The Completion of a Past Journey

To begin, this has truly been a rewarding class experience and I often find myself bragging to others about the class format, discussions, and new knowledge I gain each week from Sparky and my peers. I always enjoy the spring semester because it warms up, scholars get to march across the stage, and it seems shorter than the fall semester. I was attracted to this class from past reviews of other classmates. I had never had an interaction with Sparky, but everyone at Ole Miss knows his name. Interestingly I decided I would take this course to learn more about the topics in the profession and also at Ole Miss. Like Rachel, I learn better from class formats such as this one because its more than covering specific topics related to Student Affairs, but engaging in intellectual conversations. The atmosphere is always relaxing and pleasant, the type of class that you don't mind attending after a long day of work. In 2008, I set out to obtain my Master's degree in Higher Education/Student Personnel, a journey I was nervous and optimistic about all at once. As I reflect back, I can say, I have completed a past journey that has provided me with so many rewarding experiences with few challenges that I am very proud of.

This class introduced me to personal blogging and I must admit, it saves paper! Go Green... We first discussed today's college student and the many issues and differences they bring to the college campus. Like many of us, we all fall into the category of the Millennial's who are very much interested in all types of technology and social networking. Secondly, my blog concerning the due process of a Social Work student reinforced the information I learned from the Law in Higher Education course I took last semester. We all have been affected by the acts of violence that have taken place on college campuses across the nation over the last decade, even if we did not have any personal ties with any of the victims. Next, discussing restorative justice programs allowed me to think back on the social work program here at Ole Miss and how counseling and working to keep student offenders in school while having them recognize how they affected their victim(s) was interesting and informative. In addition, I used the topic to create a PowerPoint presentation in Contemporary Issues this semester. The conversations we had about speech restrictions was impressive because of the stories that Sparky told about his past experiences. Another hot topic we discussed was drug use on campus, which led to my discussion and some of my peers regarding medical marijuana and how campus officials and states will have to make important decisions in legalizing the drug to students who have doctor prescriptions. Two weeks ago Ole Miss and the nation celebrated "Green Week." My discussion was tailored to article regarding campus sustainability rankings. Finally, we discussed the transformation of the campus union/student center and viewed many different institutions new unions/centers and saw ways that they allocated funding through donations and student fees to fund the projects. Additionally, we discussed how unions/centers boost enrollment with hopes that Ole Miss will have a new union in a few years to come.

In sum, I have enjoyed interacting with my peers and listening to Sparky wonderful stories that have enlightened my knowledge of Topics in Student Affairs and the history of Ole Miss. I would recommend this class to anyone as it was recommended to me and I hope that it will be a model for other higher education courses in the future. It is definitely a different way to teach a class, while keeping students engaged and interested in the discussions. I wish all of you much success in your future endeavors and I have really enjoyed the class and my tenure at Ole Miss as a student. I look forward to touching the lives of others that I come in contact with and I plan to retire from this profession that I am very passionate about and love.

State of the Union

Has any American college not yet built a new student union? If so, it is probably interviewing architects at this moment. All across the country, from Bowdoin to Pomona, colleges are scrambling to renovate, expand, or replace aging student unions, with their battered billiard tables and subterranean TV lounges. The student union craze is upon us, and not even the stormy economy seems able to slow its eager advance.

The modern student union is a versatile breed. It might be a sprawling creation, lik the $75-million, 330,000 square-foot leviathan at the UMass at Boston http://www.umb.edu/campuscenter/ . Or a restrained and subtle affair, like the taut, 50,000 square-foot-building at Sweet Briar College, which cost only about $14-million http://www.dining.sbc.edu/p-index.html . But large or small, it is certain to contain a multistory atrium, cafe seating, and the obligatory food court.

History
This is not the first time that a new building type has spread from campus to campus. After the Civil War came a great wave of memorial auditioriums, built to honor fallen classmates. The 1920s clamored for football stadiums. Thse earlier booms were prompted by sweeping changes in the nature of student life and alumni identity. Our era-for better or worse- has embraced the student union. It speaks of our time...

Today
The essence of the modern student union is to be a recruiting instrument, a fact that pardons its many infelicities: its self-consciousness, its nervous unctuousness, its relentless transparency. It its character is shaped by the world of commerical architecture, that is because it is itself an advertisement. It is the principal highlight of the standard college tour, along with the fitness center. And it communicates exceptionally well. Directors of admissions note that a quick meal in the student center conveys more information about life at a college, and with more credibility, than the lengthiest formal presentation. There the visitor can observe at a glance how students act and interact, how they dress, their relative stress level, and how they relate to their professors.

