The End is Here

This class was literally my first class in the higher education administration masters program. Looking back, I remember I was so nervous about showing up to this class knowing that I was coming to the program a semester behind everyone else. I had no idea what to expect or what to do. Sitting in the first meeting, I was looking around and everyone seemed to know each other except for me. As silly as it sounds is I was nervous and scared about what other classmates thought of me. I am never like this and it really bothered me. However, getting to know my classmates by reading their blog and interacting with them has made me feel like I’m in the right place. I am excited about going to class now and just trying to absorb all the information that I can.

I am really happy about the change from the biology masters program to this higher education program. I think this masters will open more opportunities for me that better fits my personality and personal goals. Writing this blog has opened my eyes to a world that I never knew about. I was well aware with my college administrators especially in the athletic department, but never really knew what they have to deal with. This blog made all these theories and discussions that I learned about in my other class’s kind of come to life. I saw problems in the college administration world, problems with students, learning how to be green, problems with technology, dealing with tragic aftermath on campuses, and basically real life interactions between students and college administrators.

I noticed one theme overall that was in most of my blogs. This theme that I detected was I always discussed possible problems with something that was happening on the college campus. Most of the blogs dealt with what the possibilities or choices were for the administration offices. I think that this is important because we were dealing with real life situations that we could possibly face in our near futures. I really think it takes a special person to be able to enjoy this job AND be good at it. I am up for this challenge and really can’t wait to get started in the real world.

Another thing that I got out of this class and writing these blogs is that I believe it is vital to have a good relationship with students on campus not matter what office or department you work in. I think that opening these relationships and interactions will allow an administrator to learn more about the campus in more ways than one. Listening and answering these voices on campus will help keep the college’s structure. These voices from the students need to be from all different races, sex, age, background, etc. If you keep all of these voices in consideration then the success of the college growth rate will be significant. The college growth that I was referring to is socially, academically, athletically, financially, or anything that makes a college and college. The better the administration works together and interacts with students, the better the college’s status becomes.

In conclusion, I just want to thank everyone in my class for teaching me things will writing your blogs. I have enjoyed reading each person’s entry and have learned a lot more by reading about the feelings and opinions than I ever thought I could. Each class member took and slightly different angle each week that opened the discussion in so many ways. I hope we continue communicating and interaction so we can learn from each other. I also want to wish everyone the best of luck especially the ones that are towards the end of their journey in this higher education program. Thanks again!

Student Unions Expands

Student unions are essential for all college campuses. This is a place where students can interact, eat, work out, study, hang out, or just get away from their crazy roommate. However, as colleges continue to grow, student unions should also expand. Student unions should be the center point of a college campus especially for the social aspect of students. If the student union is not the center of social life of everyday students, then higher education officials should consider making a renovation or build a new one that is better and gives students more opportunities to interact.

I am going to talk about my college undergraduate experience. Our student union was called the “UC”. The UC had a workout room, a theatre, a game room, the cafeteria, a computer lab, a food court, university clothing store, and several meeting rooms. As a freshman I lived on campus and went to the UC almost every day. I used to love going to the cafeteria and sitting in there for the lunch hour and seeing everyone. It is the social hangout on campus. If the cafeteria was closed, we would go to the game room and play a quick game of ping pong. It seemed like no matter who you were or where you came from, once you stepped in the UC differences were set aside. I think that every college should have a place like this for students to meet other people on campus.

However by my junior year, the UC seemed to be out of place and a little behind the times. We had just gotten a brand new computer lab upstairs with top of the line computers, but even with those renovations, it just seemed a little out of place compared to other division 1 schools. A vote was help on campus to build a new UC or not. It was passed and immediately floor plans were being drawn. Construction started during the spring of my senior year for this new three story complex building. A year after I graduated, I went back to visit my school and it was open. I wanted to go in and see the building. It had everything; a new workout room, four full size basketball courts, an indoor running track, racket ball courts, computer labs, small food court, ping pong tables, a gaming room with Nintendo, Wii, xbox 360, Playstations, and locker rooms. It was incredible, and I never expected it to be that impressive. This is to show how rapidly technology changes college campuses. In order for students to come to school, you must have the top of the line materials available compared to other schools. It is used for recruiting purposes. As soon as another school has a better union than another then the old one has to be upgraded.

Colleges’ constant competition has caused the renovations of these student unions to happen constantly year after year. Here is a website in which has links to other websites that talk about the college’s student unions:
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/osl/unions.html#U
I think this website was really useful to compare the different student unions around the United States. I didn’t go to all of the websites, but I went and looked at a couple. There is a common theme of all the student unions that are on here. They even had the list of new ones that were being constructed. This supports my thinking that there is a constant demand to renovate these student unions in order to offer new students the best of the best.

