2021-College-Report

spotlight stories * Stories written by T.Cay Rowe SETH JONES RE S I L I ENT ALUMN I SETH JONES Art and Design GEORGE FRANCO RE S I L I ENT ALUMN I GEORGE FRANCO Theatre and Dance SETH JONES’ resiliency was called on to get into Texas State in the first place. “My scores were not quite good enough,” he says, so he took summer courses at community college to supplement them. “It’s math – it’s been my problem forever. And that’s weird because my dad is a math whiz!” Seth says he and his sister didn’t get the “math gene,” although his two brothers did. They all grew up in Dallas, until Seth’s junior year in high school when his father accepted a call to pastor a church in Nacogdoches. He loved his family but wanted to get away from home to go to college. He and his Nacogdoches roommate found Texas State. During his sophomore year on campus, his mom bought him a camera and his career horizons opened. Seth recently published a book of photographs he titled Streetlights ( www.setherydesign.com/ streetlights ) that has an accompanying podcast and playlist. The title comes from childhood memories, when “Black mommas would tell us kids to be home before the streetlights came on, as a way of protecting us.” The project started out with casual, creative pictures of friends, “then George Floyd was murdered, and the book took on a deeper meaning. Social justice issues needed to be illuminated. I wanted to show Black people, not as the world chooses to see us, but in the way we were meant to be seen. Sometimes the simplest things can become the most thought-provoking pieces.” In the meantime, Seth conquered the math barrier enough to graduate with his degree in Communication Design in the School of Art and Design in May. With the help of Art faculty, he won a coveted eight- week post-graduate internship with BLAC (Building Leaders and Creators) that introduces interns across the country to ad agency life. The agency that Seth worked with this summer is Preacher, an Austin agency that “spreads the Good Word to a world that can use more soul.” “I love telling stories with my creations, creating something that touches other people. To realize that you can make something bigger than yourself is humbling – and exhilarating!” ■ GEORGE FRANCO has faced multiple hurdles in his young life: family deaths, a broken heart, academic probation, money problems – and that was all during his freshman year. George moved away from his mom and two siblings in San Antonio after he graduated from Southside High, a move that was regarded as “very peculiar” in his family. He threw himself into college, enrolling in 18 hours. “There were possibilities everywhere, and I said yes to everything that came along!” Then his grandfather died, his father died that summer, he and his boyfriend of several years broke up – and almost predictably, his grades hit the skids. “I failed three classes and I freaked,” he says. “I wound up on academic probation, which meant my financial aid was cancelled. I couldn’t go to school without it.” Faculty and students came to George’s rescue. They showed him how to file a long-shot appeal. They wrote letters. They vouched for him to be given a second chance. And it worked. He held two work-study jobs in the Theatre and Dance Department, and he taught at the Magik Children’s Theater in San Antonio during breaks and summers. “I took to heart the motto of [late theatre faculty member] Jeremy Torrres: ‘Fail forward and breathe!’ Everybody fails sometime.” George graduated in May 2020 with accolades and a 3.4 GPA and landed his first job at Westwood High in Austin – teaching theatre during a pandemic. “We had to get really creative! My goal was to give my students as much of the theatre experience as possible in a safe environment.” But next year they are going to stage Anything Goes , one of George’s personal favorites. “My family couldn’t afford to send me to Texas State’s summer theatre camp – my dream – but my high school teacher brought us to see six musicals on campus. The first was Anything Goes, and after I saw that, I said to myself ‘I just have to go to college there!” He leaves behind what his professors call “a legacy in the T-Cert program” that certifies teachers of theatre. In spite of all the hurdles, one professor described George as “possibly the kindest human I’ve ever met – he exudes positivity!” ■ 30 ■ C O L L E G E R E P O R T 2 0 2 1 ■ 31