The tennis club is looking to get started this spring.

This is the first year for the tennis club and they are looking for dedicated players to come out and join.

“They actually got rid of the tennis teams a couple of years ago because of the budget,” Tennis Coach David Pence said.

Members of the team still wanted to keep playing, so Pence decided to get a club going.

He said with the club just starting up, not many people have been participating.

He added that the key was getting students at Sinclair to join the club.

“Right now I’d just like to get the word out that we’re wanting to get this club going, but we need really dedicated people that want to be part of it…it’s for the students” he said.

With more members, the club has more opportunities to do things, such as mixed doubles with men and women.

The tennis club can play against other colleges that have club teams or just area tennis clubs.

Pence said the club wants to get as many people as possible to join.

“The more we have the merrier,” he said.

The club is also taking donations for St. Vincent De Paul’s, a church in Dayton that aims to aid the homeless. The donations were something that the tennis team did in the past so Pence decided to continue it for the club.

“[People] can donate cans, toothbrushes, soap, shoes, clothes, anything they can,” Pence said.

The donations last all year and the bin can be found in the library by the Tartan Marketplace and the Academic Resource Center.

In order to join the Tennis Club, you have to be a Sinclair Student.

If interested, call David Pence at 512-2528. There currently is no deadline to sign up.

As a college student and mother of a four year-old daughter, Megan Skalley, 22, admits she feels the pinch of managing her time wisely and the burden of stress associated with college.

“The biggest thing that stresses me out is time management,” Skalley, a Social Work major at Sinclair said. “Everybody has different stuff that they are doing outside of school, but for me it’s time management. Specifically, finding the time to get assignments finished and also studying.”

Whether it is the daily grind of classes and homework, the challenge of juggling college life with their family life, or the prospects of facing a bleak job market, Sinclair students attempt to balance time management and stress along with their personal lives.

Bobby J. Beavers,  coordinator of Minority Student Success, witnesses how stress plays a detrimental role in student’s lives because those students are unfamiliar with the college process.

“A vast number of our students don’t know about college. They don’t know what going to college is all about,” Beavers said. “Many of our students are first generation college students and many of them are not directly out of high school. They don’t really understand how college works and that causes a lot of internal stress.”

Minority Student Success helps to alleviate the difficulties minority Sinclair students face while progressing through their degree programs.

According to a handout for the program, “Minority Student Success assists the college in providing a supportive educational environment that enables minority students to achieve academic and personal enrichment, achieve their purpose in life, attain personal success…and achieve academic success” they do this through Counseling Action Plans, academic counseling and coaching, staff orientations, support groups, learning activities and workshops.

Beavers also described some of the unique obstacles that Sinclair students face.

“The nature of our students is that many of them have issues with transportation, childcare and housing,” Beavers said. “It’s sad to say that many of them (students) are homeless and are coming to class and trying to get a degree to improve their lives.”

The transition from quarters to semesters has been another change Sinclair students have been forced to adapt to. Starting in the fall semester of 2012, Sinclair joined Ohio University, Wright State University, The Ohio State University, The University of Cincinnati, among other Ohio colleges, in the mass exodus into a semester academic calendar.

Though the switch will provide Sinclair students with an easier transferring process and will require students to pay for books and register for classes twice a year, Sinclair’s website said the new 16-week terms also allows ample time for classwork to drift until the last minute.

“Many students around [the middle of the] semester are freaking out because of all the things that are due,” Associate Professor of Communication Rob Leonard said. “Many students seem to think that these things are thrown at them at the last minute, when in fact on day one on the syllabus it said ‘this is going to be due.’ Good time management would help to prepare and get things done in a timely manner.”

While Skalley believes the quarters-to-semesters transition has deadened her stress levels, she believes the allure to procrastinate still exists.

“I think it’s a little less stressful because you do have more time in between assignments and tests, but there is more room to procrastinate because you have more time before you have to get something turned in,” she said. “I know, [personally], it’s easy to put off assignments due to other life activities that are still going on.”

To combat the litany of reasons that attribute to stress associated with college, Skalley makes sure that her schedule includes an equal amount of time for herself and for school. She also leverages classmates for studying purposes.

“When I know I have free time coming up, I set aside specific time for school and I set aside specific time for myself to be free and do whatever it is that I want to do,” Skalley said. “When I am stressed out with any type of classes, I find it makes it a lot easier to find people to study with. I am also never shy to reach out to professors and ask them ‘how can I do better?’ or ‘what types of things will help me succeed in the class?’ I don’t wait until I am falling behind,” Skalley said.

Sinclair Community College will host the only community college-sponsored collegiate Model United Nations conference in the country: the 20th Dayton Model United Nations Conference, held in Building 12.

The conference will begin on Friday, Feb. 1 at 9 a.m. with an opening session. Committee sessions will begin at 9:45 and will end at 7 p.m.

The conference will resume on Saturday, Feb. 2 at 9 a.m. and will end around 4 p.m. with the closing session, which includes awards and an opportunity for delegates to “rant.”

The seven participating students from Sinclair will represent Togo, Belgium and Hungary. Student delegates will interact with other Ohio and out-of-state college students and contribute within four Model UN Committees: the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council Plenary and Simulated Security Council.

Dr. Tom Martin, DAYMUNC director and Sinclair professor, said DAYMUNC is student-run and that the event is considered a learning conference.

“It teaches negotiation skills and public speaking skills that are useful in any kind of career,” Martin said. “We have engineering students, we have culinary art students— people from all kinds of departments who do this.”

