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Each month, Texas State University President Dr. Kelly Damphousse sits down with faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and community members for a conversation about all things TXST — the past, the present, and the bright future of the university.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
- Hey, Bobcats, I'm Kelly Damphousse, President here at Texas State University. I'm also the host of "The Current," and in this special episode, you get a chance to hear from a panel of incredible students that were recorded during my annual State of Texas State address. And since that address, we've released several pieces of content, including our new signature brand campaign, a new anthem video, and Star Story profiles of faculty and staff members. Now, the panel you're about to hear is a student perspective from that event, and I hope that you enjoy hearing from these three students as they share the great things they're doing here at Texas State.
- It's great to see you all here today. Thank you for being here. This is actually a special recording of our podcast that we call "The Current," where I talk to faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends of the university about things that are happening at Texas State. And we thought it'd be very useful for our faculty and staff to hear something from our students. Before we start, and Sully, I'll start with you, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience.
- Hey, everyone. I'm Sully Allen. I'm a junior here at Texas State, and I'm an English and education major.
- Hello, everyone. My name's Aleah White. I'm an industrial engineer major here at Texas State and I'm a senior.
- Good afternoon, my name's Chuck Harris, and I'm a master's graduate student in the School of Music, getting a degree in composition.
- I don't know if you knew, I was talking about you when I said the students were getting older, by the way.
- We are.
- Chuck is actually one of our staff members as well, so, if you don't know, he runs Evans Auditorium. So thank you so much all of you for being here. And so let's start with a question for all of you. What are something that you're especially grateful for about Texas State? And Sully, we'll start with you again.
- I'm really thankful for all my professors here at Texas State. They've all helped me immensely on my journey here. Dr. Wilson, or Professor Wilson, sorry, Dr. Mencke and Doctor, ah, I'm blanking on his name, but those two specifically, I'll say, those two have been the professors of my favorite classes who've really shaped what I've learned to love here.
- But what made them your favorites? Was it 'cause they were easy A's?
- No, because they were challenging. Professor Wilson, in fact, our class was so good, he said that he made our midterm harder. And at first I was like, oh my goodness, I don't want that at all. But looking back on it, I really enjoyed the experience of figuring out how to do that midterm.
- Great, thank you. Aleah.
- Yeah, so not to echo Sully, but I think I'm just very grateful for the community that I've been able to develop here at Texas State. Whether it been my professors or advisors like Dr. Jimenez or my peers like Natalie and Christina, or even the friendships that I've made within my ministry, I can say I truly wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for them.
- That's great. Thank you for sharing that. Chuck, what about you?
- I'm thankful that the university is an employer of choice. That's a great thing. And you know, it's thankful for the things the university provides for the staff. And I came here a couple years ago and the College of Fine Arts and Communication has just been such a wonderful place to work. Dean Fleming is a wonderful boss and just really neat to see all of the things that our fine arts departments do.
- Yeah, and you're an example of what many of our employees are doing now, taking advantage of the tuition discount.
- Absolutely. You should take advantage of that. It is a really good deal.
- That and the WellCats program.
- You can get an entire graduate degree for what one semester would cost.
- All right, there's your plug. All right, we're done here. So, Chuck, we'll come back to you now. One of the things I love about "The Current" is typically we wanna talk about an issue, but I always love starting off with finding out what someone's Texas State story is. Why don't you share a little bit about your story and what it's like being a student here at Texas State.
- Sure. Again, I used to work at the big university up the hill up, up 35 and a job opened up down here that kind of fit my, what I could do. And so I applied for it. So I've been here since the summer of 2023 and then found out about the tuition replacement and it's just been such a really great journey. I have really great professors. Don't sleep on the School of Music here. It is fantastic.
- Yeah, we're seeing evidence of that already for sure.
- It really is such a great place. It's the faculty there and the staff there are just really adamant about students getting a great education. And so, but that's kinda my story. I wanted to study composition and so I got in touch with the right people and here I am. I'm gonna graduate in August.
- Graduate in August, very good. Gonna jump in the river?
- Absolutely.
