Texas State Technical Institute (TSTI) was a two-year technical college located in Waco. It provided training in thirty-four technical fields with forty-one different programs. On the campus, men outnumbered women by nearly four to one. Located north of Waco on the remains of an old Air Force Base, to this day the area looks more like a military installation than a school. Some of the dorms, like Neches and Sabine Halls, are old barracks: drab, dreary buildings bisected on the interior by narrow hallways. During the early nineties, the residents of these dorms lived very close to one another. Students usually were seventeen to twenty-year-olds looking for a marketable trade to allow them to get a good, steady job. Sprinkled into a population of young boys fresh out of high school, were ex-cons. Some of the parolees were genuinely trying to go straight, and others, like Kenneth McDuff, saw an ideal setup: a nearly maintenance-free room; someone else to cook for him; access to smaller, younger men, some of whom were mightily impressed with and/or afraid of his 250-pound frame; and ready access to remote, wooded areas surrounding the campus.
|
On February 8, 1991, Mac applied for housing on the TSTI campus. Less than one month later, on March 5, he was placed in room 118 in Sabine Hall, a single men's dorm. On March 7, he started his first day of classes.
3
He had been exempt from Texas's mandatory state placement exam because he had already earned credits from Alvin Junior College while in the Retrieve Unit in Angleton, and because he was enrolled in a certificate, not a degree, program. Technically, he was a transfer student who "majored" in CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) Machine Shop Operations. When asked to develop a resumé, he listed rough and finish carpentry, concrete form builder, concrete finisher, and front-end loader operations.
4
|
In 1991, Texas State Technical Institute was what most people would call a "trade school." It granted certificates as well as degrees. Many classes were competency-based, requiring the completion of a series of tasks or the attendance at a series of events. This made it possible for students to learn skills at their own pace. For those who went into class already having mastered certain skills, and for others who learned quickly, it was possible to earn credit for or otherwise complete some courses without attending class regularly or consistently throughout the year. Such classes are not uncommon in a trade school. But in some other courses, mostly requiring classroom rather than shop work, TSTI did, as a matter of policy,
|
|