Martin said that the conference not only affords an opportunity to learn about international topics, but raises awareness of what Sinclair has to offer. Jonathan Maze, DAYMUNC secretary-general and Political Science major at Wright State University, said the conference provides students an opportunity to develop delegation skills and helps develop practical skills.

“Its real-life applications carry over to more than just DAYMUNC, national conferences, or international conferences,” Maze said. “The DAYMUNC experience, with its in-depth researching, writing and negotiating, not only brings about a well-rounded and qualified professional, but also an informed and engaged citizen in both the classroom and the workplace.”

Mike Wiehe, director of the DAYMUNC simulated security council and adjunct instructor at Sinclair, began participating in DAYMUNC in 1996, while attending Wright State University and is currently the instructor of Sinclair’s Model United Nations/International Issues class, PLS 2860.

“The Model UN class and [participants] at that conference in Sinclair was, I believe, the best thing I did in college and gave me the most practical experience of anything I did,” Wiehe said.

Wiehe said participating students learn research, technical writing, negotiation and diplomacy, other countries’ policies in regards to a particular topic and “gain a better understanding of the world and how everything is interrelated.”

He also emphasized the great deal of critical thinking that is demanded of students.

“At this conference, critical thinking is a large piece of it,” he said. “Because you need to take the research that you’ve done and then implement that amongst a group of 15 to 100 other students to come up with a document that reflects your country’s policy.”

Although only DAYMUNC-registered students can participate in the conference, Wiehe said Sinclair students and staff have stopped by as spectators in the past. He added that visitors are welcome to observe the Simulated Security Council.

Martin suggested that interested visitors should first stop by Building 12 Room 231 for availability and direction to a specific committee.

For more information regarding DAYMUNC XX, please contact Dr. Tom Martin at [email protected]

A self-proclaimed “country girl,” Alex “Yee-haw” Grubbs, 18, is a first-year Liberal Arts major and a Cincinnati native, who now calls the country roads of Camden her home.

Grubbs lived in Monroe for most of her life, but currently resides on 20-acre ranch with her mother and stepfather. She is a 2012 graduate of Preble Shawnee High School— also maintaining an emphasis in Psychology at Sinclair— chosen because of her interest in the human condition.

“I wanted to talk to people and help them with their problems. Everyone always came to me for advice in high school and I didn’t mind, so I thought maybe I could help more people and make it a profession,” Grubbs said.

But well before Grubbs was thinking about her preferred major in college, she was living a fast-paced, dirt-filled and gas-charged life as a competition dirt bike racer. Starting at the age of 11, Grubbs was given her first dirt bike, a Yamaha TTR 125, as a birthday present from her stepfather.

From there, Grubbs would enter a variety of different races, often against all boys.

As a racer, Grubbs prefers courses that allow her to navigate through trails and mud, like the GNCC event she once competed in.

“It’s like nature, not an actual track,” Grubbs said. “Those are my favorite. I wish I could do those more.”

Grubbs said when she turned 16, she upgraded to a bigger, faster and more expensive Honda 250 CR dirt bike, which was necessary for her to keep up with her competitors.

But despite her ambition, her dirt bike career would be derailed in 2010 when she was in a car accident that almost took her life.

“I almost died. Another two feet and I would have been crushed,” Grubbs said.

Besides a cut to her eye, the then 16-year-old Grubbs came away from the wreck physically unscathed, but would be forced to make a decision— sell her valuable Honda 250 CR, or have no car.

Grubbs would ultimately decide to part ways with her dirt bike. And after that, she never entered another race.

But even with the abrupt ending to her career, Grubbs cherishes the time she spent competing in races and credits her accomplished racing journey to her stepfather, a former professional BMX rider.

“I wouldn’t know what a dirt bike was if it wasn’t for him,” she said.

Along with her passion for dirt bikes, Grubbs also enjoys riding her two four wheelers, snowboarding and firing a collection of shotguns and rifles at her ranch’s shooting range.

Grubbs doesn’t see herself as unfortunate. She came away with her life, and as she says, has “plenty of other ways to unleash the country in me.”

Sinclair’s workforce development is in cooperation with Riverside Research to present two one-day courses Jan. 24 and 25.

The classes are an introduction to unmanned aerial systems and UAS law.

The classes that are offered for people in the Dayton area are not meant to be seen as a means to gain any certification, but to brush up on what one may already know.

“These classes are to get workers in the field up to date on what is current,” said Don Long, unmanned aerial systems program manager. “If you attend the classes, you do not get any certification.”

According to riversideresearch.org, introduction to UAS, which is offered on Jan. 24, introduces specialized technology in UAS. This technology includes newly developed sensors and aviation platforms, as well as products and their applications.

UAS and the law, which is being offered on Jan. 25, will review the American legal system in relation to aviation and UAS operations. The class will also cover the Federal Aviation Administration and how to enforce aviation regulations, standards and the law.

“Contractors and businesses like to get up to speed on what is going on in UAS,” Long said. “These classes provide that.”

The cost for the intro course is $475 and the cost for UAS law is $500. Fees for both of the classes cover the materials that will be used, a continental breakfast and lunch and parking in the Sinclair Conference Center’s underground parking garage.

For more information on how to register for the classes, contact Sinclair’s Workforce Development at (937) 252-9787 or visit http://www.riversideresearch.org/ and type Sinclair in the search box.

For students at Sinclair wanting to get certification in UAS, a short-term technical certificate is available.

“The short-term certificate for students only takes three semesters to complete,” Long said. “Students get training in UAS and learn the tech skills they may need.”

For more information about the short-term certificate, call 937-512-2570 or contact Kent Wingate at [email protected]