- Aleah, we talk a lot about finances and academics, about the important role that they play with retention and graduation, but we also talk about belonging, about how important it is for our students to feel like they're connected. Can you think of a time when you felt like, this is it. This is my place, these are my people, I belong here.
- Yeah, so for me, I went to a pretty good high school and had some great relationships with my teachers there. And something I remember is just developing a relationship outside of just being my teacher, in the sense of like we'd hang back, they give us encouraging advice. So coming to Texas State, I didn't really know what that was gonna look like. Coming in, I heard some people, they really connected with their professors, some people didn't. But I remember Professor Shaw, she really made an impact on me when I was taking Writing for Sustainable Change. And I remember I think it was like maybe that first week of just starting up school and a peer of mine hung back and she was recommending us like a donut place to check out. And even just something so small as that was so impactful for me 'cause she ended up even helping me think of creative ways that I could incorporate sustainability into using my major. So I'm really grateful for that moment. 'Cause I was like, man, Texas State is the place for me.
- That's awesome. You know, there's a lesson there about how it's not just about classes and professors teaching and so on, there's relationships that get formed and the impact you can have even maybe even without realizing how deep that impact is. I just told people where to get a donut. But you go home that night and you think about, man, that professor showed me where to get a donut. And it just, even small things like that can have a positive impact. Alright, Sully, I'm gonna put on my Barbara Walters hat. You're too young to know who Barbara Walters is, but they're not. And so if Texas State is a constellation, what's the star that guides you right now? What inspires your goals and keeps you moving forward? It's a tough one, I know.
- It is a little bit of a tough one, I have to say. If I had to say anything, I think would be what I want to do with my life. Like before I die, I would like to make the world a better place. And the way I am going to do that is I'm gonna be a teacher. What I wanna do with my students, I want to instill a like kindness and empathy and like a love for learning in them. If I can do that, then I'm gonna say my life would be pretty successful. So that's just what I'm striving for every day.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's better than Barbara Walters would've done. That's pretty good. So that's really inspiring. Thank you for sharing that. This is a question I'm gonna ask each of you and Sully, we'll start with you and Aleah, then we'll come back to Chuck at the end. Faculty and staff across campus are here today because they care deeply about students. I hope that students know that, I mean, these are folks that could be working anywhere, making all kinds of money working at other places, but they're here because they're passionate about the student experience and I hope you're seeing that as well. But they're also curious about you all 'cause you all are hard to understand all the time. And so maybe is there something you'd like to share about the student perspectives for our faculty and staff alike, about what you'd want them to know about, either you or the experience of your peers here at Texas State?
- If I want you guys to know anything about any student ever, it's that you are someone's favorite professor or worker or whatever, what have you. You're someone's favorite, man. And like, thank you all so much for everything you do for Texas State. You guys truly are making this place what it is.
- That's awesome. Yeah. I wish I could take credit for all these answers, but I'm just asking the questions. Aleah, what about you?
- Yeah, so I would say your enthusiasm goes a long way. I know for me, I was taking electricity and magnetism like a couple years ago and it was one of my last classes after like three other classes before that. And it was rough to show up, but I appreciate Dr. Banzatti just like coming with so much enthusiasm. It made it a lot of fun. And even now taking senior design, Dr. Trevino has been really impactful for me. Whether we're taking a 5 p.m. class or 8 a.m. class, it really does help if you're super enthusiastic 'cause then it makes us enjoy it too.
- You know, you touched on something that's kind of interesting. Both of you have done this. That sometimes it's the hard classes that you remember the most, right? And I'm looking back over my time, it's been a long time since I've been in college, but I do remember some of the really challenging ones were the ones that kind of stuck out and I didn't appreciate it at the time, you know? It wasn't until later I said, I kinda learned a lot in there. I know I earned that C. Don't tell anyone I said that. Chuck, what about you? Advice for our faculty and staff?
- I run across a lot of faculty and staff in my job as well. And everyone is, it's a family. Texas State is a family. It's not a big machine that runs, it runs efficiently, but it's not like a machine. It's not the mine shaft, you know, it's like people here care about the students. I see it. You know, the School of Music, Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Martin are both very, Dr. Sullivan's leadership is great in the school music.
