Month: February 2021

The best thing about poetry is that it’s a creative and inclusive way to express yourself. That’s why, in a partnership with Encircle, Dixie State University is hosting four poetry writing workshops for LGBTQ+ students and allies.

Cindy King, assistant professor of English, initiated the collaboration last year with support from a DSU Community Engaged Learning Mini-Grant for her proposal, “Student Writers in the City: Blazing Trails in St. George.”

The workshops are hosted by her upper-division poetry students, and it gives them the opportunity to showcase what they’ve learned in class.

King said: “It’s for everyone; it’s a place for support. In a more practical sense, the poetry students can now say they’ve worked with diverse and marginalized populations.”

The purpose of the workshops is to provide a creative outlet for the LGBTQ+ community and spread the word about Encircle’s resources. The grant will also fund an anthology of poems and visual art from workshop attendees.

“After the anthology is published, there will be a launch party for contributors and participants to showcase their work and celebrate it by giving a reading at the Encircle house,” King said. “It’s a great platform to say your piece.”

The St. George Encircle home functions as a safe environment for LGBTQ+ youth, young adults and their families to come together through friendship circles, therapy and community events. Students can even stop by during drop-in hours for a quiet place to do homework and get a free tour of the house.

Julie Benson, program manager for Encircle St. George, said the organization was created as a response to Utah’s high rate of LGBTQ+ suicide.

According to Encircle’s website, “LGB youth are three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers [and] forty-eight percent of transgender adults reported having made a suicide attempt.”

Benson said she’s excited about the poetry workshop partnership because it gives the St. George LGBTQ+ community a chance come together and network with one another.

“We wanted to bring in that creative conversation, and this is another way to connect and get your stories told,” Benson said.

Naji Haska Runs Through, a two-spirit freshman art major from St. George and Encircle DSU intern, said they’re glad the anthology is creating a legacy for queer voices but wishes more people would attend the workshops.

“Sometimes it’s hard not to feel alone in the queer community in St. George, so it’s refreshing to know that trans people exist here that I haven’t met before,” Runs Through said. “I would love to see more people come. Humans are creative beings and these workshops are for everyone; it doesn’t matter what skill level you are.”

The workshops are free and can be attended in-person in HCC 477 or through Zoom. The remaining dates are March 2 and March 16 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The deadline to submit poetry and visual arts to the Encircle Anthology is April 1. Submissions should be sent to [email protected], or for more information, contact Cindy King at [email protected].

To learn more about what Encircle offers, visit encircletogether.org.

Between juggling classes, homework and extracurricular activities, students can often find themselves forgetting one of the reasons why they are sweating over a bachelor’s degree in the first place: To launch their dream career.

Some anxious seniors, in their last semester, might even be thinking, “What am I going to do next?” or “I just graduated college… now what?”

Don’t fret — the Dixie State University Career Services team is willing to prepare and train you for what’s ahead with its version of a career readiness checklist.

Do you have the physical necessities?

Career coach Gina Gottfredson said almost every employer will ask for a completed resume, so it is essential to build one over your four years of school. A resume is not something you just want to throw together last minute; it should be taken seriously.

“I would start by really focusing on creating a targeted resume,” Gottfredson said. “[A resume] is what is going to help you land a job interview in the first place, so it needs to catch the eye of your future employer.”

Career coach Rochelle Blatter said to enter a job search, students need to make sure they also have these physical elements:

• Cover letter
• Online profile for LinkedIn
• Online profile for Handshake
• An online, professional portfolio (depending on your major)

Shane Blocker, assistant director of Career Services, said to use your school work as a way to upscale and sell yourself to your future employer.

“Don’t just do papers to do papers,” Blocker said. “Most of the time, we get done with a big group project or finish our senior capstone paper and think, ‘Cool, now I never have to look at that again,’ when really you should take that content and put it on your LinkedIn profile so employers can see your abilities.”

Are you networking?

Blocker stressed the importance of networking as a way for students to start preparing for future jobs and connections to job opportunities.

“You have to know people,” Blocker said. “So many times we go to class and pull out our cellphones and start ignoring everybody around us, but if you just start talking to the people in your classes, the network that you start now opens up a lot of things post-graduation.”

Blocker also said students should take any opportunity they have to introduce themselves to guest lecturers and all of their professors who have their own webs of networking that can assist that student.

“[Students] need to network with professors, they need to network with potential employers, they need to network online, and they need to — most importantly — network with Career Services,” Gottfredson said.

Starting early and building these connections now through networking with others will ease your stress as you prepare to graduate and land a job, Blatter said.

“The more you engage with others, the better you will feel prepared,” Blatter said. “The more connections you make through friends, family, instructors, faculty and staff, the better.”

What’s in your wardrobe?

“Dress to impress.”

We’ve all heard that saying over and over again, but as you navigate your way through college, it’s important to start collecting professional clothing to prepare for your future career, Gottfredson said.

