17�Թ� Moment: See your future at Cardinal View

17�Թ� Moment: See your future at Cardinal View | S8 Ep. 30

17�Թ� is full of exciting events and research. Listen each week to learn more about the people making the most of their moments at 17�Թ�.

Podcast: S8 Ep. 30
Date: October 20, 2025
Title: 17�Թ� Moment: See your future at Cardinal View | S8 Ep. 30
Host: John Rollins

JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the 17�Թ� Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with 17�Թ� faculty, staff, students and alumni. I'm John Rollins, Associate Director of Community Relations and Public Affairs here at 17�Թ�, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. Cardinal View is back, and here to tell us all about it, we have Karen Sandoval and Jimmy Lucia. Karen is the Assistant Director of the 17�Թ� Welcome Center, and Jimmy is a member of the 17�Թ� Crew, and he's also a junior majoring in cyber security here at 17�Թ�. Thanks for joining me on the show today, and welcome to you both.

KAREN SANDOVAL: Hi John, thanks for having us.

JIMMY 17�Թ�CIA: Thanks for having us.

JOHN: So Karen, Cardinal View is right around the corner. This is 17�Թ�'s largest open house event here on campus. But for those who don't know, give like a brief elevator pitch, if you don't mind.

KAREN: Yeah, so like you said, it's the biggest open house that we have on campus. Every department is represented. So, you can come and see every major that we have to offer. They're all out here. You can meet them face to face. The department chairs will be here. So if you are still thinking of, ‘Hey, I don't know what I want to study. I know I want to go to school, but I'm kind of lost,’ you can come and talk to them. They'll have tables out there, and a lot of them have interactive activities. So you can get hands on experience, on like, ‘Oh, this is what this program you know has to offer again,’ meet with students, meet with faculty, meet with staff, and really just get to like, see yourself here and see what we have to offer and all of the opportunities, and kind of get to know, kind of like, we can help you make a decision of like, oh, here is where I belong.

JOHN: I think that's a really great elevator pitch. And we'll get into more of the details a little later in the chat. But yeah, it is. It's basically like this giant one stop shop to learn about Lamar, see it for yourself, which is our marketing campaign right now, which, you know, fits in very well, obviously. So before we move on, let's hear from the both of you with a brief introduction. Jimmy, would you like to start?

JIMMY: Yeah, so I'm from Katy, Texas, and I went to Houston Community College for a little bit studying business, and after about three semesters, transferred over here and started learning cyber security. I've been really enjoying my time here at Lamar and coming here before I transferred, I went to Cardinal View, and that definitely pushed me to decide to come here. Also my girlfriend at the time, now, fiancé, was also coming here, so that definitely was also a reason why I ended up coming here. But yeah, if it wasn't for Cardinal View, it would have taken a lot more to convince me to come here, but coming to Cardinal View, getting to Cardinal View, getting to see all the all the aspects of 17�Թ�, definitely kind of swayed me to end up coming here. So now it's really cool to be on the other side working it now.

JOHN: So how neat is that, that you came and attended and it sold you on Lamar, and now you're working as a 17�Թ� Crew member and helping head up Cardinal View. Fantastic. So, Karen, what about you?

KAREN: Yeah, so I've been at Lamar for a few years now. I studied here, got my undergrad here, and then was lucky enough to be a full-time employee. Was not born in Beaumont, but I've been here since like, third grade. So, I claim Beaumont as my hometown. So it's been really nice to see you know, not only Beaumont grow, but 17�Թ� grow. The last few years when I was going to Lamar, it was when the Setzer Center was being remodeled, and, yeah, and so it's nice to see all of the students being able to use, you know, all of the new resources, being able to see the library, the dining hall, everything getting remodeled, and just campus, you know, coming to life a little more every year.

JOHN: Yeah, well, speaking of things like that, like the library, you know, we're in the interim right now, it's being built and renovated, but in a year, well, I don't know, I probably shouldn't say that, but in a year or two, it should hopefully be complete, right? And then those students get to enjoy the fruits of those labors. So it's kind of neat that you were here for the Setzer being built, and now you work here and get to use the Setzer for events like Cardinal View and see it, yeah, and see the other things.

