The spring issue of TCU Magazine drops at an unforgettable intersection: a time to set the stage for TCU’s 150th year and a chance to relive an unforgettable TCU football season.
The Spring 2023 cover story tells a deep story of the season that led TCU all the way to a national championship game. It highlights head football coach Sonny Dykes and student-athletes like Max Duggun and Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson who contributed so much to the success of the TCU’s record-breaking year: an undefeated regular season and the first team in Texas to make the College Football Playoff.
“Watching the football season unfold was as thrilling for the magazine team as it was for everyone else,” said Caroline Collier, editor.
The excitement was found in so many aspects – from the media to the football field to the palatable Horned Frog enthusiasm all over campus. The cover aims to capture that, with ecstatic fans joining to hoist Super Frog.
“The cover image was a challenge to select! What one picture could encapsulate the joy of the season? I trust that the TCU Magazine designer, Corrie Demmler, got that one right,” Collier said.
Excitement is also building in TCU’s 150th as the university reaches the culmination of Lead On, the most ambitious fundraising campaign in university history. TCU Magazine took the opportunity to profile one of its passionate leaders, Ronald C. Parker, member of the TCU Board of Trustees.
“After playing football at TCU in the 1970s and being drafted by the Chicago Bears, Mr. Parker went on to become a vice president at PepsiCo. After he retired, he launched what amounts to a second full career in nonprofit work,” Collier said. “His tireless support of TCU has helped lead to almost a billion dollars raised for the Lead On campaign. It is no overstatement that his championing of the university will improve the experience of every single person who steps foot on this campus for the next 150 years.”
The magazine wouldn’t fully encapsulate TCU’s current success without also addressing its academic excellence, on full display with the exciting research underway.
The highlighted story in the research section is about a trip to Tuscany four master of fine art candidates took last summer, along with two of their art professors, Adam Fung and Cameron Schoepp. Elliott Hill, another TCU Trustee, owns a villa named LaFoce near Siena, where the group was invited to stay.
“We talk about how moving off campus and to an unfamiliar location led to a burst in creativity,” said Collier. “As an added bonus, Adam Fung shared a video, largely composed of drone footage, he took to communicate the beauty of the experience.”
The issue is only the beginning of TCU Magazine’s 150th year coverage – whether planned festivities or surprise success.
“The editorial team carefully planned out four sesquicentennial issues to represent the TCU story through a century and a half. And then football made fresh history by going to the national championship game,” Collier said.
The result left plenty of room to share a variety of other TCU stories:
- A Q&A with Timeka Gordon, who, in addition to being the longtime director of TCU’s Community Scholars program, is director of the Intercultural Center and Student Identity and Engagement. The article explores Gordon’s transformative leadership in TCU’s evolution.
- A feature on TCU’s Intercultural Center, a celebratory space where people of all identities are welcome and encouraged to be exactly who they are. The space was envisioned by students who even painted colorful murals to enliven the mood.
- An alumnus profile of Gordon England ’75 MBA, the former deputy secretary of defense
- A feature on the TCU Costume Studio, which includes beautiful photography highlighting the creativity of the people who take vintage clothes and random donated material to make imaginative “moving sets” for Theatre TCU productions.
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