The Modern Student Center
The modern student union also expresses startling changes in the nature of student life. Since the American campus was wired for computers, a process essentially completed a decade or so ago, studying is no longer a private affair of reading and typing, which involved prolonged and quiet concentration. Studying has become more intermittent, more gregarious, and more mobile. As workstations and terminals have been dispersed across the campus, the clear hierarchy between public and private spaces has dissolved. That, too, is written across the eloquent face of the modern student union - hospitable, industrious, and somewhat prone to insomnia. Smith College's new campus center is a splendid example of the type, a sinuous viaduct with glazed walls and skylight along its meandering spine http://www.smith.edu/campuscenter/ . It is not so much a building as a roofed-over street. "Imaginedd as an en-route passage through the campus, the building is defined by various interconnecting paths that challenge the boundary between inside and outside," says a description on Smith's Web site.

Student-Designed
If the student center increasingly caters to consumers, then consumers have shaped them return. No academic building has ever been subjected to as much student involvement. Students have played crucial roles on building committees, as is apparent on the large number of Web sites devoted to student-center projects. Some campus cents can even be said to be student-designed, to the extent that their functions were democratically chosen. Smith college, for example, surveyed students about what services the campus center should offer. The highest vote-getter was an ATM machine, far outstripping the bookstore, convenience store, and performance space that were the closest contenders.

The Future
The student-center building boom, at a conservative estimate, has already consumed several billion dollars. More will be spent in the coming years, recession or no recession, for those brash buildings have become indispensable. They bring to the staid campus all that is vital about commercial architecture: its energy, newness, and wide-awake readiness to face the demands of the present. But they bring, alas, the weaknesses of commercial architecture as well - superficiality, flimsiness, and a very limited shelf life. In their very swagger is a cringing insecurity, which is foreign to the plodding and deliberate way that campuses used to grow. The new student cente is a lovely object, and it speaks with unerring honesty about the college today.

http://www.chronicle.come/article/Forget-Classrooms-How-Big-/35303

Green Rankings Validity

In a recent article by The Chronicle of Higher Education, colleges and universities have become frustrated with green rankings and has pushed them to develop their own.

Colleges have been subjected to all sorts of ratings, rankings, and grades on their green sensibilities in recent years—and not all of them have been welcome. Sustainability directors increasingly find themselves filling out surveys from organizations like the Sustainable Endowments Institute, Sierra magazine, and the Princeton Review, each with its own twist on questions about energy use, mass transit, water conservation, and so on. The data collection is becoming a real burden, they say.

Now, in a recent letter to colleges, the Sustainable Endowments Institute has floated a proposal: How would you like to pay $700 for the pleasure of filling out a survey? That money would help the institute render a grade—it could be an A-minus, or maybe a D-plus—for its highly publicized College Sustainability Report Card.

These independent rating systems become more frustrating for administrators when their colleges get dismal scores—and it's not always clear how those scores are calculated. Two years ago, a researcher at Sierra revealed to The Chronicle that the magazine's ratings were assigned somewhat haphazardly, based on the impressions of staff members. While the magazine's editors say they have beefed up their methodology, Marian Brown, special assistant to the provost for sustainability at Ithaca, says she still wonders how those data might be graded or fairly compared against other colleges'. For example, the Sierra survey asks how many students drive to campus in cars.

"Great question," Ms. Brown says, "but I don't know if you figure out how meaningful that is if you're in an urban setting or a rural campus like ours. How is that percentage useful for anyone to know?"

All of those green ratings look even less enticing now that colleges have come up with their own rating system through the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, better known as Stars, made its official debut three months ago and already has about 130 institutions participating. It was developed by college sustainability experts through an extensive, collaborative process —in part to allow colleges to compare their progress with that of their peers, but also to take the place of the various sustainability ratings that have popped up in recent years. A Stars evaluation is valid for three years; Stars organizers say that timeline is meant to ease the pressure of data collection.

"From the way I see it, it's time for all of us to move on to Stars," says Gioia Thompson, sustainability director at the University of Vermont. She balks at the idea of paying for the SEI survey, which can take up to a week of her time to complete.

It's possible that independent rating systems like SEI bring a peculiar public pressure that forces change. The Stars system was conceived as a positive evaluation of college sustainability. Although the colleges will get an honest evaluation of their performance, which will be publicly available, the system won't engage in publicizing dismal scores for colleges that are coming up short, says Meghan Fay Zahniser, who manages the Stars program for AASHE.

That is one role that the Sustainable Endowments Institute does not shy away from. The institute has handed out a good number of C's, D's, and F's on its College Sustainability Report Card. Those scores have sometimes been picked up by newspaper columnists and environmental advocates, who then blast the poor-scoring colleges for slacking.

