhance your leadership skills. While somestudents choose to join the club’s and organizationsthat have already established a name for themselves,some students choose to form a club that is geared towardsspreading unity and fairness.Cultures Incorporated is just such a club. SusanLong is the president. Rej’lyn Mack is vice president,and Cynthia Gonzalez is the club’s secretary. The club’sadvisor is Longview counselor Wendy Firven-Smith.The club’s mission statement declares: “A studentbasedorganization focuses on the cultural, social, andacademic needs of students. Open to all students regardlessof race, creed, color, religious affiliation orsexual orientation. Cultures Incorporated is a new upand coming club that provides a forum for open discussionsto build better understanding of cultural experiences.Our hope is to encourage our members andstudents to challenge the norm.”Long said that it’s necessary to have a club of thissignificance.“Collectively we felt that a club that included diver-sity needed to exist on campus. This idea sparked aftera leadership event sponsored by Campus Life andLeadership, featuring a presentation about diversity.So after that presentation, we said, ‘Why not?’”Even though an organization for African Americansdoesn’t exist on campus, the members wanted toorganize a club that doesn’t exclude anyone from joining.Mack said that the club is an excellent additionon campus because other people from other culturescan express their concerns about the discriminationthey had experienced in the past. Even though AfricanAmericans have dealt with a lot of discrimination andmistreatment, too, it’s better to go global to share theexperiences. Mack, who is a graduate of Park University,said that attending Park helped her better understandwhat other cultures go through on a day-to-daybasis.“Discrimination is not based in one culture, but inall cultures,” she said.Long’s time at MCC-Longview is coming to anend, so she wanted to create a foundation for the clubthat the next students who join can carry on, “so thatit’s relevant to the student population,” said Long.Lit Fest continues to growby Antoinette BradleyThe Third Annual Literary Festival was held atMCC-Longview in the Mel Aytes Education Center inNovember. The festival was full of workshops, roundtablediscussions, open mic and of course, networking.It provided a foundation for people to start the processof showcasing their creative side through writing andillustrating.Longview English instructor Susan Satterfieldcoördinated the event. The idea originated after attendinga similar festival on the plaza a couple of yearsago, she said, and after the Plaza wasn’t hosting theevent any longer, Satterfield saw a need for a literaryfestival on campus.The Literary Festival is good not only for the students,but is significant for teachers to see what studentsare interested in.Writers appearing at the Festival included Ann Ingalls,the author of “The Little Piano Girl.” Ingalls saidthat the festival is excellent because people attendingcan learn the value of critique groups, the publishingprocess, how to write a query letter, which is a letterintroducing your work, and the importance of writingone. Besides writing novels, Ingalls also writes for theKansas City Star and writes poetry for children.Barbara Stuber, whose début novel is “CrossingThe Tracks,” got involved in the Literary Festival becauseSatterfield saw her photo in the Kansas City Star.She also devotes her time at the Nelson Atkins Museumgiving tours and writes for the Cricket Magazine,which is a children’s magazine. When Stuber writes shedoesn’t write for any particular age group, she said. “Ifthe story is really good, it should resonate to all people,”said Stuber.Laura Manivong is another author who made herfirst appearance at the Literary Festival. She is the authorof “Escaping The Tiger,” which is about her husband’sfamily escaping from Laos. Manivong says herinspiration for writing is the “stuff that I feel needssharing, thoughts in my head and in my heart.” Shealso said that she has gotten great feedback on hersee LIT FEST on 11www.longviewcurrent.orgDisney offersinternships toMCC studentsby Jason WelchThe Longview Student Employment group hosteda presentation by Disney for their internship programon October 14. After the presentation an opportunityfor a phone interview with a Disney associate wasavailable to students who were interested in the program.If selected to the internship program, students willbe given the choice of Disney World in Florida, or Disneylandin California. The interested student wouldthen choose a five- or seven-month stay. The internshipis paid and coupled with six credit hours for workexperience.“Sometimes students have so much fun downthere, they don’t come back,” said Linda Anderson,Longview’s Student Employment Services coordinator.Free entrance to the park, employee discounts, andmeeting people from all around the world makes this apopular internship. MCC also requires a 2.0 GPA andenrollment in the current semester at the time of presentationand interview. MCC offers online and substitutioncourses to interns in Florida and Californiaso that they maintain the full-time status.Students who are interested in the Disney internshipprogram can view the online presentation at disneycollegeprogram.com,or attend the next presentation,in January 2011.Free HIV/STD testing atLV on Nov. 10by Louis KemnerTwice a semester, the Kansas City Health Departmentcomes to MCC-Longview to volunteer their HIVand STD testing services for any students who wishthem. The service is also free.The second testing event for this semester will beon Nov. 10, 2010. Students can undergo blood or urinetests and are guaranteed confidentiality about theirtest results. The Health Department has provided thisservice at Longview for three years as an outgrowth ofa condom awareness event on campus, according toCampus Life and Leadership Coordinator KimberlyProsak.