I found another website that actually rate different aspects of college campuses. Here is Ole Miss’s:
http://collegeprowler.com/university-of-mississippi/facilities/
We got an overall vote of a B. If you scroll down and look at the individual stats and comments, many of the students say that the student union can use some improvements. I think that maybe the student union at Ole Miss is up for an upgrade especially if Ole Miss wants to compare with other schools in the SEC conference.

As higher education administrators, it is important to have a functional student union that is available for students. This building is a big contributes to college life and student development. We need to be aware of other schools facilities and make sure they are comparable to ours. Having the top of the line equipment and buildings is what brings attention to the school and therefore increase student populations.

Turning Green...and No I'm not sick!

What have colleges done to make campuses greener?
About five years ago, the saying “green” would make people like of flowers, springtime, April, Easter, bumble bees, or maybe even aliens. Now a days when someone says “green” they think of recycle, plastic, conservation, environment, organic, etc. Being “green” is a new movement that has spread across the world rapidly in the past decade. There are programs out all across the United States that encourage buildings and people to “go green”. They have a national holiday now called Earth Day (April 22) that celebrates the environment and nature and how we can use and reuse our resources. Going green typically is more popular among the young adult generation. This would include college students.

As higher education professionals, it is important to have greener campuses and I am not referring the grass color. Which I am sure the way a campus looks is important in the overall experience of the college, but also how the college helps the environment. Walking in and out of buildings and in most classrooms students can find recycle bins for paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass. Personally I use the aluminum recycle bin almost every day. I am a HUGE diet coke lover and I drink one on the way to class. I will finish it and just toss it into the recycle bin as I walk into the building. If this bin was not here, I know for a fact that I would just toss it into the trash can. The movement across campus to place the bins is unconsciously making more students greener.

At Ole Miss for the celebration of Earth day is having a green week which is happening April 19-23. I think that this is important for all college campuses to do. I am sure that other colleges are doing something like this in order to support the green movement. Some of the activities during this week will be a recycling pledge which allows students to volunteer working at the Oxford Recycling Center, Curbside recycling awareness which includes handing out information on how you can get a curb side recycling company to your house, and the commuter challenge which challenges students to commute to school with fellow classmates or ride the public bus transportation.

I think that it is important as higher education officials to make students aware on campus how to become greener. I am a huge believer of conservation which allows future generations to have the ability to use the same resources that are available to use today. If we do not conserve our resources then there is a possibility that they will not be available for our grandkids. This green message that can be found throughout the United States should be introduced to young generations so they can get used to a lifestyle which supports the “it’s good to be green” message.

I did some research to see if there was a ranking of the best green college campus. I found this article written in the Princeton Review which has the list of the best green college campuses:
www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/green-college-rankings-by-princeton-review.php

Here are the top 10:
Arizona State University
Bates College
College of the Atlantic
Emory University
Georgia Tech
Harvard College
State University of New York at Binghamton
University of New Hampshire
University of Oregon
University of Washington
Yale University
Just a shout out to Atlanta (my home city) having two college campuses in the top 10!!

I am just going to leave you with this information….if you are reading this and want to become more green on your college campus, here is an article giving you five unique ways that can make this possible.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2010/01/28/5-unique-ways-to-go-green-if-youre-living-in-a-dorm.html
Here is the list, you can read them in more detail by clicking the link above:
1. Become an informed consumer. Be aware with what you leave on in your dorms as you leave.
2. Reduce paper waste. Might take a little more cleaning on your part, but replace paper plates and plastic silverware with a real set of dishes.
3. Data awareness. See how much it costs your dorm hall to run its electricity and water.
4. Recycle. This is self explanatory.
5. Get Involved. Talk with other hall mates in ways you can get involved in campus.

Now go get GREEN!

"I am only high because my doctor said it was OK"-College Campus Problems for Medical Marijuana Purposes

The biggest phenomenon in legalizing drugs is the talk about marijuana. Marijuana has been around for generations, however in the past decade, talk for legalizing it for medical purposes have gotten extremely popular. I believe that 14 states have passed it legal for medical purposes only. I also believe that soon in the near future there will be a state in which legalizes it for everyone. Until that day gets here, higher education administrators have to consider other problems relating to marijuana usage with their students.

I know that Mississippi has not passed a law to legalize marijuana for medical purposes but there are colleges where this has happened. The question I want to ask is…what happens when a student lives within the dorms and has a doctor’s prescribed notice stating that they can use marijuana for medical purposes? How do college administrators react to this? What is the right thing to do? If you put it in this scenario, doctors prescribe Ritalin for students who have ADD. This drug is abused on campuses all the time. This scenario is very similar to the student who brings marijuana onto campus. College administrators cannot band the student to use marijuana for medical purposes just like they can’t band students for using Ritalin. They can however band students who misuse prescription drugs.
If they allow this student with medical prescribed marijuana to live on campus, how do they protect the medicine? I know other students will try to get some of this “medicine”. Who knows how they will try? They could become violent, or the student will try to sell some. So many scenarios can happen with this problem.
I think that this isn’t something that higher Ed personnel should ignore; this is something that will happen today….something that is happening NOW. Colleges should be prepared on how to deal with students that are allowed to use marijuana.