An interesting project would be to have a student led project with higher education students in conducting an assessment of Ole Miss by working with the Office of Sustainability and perhaps creating a student organization. (I am unaware if we have one currently). It is absurd to pay $700 to participate in a survey as many of the administrators also mentioned in the article, which should be conversely; especially when post-secondary institutions have been receiving C's, D's, and F's on their report card. I think it is a great idea for institutions to focus on saving energy especially when building new buildings. However, I am curious to know how many new facilities will be created with budget deficits institutions are facing. What are some initiatives Ole Miss is working on to produce a greener campus? The signs are admirable that hang from the poles, but are we as students, faculty, administrators, faculty, and staff doing enough? Check out the schedule of events for next week's Green Week @ Ole Miss

http://www.olemiss.edu/green/green_week.html

This article can be found at http://chronicle.com/article/Frustration-With-Green-Rank/65014/

Marijuana: The Second Most Popular Drug on Campus

While alcohol remains the drug of choice among college students, marijuana ranks number two with 32 percent reporting using marijuana in 2008. That's a modest decline from 2001, when 36 percent of college students reported marijuana use (Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2008, Volume II, College Students & Adults Age 19-50, National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2009). But will a trend toward liberalization of marijuana laws, including increases in the number of states passing or considering medical marijuana bills, lead to increased marijuana availability, higher levels of use, and more problems for students?

What Science Tells Us

While levels of marijuana use by students are determined through a number of national and local surveys, no national samples have been drawn to compare use in states with and without such laws. James Lange, director of Alcohol and Other Drug Initiatives for San Diego State University, points out that there have been no published descriptions on the impact of medical marijuana laws on the use of marijuana by college students, even though over a dozen states now have some form of medical marijuana. Therefore, Lange and his colleague Julie Croff conducted a survey at a large southwestern university and found that 37.5 percent of students reported marijuana use, and of those 5.1 percent had a “medical recommendation” for their use.

Campus Dilemma When It Comes to Medical Marijuana

Just because medical marijuana may be legal in some states, college students with a doctor’s prescription may not be allowed to smoke it on campus. For example, on Dec. 16, 2009, campus administrators at Fort Lewis College decided to forbid the use or possession of medical marijuana anywhere on campus and to treat it no differently than alcohol and illicit drugs. But at one point, after Colorado voters effectively legalized medical marijuana in November 2000, campus officials said that the rule governing medical marijuana use was the same as for tobacco, which permits smoking on campus, but not in residence halls.

The Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec. 17, 2009) wrote: “If colleges appear confused about the finer points of medical-marijuana law, that’s understandable. Plenty of drugs are legally prescribed and frequently abused on college campuses—the psychostimulants sold as Ritalin and Adderall are just a couple—but marijuana’s reputation precedes it. Students were rolling it up and smoking it long before 14 states, including Colorado, passed laws allowing their citizens to use marijuana for its health benefits.”

In an October 23, 2009, press conference, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director R. Gil

Kerlikowske said, “Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama

Administration. … Regarding state ballot initiatives concerning “medical” marijuana, I believe that medical questions are best decided not by popular vote, but by science. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which studies and approves all medicines in the United States, has made very clear that the raw marijuana plant is not medicine, and any state considering medical marijuana should look very carefully at what has happened in California.”

More States Considering Medical Marijuana Bills

More states are considering medical marijuana legislation. Currently, in at least five states lawmakers and activists are pushing forward with new medical marijuana laws.

In Virginia, two bills have been introduced in its House of Delegates. One would allow possession of marijuana by patients with a valid marijuana prescription and would protect from prosecution doctors and pharmacists who prescribe or dispense marijuana for patients. The second bill would decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana (unrelated to medical use), making it a fine-only offense.

In South Dakota medical marijuana advocates have gathered more than twice the number of voter signatures needed to get a medical marijuana measure on the ballot in November that would allow for possession of up to one ounce by qualified patients. Maryland lawmakers are considering a bipartisan medical marijuana bill that would allow possession and use by qualified patients. Currently, Maryland law only provides for an affirmative defense to possession if arrested, but does not preclude a criminal conviction. In addition, lawmakers in Missouri and Alabama have also introduced medical marijuana bills that would allow patients with certain medical conditions to use marijuana to alleviate their symptoms.

Policy Implications for Campuses

San Diego State University’s James Lange and Julie Croff believe that anecdotal reports point to medical marijuana as increasingly an issue for campus life. In a presentation at the California Higher Education Alcohol & Other Drugs Education Conference in Long Beach, Calif. (April 2008), they said that the top reasons that students gave in their survey (see above) for using medical marijuana were for insomnia and anxiety and that a marijuana specialist was the most likely source of the recommendation. Use of medical marijuana for conditions such as these may be indicative of “gaming” the system.

“ Even if all medical marijuana use by students is wholly justified, the presence of marijuana may be disruptive and run afoul of campus policies. It is therefore important that each campus make explicit its medical marijuana policy,” explained Lange and Croff.

What is Ole Miss stance on medical marijuana?

