When Clarissa DeLeon was four years old she dreamed of working a Broadway stage. She learned to sing before she could speak, it was in her blood to sing. Her aspirations were short-lived after she became paralyzed from the neck down in a jungle gym accident. She recalls doctors saying she would never recover.

DeLeon was traumatized by what she heard, but it only inspired her to work harder in her recovery. Her grandmother, aunts and nurses would sing with her throughout her therapy and she made a full recovery.

“We would just spend our day singing songs,” DeLeon says.

DeLeon is a senior McNair Scholar at St. Edward’s University studying Environmental Science and Policy. A lot of her research has involved the relationship of plants and music.

“When you do work — at least when I do work — having music kind of calms my anxiety,” DeLeon says, “even when it feels like everything is against you finding that one song or one artist can help you get through it over and over again.”

DeLeon has struggled with anxiety from a very young age but has found solace in music. When she first started her college education in 2015 she was thrilled to find St. Edward’s had a mariachi band. She was raised in a Mexican Catholic family and has always had a special place for spanish music and none of her previous schools had offered a mariachi program.

She joined the band and picked up the trumpet with no experience but quickly learned. Unfortunately, DeLeon had to quit mariachi for personal reasons. She was not sure she would be able to find a similar experience again.

That was until she ran into the director of the folklórico team Rosalinda Valdez. Valdez asked her why she had quit mariachi and asked her to sing at a folklorico event.

“She took me under her wing,” DeLeon says.

Since then DeLeon has been performing with folklorico in between sets as the dancers change and prepare for the next dance.

“I’m kind of like Dr. Strange,” jokes DeLeon, “I create time for the girls.”

DeLeon relies on her music to not only get her through the day, but also the highs and lows of her life. She is a second year RA at the Pavilions and was heavily affected by the pipe burst earlier in the semester. She credits her resilience to music.

Flipping through her vinyl records DeLeon makes a playlist of her life.

“Midnight Train by Sam Smith because I’m at that point in my life where I need to figure out what I need to do,” DeLeon says.

“My second one would have to be You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, This Is Me from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, Half Breed by Cher, obviously, Amorcito Corazon and I Was Made For Loving You by Kiss,” DeLeon says mixing genres and artists as she reminisces through different points of her life.

“[Music] really helps you get your mind straight,” DeLeon says, “it defines your mood.”

1. Start with a “seed” (topic, idea, or head keyword). Think about a topic or issue that interests you and mark that down as your “seed.”
   1. Environmentalism

2. Generate keyword ideas. Find the current keywords. Use Google Suggest, Related Search, People Also Ask, Answer The Public.
3. Understand the keyword metrics. Use Google Trends, Google (AdWords) Keyword Planner.

4. Organize and prioritize the keywords. Place (in order of priority) your top five keywords and phrases.
   1. environmental
   2. environmental justice
   3. environmental determinism
   4. cultural ecology
   5. environmental ethics

St. Edward’s has a plethora of student-led organizations to offer. Any student can start an organization so long as they meet the requirements, but it’s not very often a new organization takes the campus by storm.

Electric Ladies Coalition started a year ago in the Fall of 2017. Founded by then junior Hailey Williams, the organization set out to empower women. Since then, they have hosted many popular events on campus and have moved to hosting off-campus. Earlier this semester, they hosted a Power to the Polls event at Space TwentyFour on the infamous drag of UT campus.

How much has the organization accomplished in just a year? And, more importantly, how has founder Hailey Williams managed to start a movement on campus?

This video would be a day in the life of Hailey Williams and be accompanied by a story about her organization and her politics. In addition to Williams, I will speak to members of the organization and the faculty advisor.

1.  How did your group approach the concept of shelter?  Was it successful? Why?
   1. We decided to make a shelter to remember people so we collected love notes for lost ones, ones you shared fond memories with, and ones you never had. 
2. What was the group budget for the project? Where did you source your materials and how did they cost?
   1. Our group budget was $30, but we didn’t even spend more than $10. The only things we bought were pens and yarn. We found the yarn for a dollar a roll at a thrift store accidentally and it worked out perfectly. The shoe boxes we used to collect love notes we got from a Payless that was going to throw them out.
3. Was the workload equal? Explain.
   1. Yes, each of us had one box to collect notes and as a group we attached them to yarn and the tree.
4. What was the strength that you added to the group, your weakness?
   1. I collected many notes and helped develop new ideas to add to the project.
5. What role did you find you played in the group dynamic?
   1. I don’t think we had certain roles. We all put in the same kind of work for about the same amount of time. 
6. What advice would you give to the next group that must complete this project?
   1. Be flexible, don’t be stubborn on staying on one idea because it may not work out. Be willing to bring in new ideas that may change the project. Really work as a group, not assigning different jobs to different people; if you work together you won’t get lost and the final product will reflect that.

There seems to be a new natural disaster every week. These disasters leave thousands of people homeless with no where to go. The word shelter has multiple meanings, but in the end it’s something we all need. Unfortunately, shelter isn’t always available to everyone. Whether it be because of a natural disaster or a war or lack of income, there are always people in need of shelter. In their song “Gimme Shelter“, the Rolling Stones sing “..a storm is threatening my very life today if I don’t get some shelter…I’m gonna fade away”. This may seem like an upbeat song because of the music, but it is actually very true. Recently, many Syrian citizens had to flee their country because of war. There was a huge crisis because no one knew where they would go or where they would find shelter. A camp in Jordan, known as Za’atari Camp, set up emergency shelters for over 2,500 refugees.

Refugees aren’t the only people in need of shelter. In America we also have a lot of homeless people, more specifically, teens. Homeless teenagers have no where to go and can’t even find a job because they have little education. Safe Landing provides shelter for at-risk teens with no where to go. They can do laundry, shower, and even get food. Of, course, teens aren’t the only ones struggling; there are also families that have lost their homes. The Salvation Army provides housing for homeless families. The families aren’t rushed to get out, they are allowed to stay there for as long as they need until they can fully support themselves. While living in these houses their food and any other necessities are provided for them, so they don’t ave to spend their little income.

The problem with these shelter homes is that their is not enough. Not enough people donate to make these homes possible. That’s why we need people like Shigeru Ban and Michael McDaniel to be heard. Their innovative ideas could help hundreds of thousands of people if only they were payed more attention.

Visual Dictionary: Elements and Principles