KAREN: We went to the Starbucks the day that just opened up. So it's really nice to be able to just see a little bit of like what the future holds in the library. So that was really nice to see a little teaser, right? So Karen, you are basically spearheading Cardinal View this year, along with Angela Fanette and the Welcome Center folks. So give us some more details: date, time, location, and what can people expect from this event?

KAREN: Yeah, of course, the Cardinal View is going to be on October 25, it’s a Saturday. October 25 it's going to start at 9 a.m. and end around 1 p.m., so you're going to come in. We're going to have, although, like I said, the first session is going to be our academic departments and the recreational center. You can walk around, get to see everything that we have to offer. You know, nursing will be out there, engineering, College of Arts and Science, College of Fine Arts and Communication, just showing off what they have to offer. And then we'll have some of our academic resources. And then, as you go on throughout the day, in our Setzer Center, we'll have our student orgs, which we have around over we have over 60 student orgs registered to host tables. So, we're really excited about that.

JOHN: That’s huge. Is that normal, or a pretty high number?

KAREN: It's my first time actually hosting Cardinal View, so I don't know all the details. I've worked a lot of them, but not from this side of things. So it's really nice to see that we have a lot of people that want to be involved. And so we're really excited to have everybody out here so students can really get to see again what we have to offer, but from a student's point of view, because we can have the departments and, you know, the chairs and everybody, but students kind of relate more to seeing, you know, people their age. So that's really excited to see everybody being out here. And then, although our slogan, you know, is see for yourself, but for Cardinal View, for this one specifically, it is ‘See your future here.’ That’s kind of what we decided on, because, yeah, you can see for yourself, but we also want you to see your future here and like, what you know, what your possibilities can be, and like you know what you can accomplish, so we're really excited about that. And then throughout the day, we're going to have tours all day long. So if you go in the quad area, we'll have our tour tent. Last year there was like a party out there. We had the DJ out there, and they were dancing and lots of fun, welcoming all of our students in. So that's really exciting to see. We'll have our academic breakout sessions. So if you have a college in mind, whether it's again, nursing, engineering, arts and science, they'll have breakout sessions. So students are going to be able to choose which one they would like to go to. They don't have to pick ahead of time. They can just choose that day. Hey, this sounds really interesting. I want to go check it out, so they can go and check that out. And then, to conclude the day, I mean, we'll have Chick-fil-A open. The new Crave in the Set is going to be open. Starbucks will be open. But anybody that visits the dining hall, we’ll have dining hall for $5 that day. So whenever you come here, if you want to go to dining hall, for $5 come hungry. There will be food available for sure.

JOHN: So something that is kind of new this year, you know, y'all offered scholarships in the past. This year, it will be tuition credits. Could you explain? I know that's more of a direct approach to ensuring student success. So could you kind of explain that a little bit?

KAREN: Yeah, of course. So we've always done scholarships, which, you know, they go straight to the student, but tuition credit, we're putting it straight towards their classes. So whereas, you know, students can kind of spend it to where they want, we will want to emphasize that we want this money to go towards your education. And you know, we want to make sure that, since it's going to education, you have nothing to worry about. You have to worry about transferring it from here to that we're going to do that for you, and that way you have one less thing to worry about. And I feel like knowing that you have this financial stability or this extra money coming into your tuition takes a lot of stress out and will hopefully help our students focus more on school, and, you know, also kind of help with that retention. Like, oh, we're really here for you. That's what we have to offer. We really want to see you succeed. So that's kind of why we changed it from scholarship to tuition. I will emphasize this is towards your tuition and towards your education.

JOHN: I love that, for sure. That's a nice addition to the event, or a nice little switch up, for sure. So Jimmy, tell me this. You know your involvement with Cardinal View from a student standpoint, but also a worker. What has that experience been like for you? Or what do you think people should be looking forward to if they're planning to attend?

