Student Spotlight: Clayton Lynch

So, what’s your major and why did you decide to study at LBCC?

Clayton: Originally my major was criminal justice. But through the avenue of getting involved with the civil discourse program, I’ve actually decided to change my major. Here at LBCC, it’s not a big thing major-wise because you’re doing a lot of two-year programs. It’s like a focus but it’s not really major. However, when I go to Western Oregon, I will have changed my major to communications. That’s kind of where I’ve landed with my two years here: Linn-Benton, I started at criminal justice and have kind of moved into the field of communications.

How did you decide on communications?

Clayton: There were a lot of factors. One of the things was I found myself really gravitating towards the field. I’ve taken every communications class here at Linn-Benton, and it was never, “I have to take communications,” it was always, “Yes, I have another communications class! Let’s do it.” That was one of the big things, but also Mark Urista, our faculty advisor for the civil discourse program, played a big role in that because he teaches comm 114. He talked to me about the program. He expressed interest in seeing if I’d want to join, and I did join and I loved it. I’ve had a really good time meeting everyone in the program; new and who was already there. Overall, I think I chose communications because that’s just where I feel like I fit in. With criminal justice, I had always felt like a placeholder and never felt like it was me, but communications is me. That’s awesome.

What are your hobbies or interests outside of school?

Clayton: Great question. I’m a big gamer. I really like to play any type of game: board games, card games, video games. Heck, I’ll play kick the can. That has always been a passion of mine. Within the last couple of years, I actually picked up another hobby because of a job I had as a cake decorator. So, that started as a job and moved into a hobby of mine that I love. Unfortunately though, I don’t have some of the tools right now. I’m broke and all that stuff. So hopefully eventually I can get back into doing that. 

Are you involved with any other clubs or organizations that LBCC?

Clayton: I’m very involved with Cornerstone. Cornerstone is this program that we’re trying to help build and implement in the LBCC classrooms that is trying to help students basically learn and understand how to read and process what we call transformative texts. So, that would be things like Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King or Aristotle’s rhetoric on communication. It’s essentially these informative, transformative texts that have shaped me in a big way. Something about our society that still affects us today. I got involved in Cornerstone when I stumbled my way into one of the classes with that deal Morales, one of the writing professors, and from there, it just kind of snowballed. I started taking other Cornerstone classes. I really liked the direction they were going with teaching us about that stuff. And eventually, I just kind of became involved as a student in the program, helping the professors kind of understand what they could do to help students better understand what the program is, and better implement that in the classrooms.

It’s really interesting. It’s something I would suggest if every student could check it out they should because one of the things is, after you complete three classes of Cornerstone courses, then you get what’s called a Liberal Arts Award. That’s an official award that can go on your resume. And it’s also a lot of the classes you already need to take. So, Communications 111, Writing 121, and a bunch of humanities classes. These are already classes you’re gonna have to take.

Why not take Cornerstone classes? Then at the end of those three classes, you get something to help build a resume. That’s kind of my thought process with it. And then that kind of really just snowballed, and I ended up taking four because I liked them so much. So that’s just something that I’ve really enjoyed doing and helping hopefully get that implemented better here at LB and then maybe in the future, helping get it implemented at another school or something like maybe Western Oregon.