Family has always been an important part of my life. Being a devoted husband and father of four, family has been a key part of my life for a long time. When I started working at Texas Wesleyan last year, how I defined my family began to change. When I first started working here, I saw my TXWES family as being limited to my daughter who started here last year. In time, however, my definition of family grew to encompass our entire campus community.

Working in Student Life, I have gotten the opportunity to continue to expand my definition of family by speaking with students from all different walks of life. I found that getting to know our athletes presented a greater challenge due to their very busy schedules. The have the same time commitments as other students, but also spend a great deal of time practicing, watching game tapes, traveling to games, and representing TXWES at games and competitions.

Campus community members often hold very high expectations of our student athletes, yet many people do not even take the time to get to know our student athlete’s names. Shame on us. We cheer for numbers at games rather than names. That is not how we should treat members of our RAMily. We are better than that. We are smaller, smarter.

If you want to be a positive part of changing this, you can in a very simple way! I am setting up times during free period for the campus community and our student athletes to get to connect and bond throughout the year. Be on the lookout for flyers and articles in Ram Life telling you when these take place. We have already had some with a few of the teams, but we are also really looking forward to continuing this program and getting the entire University involved. For all that have already taken a part in creating this new tradition, we thank you. Rams Up! 

About Student Life Spotlight

Over the new few weeks, a different staff member in Student Life will share a piece of themselves with you. They’ll reflect on what’s important to them, and what they believe will help you to make the most of your time at Texas Wesleyan.

No, they won’t be simply pitching their programs and services at you under the guise of a cleverly crafted article, but rather, digging deep to identify what has been most transformative about their experiences in life thus far, and passing that wisdom as best they can on to you.