JIMMY: Yeah, one thing for sure is the in the Rec where all the academic stuff is going to be at, so all the different colleges, is very cool. All the colleges come out, show out. Basically, they all have really cool stuff that they're going to be presenting different things that they work on, like definitely, like engineering. They always have some really cool stuff set up. Computer Science, they always have some kind of cool programming thing that they're showing off. So all of the colleges always show something. And so whenever I came to Cardinal View, my first thing that I've looked into was Kinesiology. That was kind of the track I was wanting to go down. But seeing the stuff at Cardinal View that the computer science department was showing off kind of swayed me, and I ended up going with that, and I've been with that since. So that's something that's really cool in the Set. Again, it's where all the student orgs are going to be. There's plenty of student orgs there. I'm in the Fitness Club right now, and I'm in the Association of Computing Machinery, which is the ACM. It's a programming club. And so all those different kinds of student orgs will be out there trying to recruit and just get you more involved on campus whenever you are here at Lamar. And by far, I think one of the most fun parts of tour, or of a one of the most fun parts of Cardinal View are the tours. The 17�Թ� Crew outside of the quad are always having fun again. Like she was saying, there's the DJ, everyone's dancing. There's line dancing going on. It's so fun to have students, their parents, everyone kind of join in with us. And so, yeah, it's just a lot of fun, yeah.

JOHN: And y'all really get into it. You’ve got the headsets. Y'all are out there dancing with them. You know, we need that energy when we're giving tours of our campus. And we're just happy to have everybody out here, and we're ready to show, you know, again, what we have to offer. Yeah, and with all those tables and resources and student groups and departments and colleges all under one roof, it's a great chance. You gave a great example. You know, you may walk in with one idea like ‘Oh, I'm going to go for graphic design,’ and by the end of it, the engineering people have swayed you to like, whoa. Let's look into this. So exactly you never know what kind of opportunities you're going to find at Cardinal view. So love that. Tell us a little bit more about 17�Թ� Crew. You know, what are the job duties of 17�Թ� Crew on our campus, you've been there for a year now. You told me next week, right?

JIMMY: Yeah, so next week makes a year. So I've been loving my time here at the Welcome Center with the 17�Թ� Crew. So we have a few responsibilities, and one of the big ones is obviously tours. And so at 17�Թ� Crew, we have to go through tour training, and so we go on tour with already tour certified people to kind of get a grasp on that. Then we do our tour certification test. Yes, and then you're tour certified. And so whenever we're going on tour, we just talk about the highlights of 17�Թ�, and we talk a lot about the resources. And so even as a student here, before I was working at 17�Թ� Crew, I didn't realize how many different resources we have from the different departments, with the tutoring, with the Career and Professional Development Center, all those things, I didn't realize how many resources students have available. So it's really cool to get to show that off whenever I'm on tour with prospective students. Whenever we're not on tour, we are in the back of the Welcome Center doing the phone queue. And so you call Lamar’s number, and if you were speaking to operator, you're going to be speaking with us. And so we can either help you with general admissions questions, or we can get you to contact over the department that you need to talk to, if it's cashiering financial aid or a specific college.

JOHN: That's fantastic. And I know y'all keep busy, because I see y'all all over, whether you're riding on the golf carts, putting out yard signs or doing whatever, y'all are always involved. So sure, we definitely appreciate the Crew on campus. So since you two, neither one of you are a stranger to Cardinal view. You know, what are some favorite memories, or are there any new pieces besides, like the tuition credits and things to this year's event that people should or could look forward to?