After thinking about the above paragraphs, I decided to do some research.

Here is an article found in the Chronicle:
http://0-chronicle.com.umiss.lib.olemiss.edu/article/Your-Doctors-Advice-Notwit/62634/

This article is addressing the problem to the questions that I stated above. A student had a doctor’s note allowing the usage of marijuana for medical purposes. News quickly spread around campus and the area that a student was allowed to smoke on campus. This quickly came to an end when administrations caught wind of the word. They banded the student to live in the dorms but to live off campus and keep the medicine at home. At the very end of this article, Stephen Butler (vice president of student affairs at Humboldt college) stated, “Make rules that are more prohibitive than the state's rules. You can do that.” I don’t know if this is the right thing to do or not. This is a new area to consider but not far from every college’s future.

I decided to search this topic even more, and I found this article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SmallBiz/higher-learning-medical-marijuana-colleges-crop/story?id=9154672&page=2
Wow….who would have thought this day would have come. This is an article talking about a college who teaches students how to grow marijuana for medical purposes. There are different rules that the graduates are allowed to do legally, but if they move to California there are even more options for them.
I know that this isn’t really something that college administrators have to deal with, but I think it makes a point that this problem will be here sooner than you think. I am not sure if I can come up with a clear conclusion for what college campuses should do, but I think that it is something that we should start thinking about.

Evolution in College

I wanted to write based on a science point of view this week. The topic this week is spirituality on a secular campus, and I really wasn’t sure what to write on. So I think I am twisting the topic a little but I think this is interesting. I know in high school in the past couple of years, there has been a huge debate on science subjects such as the theory of evolution and the big bang theory. These theories are taught in many classes all over the United States within college biology departments as well. I was just curious to see if these courses are also offered on smaller religious campuses. I asked some of my friends that attend some smaller religious schools if they took a biology course and within that course if these theories were taught. All of them said that they were covered in class but briefly. I wanted to compare these courses to college biology courses that are taught in secular colleges. When I describe a college as secular, I am referring to colleges that just don’t associate to a religion.

I found this clip on youtube.com that was taken from the View. I don’t watch the View at all so I really thought this was interesting. Here they are talking about whether these theories should be taught in college. During this argument, Whoppie makes a great point. She says that college courses are elective which means students are choosing which classes they take. However, I think that in order to obtain a degree in biology a student must take a class in evolution. There is huge evidence in evolution right now that is happening all over the world in research studies. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that humans evolved from apes! I do believe that evolution occurs when it comes to natural selection within a species population. I think that species evolve based upon features that help individuals survive better than other individuals within that same population. I think this is an important aspect for college students to understand and learn about if they are pursuing a degree in biology. This theory is present today in many different ways.

However, on these religious campuses, evolution might not be stressed as much as on secular college campuses. I think that evolution courses should be offered at religious campuses just like I think that different religious study classes should be offered on secular campuses. I think that since college is full of elective courses then there should be no problem with offering these courses.

I think that higher education administrators need to be aware that some courses might offend students and how to deal with these students who do not believe in what is being taught in a specific course. I think that these courses that are borderline opinions and deep emotional courses need to be sturtured a certain way. I don’t think that they way in which this material is taught should be presented as a wrong or right way. The teacher needs to present the material in a non bias way as best as they can. I think that once teachers start pressing a “right” way is when some of these courses can get out of hand. Education administrators need to be prepared to deal with teachers that do this as well. Let these teachers be aware of how they need to teach the material that can be borderline or “ify” subjects when it comes to religion and theories.

In conclusion, I think that depending on the campus (secular or religious) that each course could be offending the students. So the spirituality on college campuses should be handled differently depending on the college campus the problem is on. Here is the link of the video that I was talking about earlier:

Student Protest

Here is a video that I found on youtube.com about students at UCLA protesting the tuition increase. After doing some research, many of the student protests that have happened recently have protested tuition increase. I think that students have a right to protest their tuition rates, especially when they keep getting higher and higher. The way in which they protest however could be a problem.

If you notice in this video, most students were marching with signs and yelling their opinion. This protest allows students to show their freedom of speech. However, by the end of the video the news anchor did state that some students were arrested and some of the campus police were injured. How do school administrators know when they need to step in and control the student protest? I think that many college campuses need to know what the students are allowed to do in a protest. Every student has a freedom of speech but there has to be some kind of rules that they follow when they are expressing themselves so the campus is still a safe place.

