A Blog on McConnell Center Life

 By Isabella Martin  Around two years ago, I wrote this speech/letter that explains what Kentucky means to me. As I prepare to graduate, I keep reflecting on my 21 years in this incredibly beautiful state. When I graduated high school, all I thought about was how to leave Kentucky and venture out into the “great unknown”. However, I find myself graduating college thinking about when I will come back. I think this speech/letter reflects this sentiment. Woven through the lines that follow are words from my middle school choir teacher who wrote a song called, “My Kentucky”. I sang this song at the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival at Pine Mountain every single year of middle school. The Mountain Laurel bloomed in this little amphitheater where we gathered to celebrate a long tradition of Kentucky and sing songs for our old Kentucky home. My Kentucky Kentucky. When anyone thinks of Kentucky, what comes to mind? Is it the Kentucky Derby? Colonel Sander’s Famous Kentucky Fried Chick...

 By  Malcomb Haming   15 days to flatten the curve. 30 days to flatten the curve. Three Months to flatten the curve. Six months to flatten the curve. Here we sit. 244 days we’ve been bending the curve. Wondering, how many more days must we serve. We’re all too aware of the lives this virus has taken, We pray for their families that are surely shaken. But what of the other tragedies that have been forsaken? The victims of the silence, of the solitude, Who have stories we must not exclude,  Stories that extend to this very room.  I think of the many who experienced isolation, Only to see it devolve to desolation, For it to sadly end with self-destruction, all from this lonely instruction.  I think of all of those who have been abused By themselves or by another, By a bottle, by a needle, by a lover. I think of my little nephew Easton, Much too young to think with reason,  Looking at the world with sad confusion. As he plays at home season to season. I th...

 By Paighton Brooks   I’ve been recently wrestling with the idea of what it means to be a true ally. The term ally refers to a person who does not belong to a marginalized group that utilizes their privilege within society to advocate for others who don’t hold that same privilege. When I have always thought about the word ally, it has action behind its meaning. One can’t claim to be an ally for a group but then fail to take action in support of that group. This semester in my philosophy class, we talked about the ethical problems involved in allyship and how we are now often seeing allies performing detrimental behavior to the people they claim to support. Sometimes many people fall back on their self-proclaimed identity as an ally to exempt them from criticism.  Has allyship become a title we want to claim because of the popularization of “wokeness” or are we really taking the actions necessary to support those who are underrepresented? I feel the main reason the term al...

 By Katie Hayden  Anyone who knows me knows I am an avid Grey’s Anatomy watcher. I have probably watched it all the way through 5+ times, and it is now at the point where I can quote parts, remember cases, predict what is about to be said, and probably give you a more in-depth description of the series than you would like to hear. Despite the numerous times I have watched it, I find it interesting how new things stick out to me every single time. I am currently in the “post plane crash” season of Greys (if you know you know), and (SPOILER ALERT) Arizona Robbins recently had her leg amputated. In the episode I was watching, Arizona was telling Callie about how, on her first day back at work, she fell in the operating room. In response to this, Callie nervously asked her what she did, and Arizona smiled and said, “I got back up.” As we are now one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, I frequently find myself reflecting on the past 12 months. At this time last year, my school’s bask...

 By Jacob Banta  There is nothing quite like the onset of spring. We find ourselves right now in a renewal of the earth that lasts a mere few weeks. It really takes an intentional desire to see all that nature has to offer during this short time. Out of nowhere a few select trees blossom flowers. What a beautiful site after a long dead winter. I have found myself taking less treaded paths on campus just to see what trees there are. I have to say that the row of flowering trees outside of our law school is truly delightful. Maybe it would be valuable to one day study the different kinds of trees and know when to expect their bloom. Or maybe the seemingly randomness of the complex pattern is what adds to the wonderful mystery of spring. But again it does not last long for already the flowers fall and the leaves begin to bud. The joy of nature’s green is coming. Maybe spring is not your thing. All that rain can be a bit much. But of course it is necessary for growth. For me at le...

 By Eli Graft  This semester, I am taking an Entrepreneurship class. This is the first semester that it is being offered and, needing only one more business elective to finish my Business Economics degree, I decided to take it. It is the first class of a four-course Entrepreneurship minor. Although I won’t be around to finish it, I’ve enjoyed it so far and would suggest other College of Business students give it a try. Each class, we go over our readings in our two textbooks, The Ten Faces of Innovation and Thinkertoys. We employ the creativity techniques learned from those books in small breakout groups. Outside of class, we are working in groups of four to five to develop a business pitch to give to the class at the end of the semester. For our business, we are Autospecs, auto-adjusting bifocals that change as your prescription changes. In a multi-billion-dollar eyewear industry, a product like this could have the potential to rock some waves. We were also tasked with pickin...

