Students more self-aware
by Carolyn Creighton
When Dell Jacobs first began teaching business courses at TCC, the present buildings did not exist.
She taught in the Pine Street Junior High building where P.S.J.H.S., Texas High, and TCC were all housed.
Are students now different from those over 20 years ago? No, she says. They have a tendency always to revert to the norm. The 70’s students are more self-aware and centered toward self than the 60’s students who tended to be more activitist in nature. But, Jacobs added that TCC has never really gone full cycle to either extreme.
She also feels that most TCC students are nice and polite, but smiled and said someone once told her the students were that way only because she was.
What about changes in TCC? Well, the dorm life was not well received by the students, nor was it economically feasible, so it was phased out. The girls’ dorm was the first to go. Interscholastic football died with the dorms and basketball was soon to follow.
The “jeans” of those days were skirts, sweaters, bobby socks, hair ribbons, and the undying saddle shoe. According to Jacobs, the girls were just as pretty then and the boys were just as much fun.
People are the same now as they were then, she says as she leans back and enjoys her cozy office. “Truth never changes, only people’s concept of it.”
Jacobs is a past president of the Faculty Association and also the Bowie County chapter of TSTA. She received her education at various institutions including the University of Texas and the University of Arkansas; however, she went to junior college right here at TCC.
Before coming here, she taught in the Dallas public schools.
Jacobs says she loves to travel. This past summer she and her husband cruised the Mediterranean and toured Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Greece. The people were very gracious toward her as an American. Jacobs feels that people will return the same feelings shown.
She also reads avidly—“from Pluto to Plato!”
When asked about the quality of education at TCC she replied, “Education is a good teacher and a good student.”