April 2026 Volume 9 Issue 9

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Tennessee Flavors is right around the corner! This signature tasting event brings together many of the city’s top restaurants, chefs, and beverage artisans for a night of exceptional flavors and Tennessee-sourced products that showcase what makes our community so special. Best of all, every dollar raised goes directly to supporting our students. Join us!

Tennessee Flavors is on Tues, May 19^th from 6pm-8pm at our Southeast Campus (5248 Hickory Hollow Pkwy).

Tickets are still on sale with a special Faculty/Staff discount code! Purchase Tickets Here Access Code: TNF26FS to get your faculty/staff ticket for $75. Enter the access code at the start of ticket selection. Please double‑check the tickets you choose. Your ticket should display “General Admission – F/S,” and your total will be clearly listed at checkout. Please note that we cannot refund processing fees for accidental purchases.

Have a question about TN Flavors? Please reach out to Sierra Leach at sierra.leach@nscc.edu.

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Students from the North Davidson campus recently participated in the Creative Arts and Research Symposium at Middle Tennessee State University on April 20, where they presented their research to a diverse academic audience.

Cassie Abeyta, Taneile Pitts, and Phalyna Perkins confidently shared their work, earning positive feedback for their clarity, engagement, and professionalism. Their visually compelling poster drew strong interest from attendees, who were especially engaged by their investigation into antimicrobial resistance using a disk diffusion assay.

The project explored antibiotic resistance by testing two different bacterial species against four types of antibiotics and four common household cleaning agents. Through this approach, the students examined patterns of bacterial inhibition and variability in effectiveness across different antimicrobial substances.

As their mentor, I had the privilege of guiding these students through the research process. Watching them stand beside their work and communicate their ideas with confidence was deeply meaningful. What began as a classroom experiment evolved into a moment of genuine academic ownership and growth.

The study also sparked thoughtful discussion around antimicrobial resistance, with symposium attendees engaging the students in conversations about the broader implications of their findings. Their ability to clearly explain experimental design and interpret results highlighted the strength of their learning experience.

Opportunities like this are especially significant in the community college setting, where access to undergraduate research is still growing compared to larger institutions. Despite these challenges, our students demonstrated strong scientific thinking, creativity, and the ability to communicate their work effectively to a broader audience.

Experiences like this reinforce the value of mentorship and hands-on learning. Sometimes, students simply need the opportunity to realize that their ideas matter and that they are capable of contributing to meaningful conversations in science.

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Nashville State was well represented at the April 4^th Centennial Park Green Sweep.  PTK members Phuc Tran, Amanda McCarthy, Damari Ornelas, and Ammi Landeros-Reyes; PTK advisor Harlan Pease; and Technology Tutor Debbie Nesbitt were all present to participate in the cleanup. 

Cleanups occur on the first Saturday of each month if you are interested in participating. 

Damari Ornelas, Phuc Tran, and Amanda McCarthy

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Human Resources Update

By Connie Daniel, Senior Administrative Assistant, Human Resources

April 2026

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Nashville State’s newest employees!

New Hires
Hailey Adkins	Development Associate	Office of the College Foundation
Jaclen Casion	Student Services Specialist	Clarksville Campus
Kelsey Irvin	Student Success Advisor	Office of Student Success Center
Sinor Ismael	Testing Technician II	Office of the Testing Center
Tammy Oropesa	Sr Administrative Assistant	Center for Workforce Development & Continuing Education
Jennifer Rines	Director	Office of Student Success Center
Aaron Trotter	Student Life Associate	Office of Student Life

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Please join us in congratulating Nashville State’s employees who are in a new role!

New Roles
Ian Rafferty	Computer Technician Coordinator	Office of Technology Services
Jarvis Simms	Purchasing & Contracts Analyst	Office of Purchasing & Contracts

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Please join us in saying farewell to this NSCC employee!

Separations
Elizabeth Heffington	Librarian	Office of Learning Resources

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Allow me to explainify

by Harlan Pease, Associate Professor of Communication, EHCT

I paid a fair fare to go to the fair, where I fared fairly well.  If you ask why, I can’t explainify it to you.  I can qualify it, and testify to its truth, but I can’t explainify it.  I don’t like that, but I can’t make a complaination.  I’d have to make a complaint, and I wish someone would give me an explaint as to why. 

Obviously, I am just being facetious, kidding, poking fun, and joshing.  But I’m generally not plainly/discernably/evidently/undeniably/unmistakably being facetious, etc., as those words wouldn’t work idiomatically.  Even though they are synonyms of “obviously.”      

Want to learn English as a second language?  Good luck.   