- He's got a great beard too.
- He has a great beard. Yeah, fantastic beard. I'm jealous.
- Me too.
- I just want to like, talk about a couple of professors that really impacted me. One is Dr. Kevin Mooney. And he told me that I was built for academia and 'cause I was gonna just get this master's degree and go on, you know, I'm gonna pursue hopefully another degree. And then Dr. Jack Wilds told me, I told him I was not good at theory. It's been 30 years since I've been in a theory class. And he says, "You don't go to college for what you know, you go to college for what you can learn." And then Dr. Michael Ippolito and Professor Rick Hall and Professor Hank Hehmsoth, our composition faculty. Most schools have one composition professor, we have four. And it is a very important thing for people to write music and create. And so I'm just really thankful for those.
- No, you're being such a great point as well about the impact of a positive note or a message. And the people in the audience can probably think of a time where someone said the same thing to them. Like, you can do this, you belong here. And that goes so much further than a chastisement and encouragement goes a long way. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing your stories with our faculty and staff here. You know, at the end of the podcast, I know you guys listen to it every month whenever I do this. But at the end of the podcast, we always ask listeners to submit questions for me. And so Chuck, since you're closest, I've not seen the question. Promise I don't know what's in there. But Carnac, you don't know who Carnac is either. I am aging myself today. So this is a question you get to ask me and then if it's relevant I'll see if you guys have an answer for it as well.
- What is your mantra for this year?
- Wow. So it's interesting. So I read a few years ago a book called "The One Word That Can Change Your Life." And it's a very small little book. And the idea is that you should pick a word every year that kind of like drives your year and you should put it on a post-it note and put it different places and that should be your word. And I was searching for the word for 2026 and I'm reading this book right now by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who wrote a book called, I think it's "The Band of Rivals." It's the cabinet that Lincoln put together by people who weren't really his supporters at the beginning. And there's a story in there in chapter two, I think it's called The Intent to Rise. And Alexis de Tocqueville, who's a Frenchman who comes to America and he's talking about Americans from an European perspective before people knew what America would become. And he said, "Americans are just different from the rest of the world 'cause they're unfettered by class restrictions. They can rise above the class they're in and if you go anywhere, they're always loud and they're trying to move up and so on. It says they're all about rising above themselves." And there's another part of that story a little later in the chapter, that's like the opening chapter, but there's another little vignette about one of the rivals and he says something like, "Man, this life is just tough." Like this guy has was living the life of Job. And he said, "I could wither and I could stay small, but I'm going to rise up and rise to meet the next day." And so the word rise just kept coming back to me as I was searching. So the word rise for me. And it's not about, you know, the rising star of Texas, it's thinking about, again, as a president I think about how I can impact the university, the university rising to meet challenges that we're facing. We're facing a lot of challenges. But also from a personal perspective, you know, we had a lot of personal issues in our family this past year that were very challenging for us and it's really easy to kind of sink into yourself and like get depressed or whatever. But I just said I'm just gonna rise above that. I'm gonna rise to meet the next challenge. I hope the same thing. So I'm gonna go to Sully. Sully, you have a mantra?
- I do. It came from my dad. It is nos are cheap. Anything I do in life, it's like, well, if I ask, then maybe yes. So, thank you pops.
- Nos are cheap. That's good. Aleah.
- Yeah, so mine's is from a song called "Love Yourz" and I really like it's that it says, "No such thing as a life that's better than yours." And I just think it's so like weird being in like your early 20s 'cause there's so many people at the same age as you doing so many different things. And I think just like being on social media, it's easy to like compare myself and be like, I need to be doing more. But I don't know, I really like that song because it shows me like, be present, you're doing all the right things, you're getting your degree and there's a whole world of opportunities out there beyond college.
- That's awesome. Chuck.
- I'm gonna say my neurodivergency is a feature, not a bug.
- That's right. That's it for all of us. I think a lot of people will take that mantra as well. Hey, let's give our students a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you all for being here.