KAREN: Yeah, so actually, Dr. Taylor is going to be having his own presentation that I don't know if it's has been published yet, so I'm not going to release that, but he's going to be out here. And just remember, he has a doctorate in physics, so it involves that. There's going to be a whole thing happening in the Rec we're going to have it set up in the little like, ice hockey, inner soccer, court ring. But it'll be, we're going to have screens up so you can see it, because he's going to be, let's say he's going to be, like, laying on something. So we're looking forward to that. It's going to happen early in the morning. So that's really exciting. Favorite memories, I think just seeing everybody out here on campus, seeing campus full, it's really exciting. We always have lots of students, their families come out. And it's, you know, we have different events, or, you know, for Orientation that's more catered towards the student. You know, we're welcoming into we're welcoming you into campus at this point. We're helping you with your next steps, making sure you're ready for that first day of school. Whereas Cardinal View, we're welcoming your whole family. We want everybody to see you here too. We want everybody to see what we have to offer. So there's no limit on how many guests you can bring. You know, want to bring you know, want to bring your sister, your cousin, bring them out here. We would love to have them, because it's never too early to start getting, you know, 17�Թ�, into their brains and showing them what we have to offer. So that's one of my favorite memories, is just seeing people out here. I know that the band will be out there, the Showcase will be at the Set, and every year it's really fun to see them being involved with the students. I've seen students come and visit and they'll allow them to like, play instruments sometimes, or I've seen them like, direct the band. So, and that's just like, you hit the drums, yeah? And that's just like random students that come in and just are looking at campus. So, that's really fun to see. So I just, you know, it's just, it's just a fun day all around positive energy. So it's exciting to see. Y

JOHN: You know, I love that. I forgot about the band part. You're right. That's how you're greeted. You park your car and you're like, what's that noise? Exactly? They draw you into the student org. So that's really exciting. Love that. So Jimmy, what about you?

JIMMY: Yeah, I would say what I'm most excited about for Cardinal View would be the tours. I think this year for the tours, we've been training really hard. We’ve got some new staff that's joined us, and so the new Crew is already, pretty much all the new Crew is certified, ready to go, and yeah, so they're, they're more experienced than ever. I'll say one of my favorite memories, at least, whenever it comes to Cardinal View, was my first. Cardinal view was my first week. And so I didn't really give a tour whenever I was going there. I was kind of shadowing one of my coworkers, and so that was really entertaining. For that, just being able to be a part of that, again, everyone being out there, having a fun time, and being able to see what it's like to be on the other side of the tour, especially with a large group of like 200 people, that was really cool. And so that's a lot. I'd say that's probably my favorite memory. But yeah, I think this year for tours, everyone's ready to go for tour?

JOHN: Well, what a great memory. That's a nice little icebreaker to welcome you to the role, right? Jump right in. So Karen, do you want to go ahead and wrap us up? You know, go over, date, time, location, any details that people need to know, and how can they keep up with Cardinal View or find more information?

KAREN: Yeah, of course. So it's going to be Saturday, October 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. again, we'll have food available $5 at the dining hall. All our departments are going to be here, student orgs. We're going to have tours all throughout the day and breakout sessions for everybody. We're also going to have free popcorn. I know people love the popcorn. We're going to have free popcorn. And we're just excited to see everybody. You can find the information on our all of our social media at 17�Թ� Admissions, or just the 17�Թ� website in general, they've been posting and announcing it. And if, or if you go to our website, just look up Cardinal View, and you can see our registration. And if you have any questions, you can also reach us and at visit@lamar.edu. We will send you an email, and we're just, you know, we're excited to see everybody on campus. And then I feel almost like this. I know sometimes events get like overwhelming, especially with an event this size, but we'll be in gray polo. So if anybody comes and just finds anybody in a gray polo, we'd love to talk to you one on one.

JOHN: So there you go. So look for the great polos. Alright, well, if anyone's interested in 17�Թ� and wants to know more, this is the opportunity to come out once again, Saturday, October 25 9 to 1 in the Sheila Umphrey Recreational Sports Center and the Setzer Student Center. To register, visit lamar.edu/cardinalview. Thank you both for joining me today. It's been awesome. For the listeners out there, be sure to search 17�Թ� Moment, wherever you get your podcast to keep up with the events, activities, programs and people right here at 17�Թ�. This is John Rollins, your host. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.