When do officials stop student protests? How do students organize a protest? Is it a violation of the freedom of speech?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051031/protest_and_pushback_on_campus

Here is another example of a student protest at George Mason University. A student stood by a marine recruiter with a sign that said “Don’t trust recruiters, they lie!” He just stood close to the marine recruiter and stayed silent. Other students came in and started a rally against this student calling him names and then violently attacked him. Campus police stepped in and pulled out pepper spray as they were taking the student out of the rally. This article was written in 2005, but still situations like this happen today. Did this student have a right to stand there silently? I think he did have a right. I personally don’t necessarily agree with that he was protesting, but he had every right to stand there and start a protest. So why did the officials step in? I think because the safety of a student was being violated and I think they campus police had to remove the student protester for his own safety.

There should be rules that are followed by student protests on college campuses. I know recently the KKK came to Ole Miss to set up a protest. There weren’t organized by students, but the college administrators had to allow them to come onto campus. If they didn’t allow them to come to campus it would have been a violation of freedom of speech. This protest was performed in a very professional way. They had barriers for the protest that kept the crowd out of harm’s way. This is an example of protest that could have gone completely wrong and it ended with no one getting hurt. I think that college campuses need to have a protocol for protests that are organized. I think that protests can sometimes happen unexpectedly in which the college police officials should go through training and be prepared for the unexpected to take place.

I think that student protest and freedom of speech have to go hand in hand and can be very tricky to follow rules and make everyone happy. Administrators should be aware of the rules they have on campus for student protesters and be prepared for the unexpected.

Restorative Justice on a College Campus

I was unsure on what to write about for this blog. So I went to the chronicle and found an article related to restorative justice. Here is the following link:
http://0-chronicle.com.umiss.lib.olemiss.edu/article/With-Restorative-Justice/30557/

This article is based upon the Colorado State University about a young student who drank too much and passed out in the front yard of a family’s residence. I think that after reading this article that the process of restorative justice is so important to have on college campuses. Not only did this student have to serve two years probation, but the student actually sat down and had to talk to the family and offices he dealt with the night of the incident.

The student’s awareness of the responsibility seemed to have increased because of this restorative justice program. He talks in the article how he feels like he needs to feel responsible for his actions by volunteering in different activities. One of these activities was being a driver for the campus’s safe ride home program. Restoration Justice gives students the ability to offer an alternative to the legalistic conduct systems which helps the student develop as an individual within a community. I think that this is extremely important in the overall development theories that all students should move through within the four years of an undergraduate experience. By having these meetings, and talking through these incidents that the students have gone through, in my opinion, makes the students more aware of what they have done and why it is so bad. The court fines and the probation sentences are bad, but I believe that the students don’t go through a personal connection of how their actions have affected people that they surround or the community that are found within. The personal connection that is created through the restorative justice process, allows to see exactly what their actions have caused. I think that this personal connection that is created is an essential process of the development theory that every student should go through.

At the end of this article, it talks about the three different strategies for the college campuses that are used within this article. I think there are interesting because you can see some similarities and some differences. This is proof that every college campus should create a system that would be BEST for that college campus.
After reading this article written in the Chronicle, I wanted to read more on the actual process in which restorative justice follows. I found this website which is http://www.restorativejustice.org which explains this process and what is needed to be done to function correctly. I had a little knowledgeable background when it came to this process so this is a great website for colleges to reference if they are thinking about having a restorative justice program. I personally think that every college campus should use these programs and follow specific guidelines when setting these processes. Here are three main principals to include when forming a foundation for the restorative justice program:

1. Justice requires that we work to restore those who have been injured.
2. Those most directly involved and affected by crime should have the opportunity to participate fully in the response if they wish.
3. Government's role is to preserve a just public order, and the community's is to build and maintain a just peace.

These are good when a college first sits down and tries to draw up a process for a restorative justice program. And also consider the four key values

Restorative programs are characterized by four key values:

1.Encounter: Create opportunities for victims, offenders and community members who want to do so to meet to discuss the crime and its aftermath.
2. Amends: Expect offenders to take steps to repair the harm they have caused.
3. Reintegration: Seek to restore victims and offenders to whole, contributing members of society.
4. Inclusion: Provide opportunities for parties with a stake in a specific crime to participate in its resolution

In conclusion, I think that these key values and three principals would give any college a solid base for the development of a program such as restorative justice. I personally think that every college should have a program similar to this because it does prove to students on a more personal level what they did was wrong. It was not only wrong by breaking the law (in some cases) but also it affects the community in which they live in. I think that the article that I found on the Chronicle will support what I believe and I am sure there are many others of them out there.


On a side note, I just want to wish the Ole Miss Rebel Softball team good luck this weekend at the Buzz Classic in Atlanta. Sorry I am not there in class, but I hope y’all enjoyed my blog! See you next week!