“It would be expensive and some students would not be able to afford to buy a whole month’s worth of professional clothing all at one time,” Gottfredson said. “So I would suggest students prepare a professional wardrobe while they are attending school.”

DSU Career Services has a “career closet” of professional work clothing that was donated by students on campus that anyone can take from if they are in need of clothing appropriate for the workplace.

“It’s always better to be ahead than behind,” Gottfredson said. “Starting early when collecting these pieces of clothing will give students one less thing to worry about when starting a job.”

The staff members of DSU Career Services are available to assist any student with reviewing documents, practicing mock-interviews, acquiring professional clothing, and more as long as they make an appointment online first.

It’s been almost one whole year since COVID-19 started ruling our entire lives. For organizations like the Dixie Sun News, that brings a lot of unique challenges. As a student news organization, we’ve grown and adapted in many ways to our new circumstances.

Despite all the challenges, this staff has persevered. Here are some of our stories:

Rhiannon Bent

DSN Adviser Rhiannon Bent, assistant professor of media studies, said COVID-19 was a great learning experience for her student journalists.

“I think COVID-19 was the best active learning activity I never could’ve come up with,” Bent said. “I think for stretching student journalists for creative thinking, for critical thinking, it has done everything I have wanted it to.”

Bent said how proud she is of her students for continuing what they are doing and pushing through their challenges. She said they are learning how to do things differently and sometimes even more logically and creatively.

Bent said this year in particular, it is so important to have news because of all the tension going on in the world.

“If anything, we need journalism now more than ever, especially over all the other things that have happened this past year,” Bent said. “It’s not just the pandemic; think of all the racial injustices and tensions that have happened, all the things with politics. There are so many critical stories that need to be told now more than ever.”

Stephanie Du Par

Producer Stephanie Du Par, a senior communication major from Santa Rosa, California, said when everything came crashing down around the newspaper last year, Bent came in and kept them all together.

When the staff found out about school closing and everyone having to return home for the quarantine last March, many found it easiest to just give up and stop, Du Par said.

“Our saving grace was Rhiannon Bent, who was so determined to find a way to keep printing and to keep doing our show even though we were all in different states,” Du Par said. “Rhiannon was like the glue that held us all together.”

Since the new regulations made communicating in person difficult, everyone had to learn how to continue doing their jobs online, Du Par said. She said communication had to start changing and the whole group had to get good at it fast.

“The best part is communicating what works best for everybody, and it kind of eliminates excuses because everyone is on the phone and on their computer,” Du Par said. “I feel like we’ve done well adapting, but I wouldn’t say we’re perfect by any means.”

Kristi Shields

Editor-in-Chief Kristi Shields, a junior media studies major from Salt Lake City, said DSN has become more multimedia based and also more creative in how it produces work.

Sometimes things just don’t work out how you plan, and in the moment you have to figure it out despite the complications, Shields said.

Shields said she’s been exploring more video assignments for DSN this year, and it’s caused some interesting, creative challenges. Sometimes you just don’t get what you need, like an interview for example, and it causes you to think on the fly, she said.

“We have to explore other ways to make a video if you don’t have a visual interview,” Shields said. “Definitely with [Zoom] we’ve had to adjust how we do video.”

Shields said it’s nice to have all this technology in order to still communicate with sources and staff, but sometimes there is a lack of a line drawn between work and break time.

“When do you have that cut-off?” Shields said. “When do you know when you are going to just turn off and not be available? We’re so used to having that as a sole communication now, [and] it’s definitely helped communication between us.”

Breanna Biorato

Breanna Biorato, a sophomore art major from Las Vegas, said last March was a uniquely difficult situation. As the photography editor, she had to find a balance between making everything DSU related and COVID-19 related, all the while being home in Las Vegas.

She said during this new school year, she was extremely hopeful for things to get easier than having to do things from her hometown last year during quarantine.

“When August came, I was kind of on the iffy side of things because [of] Zoom and hybrid classes, but I was glad to be back on campus and glad to be working back with the newspaper,” Biorato said. “It made things so much easier knowing at least I was in the same state.”

Biorato said the biggest difficulty with online meetings for her and her photographers is that sometimes they get forgotten. Everyone is so busy talking about the stories and what they need to do, it’s easy to forget about the art and it’s harder to cut in over Zoom, Biorato said.

Biorato said: “The writers always have the full time to talk and plan, but then the photographers come and it’s like, ‘We’re done, let’s go write in the chat.’ It’s definitely one of those things I prefer in person because it’s like we’re not there sometimes.”

Now, almost a year later, the staff is different, the format to release DSN’s news has shifted to a completely online base, and it feels like a whole new world in the newsroom. There will never be a perfect situation, and COVID-19 is a perfect example of how you work with what you are given, which is exactly what staff members at DSN are doing.

“Tragedy, trauma, drama; these are the things that bind people together,” Bent said. “I hope that students walk away after this year feeling like they can do more than they ever thought they could do before.”