![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/gomez-beane.jpg\")
Dannette Gomez Beane believes in education. She points to herself as living proof of its transformative power. \u201cI am a first-generation college student,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m Latinx and my family was below poverty level.\u201d Today, Gomez Beane enjoys her work as an administrator at a major university. \u201cEducation is really the key,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gomez Beane grew up the youngest of three children raised by a single mother in San Antonio, Texas. Her two brothers weren\u2019t interested in college. Gomez Beane\u2019s mother insisted that her daughter would be going.<\/p>\n
Once Hollins\u2019 admission office identified Gomez Beane as a prospective student, the staff made frequent contacts, she remembers. They even paid for her to visit Roanoke after she received her acceptance letter, knowing she couldn\u2019t afford the trip on her own.<\/p>\n
Their efforts paid off. Gomez Beane enrolled.<\/p>\n
Arriving at Hollins as a first-year student, Gomez Beane remembers recognizing that she stood out \u201cin a sea of white faces,\u201d but that feeling didn\u2019t hold her back from making an indelible imprint on campus. \u201cI maximized every opportunity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gomez Beane cofounded the Mujeres Unidas (United Women) club, which worked to promote diversity on campus, and served on the Student Government Association\u2019s student appeal board. She spent two semesters studying abroad at the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies in Seville, Spain.<\/p>\n
After graduating with a double major in communication studies and Spanish, Gomez Beane moved briefly to Washington, D.C., before getting a call from Celia McCormick, then Hollins\u2019 dean of admissions, explaining they had her in mind to fill an opening in the admission office. \u201cI ended up loving the work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McCormick cautioned Gomez Beane that to thrive in higher education, she\u2019d need a master\u2019s degree. So in 2004, Gomez Beane headed to Virginia Tech, where she earned a master\u2019s degree in counseling. She then took a position as an academic advisor for the Virginia Tech College of Architecture and Urban Studies. \u201cReally fun work, but I knew those four years I was mostly serving very privileged students,\u201d Gomez Beane said. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t what I was put on earth for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gomez Beane moved across campus in 2009 to serve as the director of recruitment and diversity initiatives for the graduate school. She was charged with attracting and retaining students from underrepresented populations. She often told students about how education had made the difference in her life. \u201cI knew how important that master\u2019s was for catapulting my career,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The same year, Gomez Beane began working toward a doctorate degree in counselor education. By 2017, she was putting the finishing touches on a dissertation about counselors\u2019 engagement with social issues advocacy for African-American students.<\/p>\n
Gomez Beane and her husband planned to move back to Texas with their three children. She\u2019d already interviewed with some universities out West when leadership at Virginia Tech offered her a new position as the director of recruitment and operations of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech. \u201cThe timing was great,\u201d she said. \u201cMy kids didn’t want to move.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pace and the volume of work in this new role have been a good fit for high-energy Gomez Beane. \u201cThe stakes are a lot higher in undergraduate admissions at Tech than any other place I’ve ever worked,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2014Beth JoJack \u201998<\/em><\/p>\n Jasmine\u00a0\u201cJazzy\u201d Kettenacker\u00a0\u201912<\/strong><\/p>\n In October, Kettenacker learned a two-minute video about the Florida Gulf Coast University\u2019s jazz ensemble, which she filmed with Tim Clark, had been nominated for a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award. Her short documentary \u201cSt. Louis Slam,\u201d about a women\u2019s tackle football team of the same name, debuted at the St. Louis International Film Festival\u00a0on November 11.<\/p>\n The native Missourian had been mulling the idea of doing a documentary on the team, which is part of the Women\u2019s Football Alliance, for ages, but was spurred into action after reading negative comments, written by men, about women playing football.\u00a0 \u201cThis was a great opportunity to\u2026kind of prove to everyone that women can do this, this sport that is considered masculine,\u201d Kettenacker said.<\/p>\n The premiere was Kettenacker\u2019s first time attending the St. Louis International Film Festival, but it marked the second time organizers included her work in the lineup. Kettenacker\u2019s film Rumble Young Man, Rumble<\/em> made its debut at the 2011 St. Louis Film Festival. She made that film, about a boxing program for children run by employees of the St. Louis police department, as part of an independent study class at Hollins.<\/p>\n Kettenacker didn\u2019t make it to the screening that year because she didn\u2019t want to miss class. \u201cSo I definitely wanted to see the second one,\u201d she said. She\u2019s glad she did. Several members of the St. Louis Slam joined her at the premiere. \u201cIt was pretty awesome,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kettenacker set her sights on a career in film at the age of 13 after watching The Mask of Zorro.<\/em> By the time she got to Hollins, Kettenacker was envisioning working, one way or another, with scripted programming: \u201cstuff you see on TV and the big screen,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Kettenacker credits Amy Gerber-Stroh, associate professor of film, whose lengthy filmography includes documentaries, with showing her the profound storytelling opportunities available to nonfiction filmmakers. The genre also appealed to Kettenacker\u2019s do-it-yourself-punk-rock sensibilities. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to pay for actors,\u201d Kettenacker explained. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to pay for a whole crew.\u201d When she works on her own, Kettenacker gets to decide how each shot looks and how the overall narrative unfolds. \u201cI like having creative freedom,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n In February, Kettenacker moved to Orlando to work as a staff videographer at University of Central Florida. Despite her busy 9-to-5 life, she plans to continue making personal projects. \u201cShort and sweet\u201d documentaries work for her, Kettenacker said, because of her time limitations and because today\u2019s audiences have short attention spans. \u201cEveryone wants their information quickly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u2014Beth JoJack \u201998<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thriving in higher education Dannette Gomez Beane \u201902 Dannette Gomez Beane believes in education. She points to herself as living proof of its transformative power. \u201cI am a first-generation college student,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m Latinx and my family was below […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-8573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-web_only","tag-spring-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8573"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8660,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573\/revisions\/8660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"divider\"](\"http:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/wave.png\")
<\/p>\nSetting her sights on film<\/h3>\n
![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/kettenacker.jpg\")
When Jazzy Kettenacker mentions she had a \u201ccool fall,\u201d it\u2019s a bit of an understatement.<\/p>\n