30th Anniversary History Book

Inaugural flag football team

Palmetto House (before)

Palmetto House

Bachelor of Science degree in computer information systems, he found a changed campus. “It was much different,” he said. “New apartments were built, there were life coaches hired, there were more counselors,” and there were more students. Apartment living was designed to teach the students to live independently. “We learned about cleaning our apartment,” recalls 2006 graduate Talia Kohan Diamond, “and Beacon didn’t have food on weekends, so we’d be cooking. We also did our own laundry” in the apartments’ washers and dryers. Clubs had “exploded” as the student population had surged, Adams recalls. “There was fishing, tennis, flag football, chess — anything you wanted to do they had.” Students had only to find a faculty member to sponsor a club and they were in business. “It was feeling more like a university.”

“It was whatever the students initiated,” said Elizabeth Travaglino, a 2005 graduate who lives in Delray Beach. “So we had a poets and writers club I was in. We’d start them up for a while, and when people lost interest, we’d start something new.” Halfway through her years at Beacon, Travaglino participated in a culture club. “We went to fine dining, operas and plays, said Travaglino, who is working toward licensure as a mental health counselor. Adams, who graduated in 2008 with his computer information systems degree and works as a substitute special education assistant, also vaguely remembers a rubber duck water race being conducted during his time at Beacon. That race may have been the precursor to the college’s annual Rubber Duck Hunt. Between 2003 and 2008, Beacon reached several milestones, starting with accreditation in 2003 from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).

The college built The Beacon Village Apartments; added minors in computer information systems, education, psychology, English/literature and history; opened the Robert and Jane Weiner Writing Center in the Education Building; and purchased the Palmetto building to house the business and admissions offices. Students were still eating their main meals in the Stoer Building, which had long served as their dining hall.

“There are so many clubs! Every semester we have a club fair at the beginning, and you can just choose any club you want to be part of. We have an equestrian club, an anime club...” - Serena Par tlow

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