A Blog on McConnell Center Life

Phillip Lentsch Class of 2018 I read somewhere that writing is the mathematics of music and realized that maybe calculus isn’t so bad.   People tell me I talk like I write.   That the overlap is evident, the resemblance is uncanny.   If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with my obsessive journaling of the world around me, the cacophony of short story symphonies that I scribble away in composition notebooks never to be seen.   Maybe it’s the hipster aesthetic and my love of chai tea.   Maybe it’s the poetry.   My words are whirlwinds but I am the tsunami; I am the wonderer left wandering, the artist of the loose-leaf canvas, the spastic reggae beat that building to the 1-2-3.   Lately I’ve been thinking about writing and musicality.   Like writing a blog post riddled with metaphors and similes.   You don’t know what I’m talking about but you still read.   The words flow like grammatical streams.   Linguisti...

Frank Bencomo-Suarez Class of 2018 As I write this I am 22 years old. At 22 I have sat in the capitol, driven across the tundra, and hiked the Great Wall of China. I have dined with ambassadors, received signed photos from astronauts, and been interviewed by the BBC. I saw the fireworks show at Shanghai Disneyland, ate a lobster in Boston, and toured West Point Academy. Along the way I’ve learned how to   ride a horse, how to land a shuttle, and how to shoot a bow and arrow. My life has been rich with experiences. I have been incredibly privileged. At 22 I am young, but I’d say I’ve racked up a fair bit of mileage. Thanks for the mileage. Thanks to my parents, thanks to my friends, thanks to the University of Louisville and this program which have allowed me to do what otherwise may have been impossible.   When my parents arrived in this country 22 years ago they taught me a lesson: life can take anything material away from you, but it cannot take your knowledge an...

Easton Depp Class of 2019 This spring break, I took a trip to Peru. Motivated by a desire to see the world I was missing out on, a friend and I organized a jam-packed trip to the three cities of Lima, Cusco, and Aguas Calientes. This was my first time truly experiencing a new culture, all of my past forays out of the US had been rather limited in scope. One of the moments that resonated most to me was the final glimpse I took of Machu Picchu. There is an overwhelming sense of romanticism present in the ruins of the abandoned city. Surrounded by the sacred river, the Urubamba and crowned by two sacred temples, the site holds an interesting spiritual significance to the Incas. Abandoned by the Incas during the Spanish conquest, the site was left undiscovered and evaded destruction and defacement by conquistadors.  As a result of this, modern visitors are able to catch a glimpse of how Incas lived; immersed in nature. They shaped their lives around the environ...

Eric Bush Class of 2020 Many of my college-age peers know well the challenges a sub-par credit score can create. Buying that first car after graduation with no credit score, or even worse, a bad one, can present one with many hurdles and headaches. But imagine a system which measures not only our financial trustworthiness, but also our social trustworthiness. “Black Mirror,” a television show which can be described as a twenty-first century “Twilight Zone,” explored this concept in an episode entitled Nosedive. In a dystopian future society, citizens rate each other after every interaction. For example, if someone were to buy a coffee, she would rate the barista on his friendliness and service, and the barista would rate her on her politeness and perhaps how much she tipped. Citizens each have a score, one to five, which is the average of their ratings over a period of time. The purpose of the system is to encourage good behavior, and one’s score can have a drastic impact on ...

Nicole Fielder Class of 2019 Over the past two years, I have been working to promote social enterprise as a new way of thinking and of doing business in Kentucky. Social enterprise is a burgeoning market sector that combines the sustainability of a traditional corporation with the mission of a nonprofit. They pursue a triple-bottom-line; they maximize profit plus social and environmental benefit. They leverage the for-profit model to provide higher quality wages, programs, and support to their employees and community. These businesses manifest themselves in many ways, but all do more than just writing checks as they purposefully impact those around them. In Kentucky, social enterprises can take two forms: Certified Benefit Corporations (B-Corps) and Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs). To achieve B-Corp certification, a company must go through a rigorous assessment process facilitated by a third-party international nonprofit called B Lab and complete biannual reports to mainta...