What Is The Hawkeye at hawkeyenews.net?

The Hawkeye (hawkeyenews.net) is the student news site of Hillsborough Community College (HCC). It publishes campus-centered reporting and features written by student staff and editors, with each story carrying a byline and publication date. If you want to know what is happening at HCC — from campus decisions to student life around Tampa — this is the site to check.

Who runs it

The site identifies itself as "The student news site of Hillsborough Community College." Its content is credited to named student journalists and editors rather than a central communications office. Bylines on the homepage include staff writers and an editor-in-chief, which tells you the publication is organized like a newsroom: reporters cover beats, editors oversee the output.

That structure matters for how you read it. Student journalism is original and locally focused, but it is also produced by people learning the craft, so treat individual pieces as reporting to verify against primary sources when a story affects a decision you are making.

What it covers

Coverage clusters around a few clear areas:

• Campus news and decisions — for example, a story on the Tampa Bay Rays' plan to build a stadium on the Dale Mabry campus and the mixed reactions from faculty and students there.
• Student life and practical matters — such as a report on HART's $110 semester bus pass offering unlimited rides for a semester, framed around students without cars.
• Work–school balance — a piece on how HCC students juggle 12–16 credit hours with jobs, including closing shifts.
• Features and community — club events like the LGBTQ+ student organization's slime-making gathering, and coverage of Student Government Association spending of student activity fees.
• Tampa Bay culture — Ybor City's cigar history, the Gasparilla International Film Festival, the local kava bar scene, and Comic Convention appearances.

The through-line is HCC and its surrounding region. National or international news is not the focus.

How to use it

If you are an HCC student, a prospective student, a family member, or a local resident trying to understand the college's environment, start with the section labels — News and Features — and scan bylines and dates to judge recency. Stories about fees, transit, and campus construction are the ones most likely to affect day-to-day decisions, so read those in full rather than relying on headlines.

For anything consequential — a fee change, a construction timeline, a policy shift — use The Hawkeye as a starting point and confirm details with the college or agency involved. The site reports what students observe and are told; it does not publish official policy documents.

What it is not

The Hawkeye is not an official HCC administrative site, and it does not present itself as one. It is also not a general Tampa news outlet, even though it covers Tampa stories. Expect student-authored perspective and campus-level scope, not comprehensive regional coverage.