Beachcomber editor named PBSC 2014-2015 student trustee

Palm Beach State College Beachcomber editor Patricia Medina

Palm Beach State College Beachcomber editor Patricia Medina

“Besides being a good student academically, she’s very involved and seems to be in touch with the students’’

Lake Worth, FL - Patricia Medina, editor-in-chief of the Beachcomber student newspaper at Palm Beach State College, has been selected student trustee for the 2014-2015 academic year.

In the non-voting role created by the District Board of Trustees in 2001, Medina will bring a student perspective on College issues and policies. An eight-member selection committee, which includes students, chose her after a college-wide application process open to the College’s 48,000 students.

“I know there are a lot of people who applied, so I am honored,’’ Medina said.

A married mother with twins in high school, Medina said she looks forward to working on behalf of the students and the College. She would like to continue the previous student trustee’s work to bridge the four campuses, and she says her strong communication skills can help in that regard.  “I love information. I love sharing it with people, and I love current events.”

A New York native, she went to work right out of high school as a receptionist for the city of New York, which resulted from an internship. She also worked for the state of New York before moving to Tennessee to take a job and eventually to Florida.

However, she said she and her husband were attending her younger cousin’s college graduation in 2012 when she felt the nudge to pursue her own education. “I realized that the one thing that I had not done was get my college degree. That’s the one thing I haven’t done yet that I always wanted to do. My children were old enough that I could go back to school.”

Medina, 40, and her husband both enrolled at PBSC in fall 2012. She is pursuing an Associate in Arts degree. She also is a member of the Honors College, Phi Theta Kappa international honors society on the Boca Raton campus, and she is a volunteer on the Human Trafficking Committee on the Lake Worth campus. In addition to serving as editor-in-chief of the Beachcomber, which is housed on the Palm Beach Gardens campus, she also serves as the editor for “Sabiduría,” the Honors College academic, peer reviewed online journal. She is currently serving as an intern for CBS 48 Hours, working with a local producer.

“Besides being a good student academically, she’s very involved and seems to be in touch with the students,’’ said Leonard Bruton, assistant dean of academic affairs at the Boca Raton campus who chairs the Student Trustee Selection Committee.

After graduating from PBSC next May, Medina plans to continue her education at Florida Atlantic University to get a bachelor’s degree with a major in mass communications and political science. Having worked for government entities before, her goal is to become a White House press secretary and eventually return to PBSC to work as a professor.

“I love Palm Beach State College. This school has given me so much and so many opportunities,’’ said Medina, who also is a participant in Student Support Services, a federally-funded TRIO program at PBSC that provides academic and other support services to low- income, first-generation or disabled college students to increase students’ retention and graduation rates. She is a member of the Student Support Services Debate Team.