When Cheryl LeBlanc was 9 years old, she came across a Lady Slipper orchid in her backyard. Right before her eyes, this orchid sparked a life-long passion for nature she would later incorporate in both her personal and work life.
As the 2021 school year comes to a close, soon-to-be graduates may feel their time at Ball State is ending too fast.
When Stacy Steggs was about 8 years old, her grandmother was her first student she taught sign language to.
As Erica Forstater, the assistant for the Dr. Joe & Alice Rinard Orchid Greenhouse, walks to the “Cool House” section in the back, she searches for Pleurothallis orchids, which have tiny blooms often smaller than her fingernail.
Sitting on her dorm room’s beige carpet, freshman psychology major Maiya Garcia spends her mornings using her teal pliers and black wire cutters to hand-assemble earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings for her jewelry business, Maiya Makes Jewelry.
Because of this semester’s adjusted school calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students weren’t able to travel home for their typical week-long spring break from classes.
Last semester, Colleen Dyra, freshman elementary education major, would move her bean bag to the other side of her dorm room at Studebaker West Thursday nights at 6:30.
Matt Mullins said he discovered film literature through “a series of happy accidents.”
As students open the front door to their residence hall, letting the cold winter air rush in behind them, they walk past the front desk, scan their ID and head up to the warmth of their dorm.
Looking out their windows this winter, students can only see bare tree branches, brown grass and frosted fall leaves.
After spending nearly two months at home due to an adjusted fall and spring academic calendar in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, some students may be feeling unmotivated to pick up their pencils and open their textbooks again as they’ve returned to Ball State’s campus this semester.
Throughout the fall semester, sophomore music education major Aiden Cangany brought his trombone, music stand and sheet music to Ball State’s parking garages for a wide, open area to practice.
In the David Owsley Museum of Art’s (DOMA) galleries, Lillian McClung, a senior ceramics and art history major, and Robert LaFrance, director of the DOMA, set up Toshiko Takaezu’s ceramics, the pattern glaze matching the pattern of Perle Fine’s painting “Impact” hung on the wall.
An hour before the David Owsley Museum of Art (DOMA) opens to the public, senior art history and studio art major Marie Dickison arrives to flip on all the museum’s lights across its galleries.
As someone who’s been writing for as long as she can remember, Mia Marrero, senior creative writing major, said one of her biggest challenges when writing is trying not to think about others’ opinions.
When Sheli Plummer was a Ball State undergraduate, she enjoyed coaching swimming, so she wanted to become a physical education teacher at a school with a pool. However, her goals changed when she took her first scuba class at Ball State.
Ashlyn Marcum, senior nursing major, said one of her favorite memories from tutoring involved a “Jeopardy!” game she created to help her students prepare for their first exam.
Many nights, Siara Sandwith can be found descending a flight of stairs to the basement of Cooper Science Building to finish her experiments in her 12-by-24-foot, 65-degree lab.
For Mel Isenbarger, a senior physics and astronomy major, one of the first constellations she learned to locate and identity was Cassiopeia.