Those were some of the thoughts that scrambled through my brain as I observed Professor Leda Longwood teaching ESOL 0123, Conversation and Listening 3, on April 6^th at the Southeast campus.  The day’s lesson was focused on how suffixes are used to create different parts of speech from root words, and it was a good reminder of how many irregularities there are in the English language.  There are irregularities in every human language, of course, but if we are native speakers, we often don’t notice the irregularities, because we internalized them before we thought about learning them.  We just know them. 

But what really caught me was thinking about what it must be like to go through your day at Nashville State if English is your second language.

In every class, you’d be learning a language: the language of Math, or Art, or Philosophy, or Engineering, or Biology, and so on, and you’d be learning them in English, a language that isn’t native to you.  It’s hardly a secret that students who speak English as their native language struggle with learning these languages associated with various disciplines; how frustrating it must be to have to decipher and translate everything you are hearing so you can try to learn the language that language you are deciphering is trying to share.  ß There’s a sentence that probably needs a second read for many native English speakers, and I should be punished for writing it having wrote it having written it.   

More directly: If I had to study and write Philosophy in German, I’d have a really hard time understanding lectures, doing my reading, writing my assignments, and passing the class.  And that would be just one of my classes.

But what really stood out was just how lonely the day might feel if you were surrounded by language and customs that are foreign. 

That thought of loneliness is what really made Professor Longwood’s class so warm and inviting: it felt like family.  Leda had clearly (obviously, discernably, evidently) facilitated partnerships between students as task partners, and she had created an environment of psychological safety where the entire class had a sense of togetherness and felt comfortable writing answers on the board, being occasionally wrong because of those irregularities in English, and recognizing those mistakes are part of the learning process. 

There was one beautiful moment where a student used a suffix to form a word, and Leda tied it back to a project that student had done previously.  The student beamed.   In Communications, we call this confirmation: sending the message that the person and their message matters.   There’s a reason we teach it in Communications: it happens infrequently, even when the communicators speak the same language.              

How rare that confirmation must be for those who spend their school day immersed in a language that is not their own.  I tip my hat to Leda for making it less rare. 

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The Nash GRAD & Flex team was fortunate to travel to New York for the CUNY ASAP National Replication Collaborative Convening! On March 26 and 27, we spent our days hearing from nationwide programs just like Nash GRAD/Flex about best practices, successes, and hard lessons learned from their CUNY ASAP replication efforts.

The team was made up of Haleigh Portillo, Student Success Advisor, Courtney Woodard, Student Resource Coordinator, and myself. We presented engagement activities specific to students on transfer pathways that we offer, as well as best practices for advising students in majors designed to transfer to other institutions. Our session was well attended, and we had a lively discussion with a highly interactive audience! The three of us spread out to attend different sessions throughout the rest of the convening and came together to discuss which practices we can implement into GRAD/Flex operations.

Beyond the general convening schedule, Haleigh and I were delighted to meet other peers from the Replication Collaborative Near Peer Mentorship Program. One of my favorite new activities from this semester has been working with my Peer Mentees at Harford Community College as they develop their program, and it was wonderful connecting with everyone who’s been involved in this new partnership!

My personal highlights were the time spent networking and having real, unscripted conversations with our peers from across the country. More than breakout sessions, these authentic conversations generated the best ideas that we hope to implement in the next academic year. Outside of all the formalities, we also took a walk down to the Queens side of the Hudson River waterfront, where we saw the beautiful New York City skyline with our new friends! Clara Chen, Associate Director, Replication Partner Engagement at CUNY ASAP was the best guide.

We were honored to participate in this event, and we can’t wait for future opportunities. They are always looking for host sites for future convenings, so stay tuned for future updates if we one day decide we can host everyone here in our own great city!

Nashville GRAD and Flex were created by Nashville State Community College in partnership with Metro Nashville and Davidson County and the Tennessee College Access & Success Network to replicate the successes of the City University of New York ASAP program.

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Student Life is excited to share photos from Student Life for April!

Remember, you can also stay informed through the Wednesday What’s Happening sent through Campus Announcements and posted to @NashstatestudentLife on Instagram and Facebook.

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We’re excited for you to meet the newest member of The Center for Workforce Development and Continuing Education team, Tammy Oropesa. In this month’s ‘Minute’, Tammy introduces herself and shares her journey, professional background, and enthusiasm for supporting programs that expand access to education and workforce opportunities.

It’s that time of year! A quick reminder about contact hours:

All noncredit workforce and continuing education activities generate contact hours, which are reported annually to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. These hours help demonstrate our impact, support performance funding, and strengthen future programming. Thank you for submitting your activity details, every hour—and every effort—counts.

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Hi, Nashville State Community College!

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