 By Caleb Aridano  At the summation of my freshman year, I have found myself in awe of the rapidity by which this past year has elapsed. Each month of this year has been spent planning for the next: which classes will I take next semester? Which jobs will I apply to this summer? When do I start thinking about law school? Throughout all of these trials, I have lost sight of the fact that I am in the present moment: that I have planned for my life to be the way it is right now, and I should enjoy the fruits of my past labor. I have found that I have arrived at many conclusions about myself, life, time, and the interplay between all three.  This is nothing new.  Each time that I arrive at conclusion such as “Time is passing by so fast, I have to cherish the moment” or “As I get older, time is passing by faster” or “College will be over before I know it”, I am reminded of the many millions of times that I have heard these warnings beforehand by parents, grandparents and ...

 By Yelena Bagdasaryan  Towards the beginning of lockdown, I had to choose my senior quote, and this was a perplexing time in my life as all the important events for my senior year were suddenly taken away from me. Despite this, I retained a positive attitude with one quote: “everything will turn out alright, the world is built on that.” This came from a book that gave my life more meaning called the Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, as the novel is a masterpiece and a Russian classic. However, it is not as well known as some other Russian classics by Dostevsky, Nabakov, or Tolstoy. Split into three parts, with one part being where Woland (aka the Devil) comes to the Soviet Union and messes with humanity with his group of demons, and the second part addressing a beautiful love story between the Master and a woman named Margarita. Finally, the third part is set back during Jesus’s crucifixion and the struggle Pontius Pilate has with it. This is an absolute shame in my o...

 By Sawyer Depp   An excerpt from a piece I am currently working on named “Revelations”: Michael clicked the button again and the environment transformed into a scene that would soon be recognized by most men and women of the western world. Below the men, in a barn fraught with hay, laid a pregnant woman, Mary, and a shepherd, Joseph. Unknowingly, they would soon give birth to the most important child on Earth. Around the family was a donkey, a few cows, and various sheep all feeding on the hay on which the child would soon be laid, all unaware of the importance of the land on which they fed. The gravity of the event gathered the stars, glowing brighter than ever before, close to the couple like a child to a fireplace. At the center of the stars was a gathering of light, a single star, larger than any other, later referred to as The Star of Bethlehem. Surrounded by this star, bathing in its light, was Michael and Albert. “You bring me to such a scene expecting to change my min...

 By Ben Barberie   As I near graduation, I find it hard to fully explain just how much my involvement in various organizations at the University of Louisville has shaped me into the person I am today, but I have several to thank. My membership in the Sigma Chi fraternity was an early factor in my growth and has remained a consistent one. My Student Government Association responsibilities and roles have evolved as the years have gone by. The one organization that has shaped me most, however, has been raiseRED. I was lucky enough to experience two in-person marathons, one in 2018 and another in 2020 as the Student Outreach Coordinator for Sigma Chi. I unfortunately could not participate in 2019 because I was studying abroad in the Netherlands, but I cheered on dancers and offered support from afar. This year trying to emulate the experience of something so wonderful in a virtual format was incredibly trying but was also by far the most rewarding year of my involvement with the ...

 By Mary Catherine Medley   For as long as I can remember, I have always been that person that motivates themself to always do better and work harder, pushing myself to the limit in order to always be the absolute “best” version of myself. This is something that I’ve never given much thought to either, in fact, I have spent the majority of my life being driven by the praises of others that define me as a “dedicated”, “hard-working”, “highly productive” individual. I recently however stumbled across an article that brought to light our society’s culture of toxic productivity, a phrase that I had never heard of.  The author of the article, Protima Tiwary, defines the concept of toxic productivity as “ an obsession with radical self-improvement and is an unachievable goal which causes us to set high standards for ourselves. No matter how productive we might be, there is always a feeling of guilt for not having done more.” This definition really stopped me in my tracks and ma...

 By Emily Bevins   The day I have been dreading has come. I will be nothing but garbage in mere moments, and my death will be little more than a testament to siblings’ failures. As soon I was chosen, their task became mine. I hope that my sacrifice will be the last, but I am far smarter than to bet on it.  My siblings were right, though. The girl is beautiful. As my sworn duty, I will try my best to convince her of that.  She picks me up with the lack of care that reminds me that she has done this a thousand times, and my task grows that much harder. She lifts me to her face, and it begins. With each swipe down her raw-rubbed cheeks, she paints my body with her lies. I play the willing participant; however, I am not silent. I whisper to her that her lies do not match her face. They haven’t for awhile now. She hasn’t been that naturally sun-kissed and rosy in a long time. I advise her to stop layering the small blemish on her chin with even deeper lies. I promise her ...