We often read and hear about students using marijuana on college campuses and the nation, how can student affairs administrators tackle this issue? Should Mississippi allow citizens to possess an ounce and not be penalized as other states mentioned above are considering?

Since our class is being taught by Dean of Students Dr. Sparky Reardon it is interesting to know his stance on this issue. Sparky has there been conversation amongst administrators regarding medical marijuana?

This is a topic that campus officials must address and find ways to accommodate students who may have permission to take the drug because of health issues. Hopefully, students will not sell it as they have prescriptions filled. It will be interesting see how this trend develops at the state and national levels. With so many Mississippians being fined for an ounce or less of marijuana, why not legalize it and find ways to make money from it to boost the state's revenue? Would this be a bad decision? Medical marjuana and its fight to become legalized across the nation will surely attract a lot of supporters, who more than likely are users of it. Personally, I can't say if its a good or bad thing, but definitely if a person has more than an ounce. However if it is legalized, I'm afraid of how much it can detrimental to college campuses by causing problems. Let's all monitor this issue in the years to come.

The article can be found at: http://www.higheredcenter.org/files/factsheets/march2010.pdf

Speech Restrictions

In an article posted by Inside Higher Education, a proposed policy at Northeastern Illinois University would require protesters to submit copies of fliers and signs to administrators two weeks before bringing them on the campus, sparking criticism from free speech advocates.

The policy, introduced more than a year after two students were arrested while protesting CIA recruiters on campus, is intended to clarify university rules - not to stifle speech, according to Sharon Hahs, president of the university. The university, she explains wants to keep a record of materials distributed on campus, but does not intend to prevent lawful demonstrations. She states the university administrators are addressing potential security concerns; particularly in the wake of recent shootings on college campuses. Hahs said administrators are "expected to know" about activities on university grounds.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) called the policy "blatantly unconstutional." John Wilson, a blogger at collegefreedom.org and author of Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, agrees, and states its really over the top and he hasn't seen anything so restrictive at a public university before.

In addition, the policy forbids demonstrations in particular buildings and limits protests to particular hours. Both restrictions, however, can be lifted in certain cases, according to the policy. Has goes on to say the university's career fair has "acquired a reputation as a contentious and inhospitable enviornment," has been sparsely attended because employers and military recruiters expect to be heckled by protesters. She states she would be open to protesters demonstrating outside the event, but that the university needs a policy that will prevent protesters from disrupting the event itself.

As university administrators are faced with protests of all sorts, I feel the method Northeastern Illinois University does not violate students free speech rights. They are simply being proactive in knowing what protesters plan to distribute to the campus community. In other words, the administrators want to be mindful of what is planned during the protest. In relation to the protests during the career fair events, I feel those should not be allowed inside as Dr. Has mentioned. It is very disrespectful to have protesters inside an event of such sort while other students are seeking employment and/or intership opportunities. If you were a student affairs administrator, would you support Dr. Has new policy at Northeastern Illinois University?

Colleges Combat to Educate Student Offenders

According to restorativejustice.org, restorative justice emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime. When victims, offenders, and community members meet to decide how to do that, the results can be transformational. Honestly, I have heard of such programs, but not at the collegiate level. In the article written by The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled With Restorative Justice, Colleges Strive to Educate Student Offenders," examines different institutions that conduct such programs to rehabilitate their students.

One example in the article pertains to a student who got so drunk one night that he didnt know what happened to him until he read his police report. His spree, he discovered, had included passing out in a family's front yard, scuffling with the father, and cursing at and fighting with police officers. The student was charged with felony assault and is serving two years' probation, taking alcohol-management classes, and performing 160 hours of community service around town. A student-conduct program at Colorado State, the student says, has given him more of chance to make ammends.

In a campus hearing, the student accepted responsibility for underage drinking and other offenses, and a conduct officer proposed the sanction of "restorative justice." Agreeing to it meant that, the student met with the family and the police officers from that night. He listened to their accounts of the incident, apologized, and worked out an agreement to "pay it forward," he stated. As part of the deal he will talk to students in the neighborhood about drinking responsibility and volunteer to drive for the university's RamRide program, which provides students safe rides home. The students stated the restorative-justice conference allows you take responsibility and learn from it while allowing you to see how powerful it is when you affect people.

Student-conduct administrators (i.e., dean of students, judicial offices, and etc.) around the country are hailing restorative justice as the next big thing. A blend of mediation and restitution, it seeks to resolve a conflict by identifying the harms caused and devising, with suggestions from both victims and offenders, an agreement to repair them. That approach to discipline grabs campus officials who carry the banner of student development. Restorative justice not only offers an alternative to the legalistic conduct systems colleges now shun; it also resonates with so many mission statements about personal growth and community.

A study this fall will examine whether restorative justice works on college campuses. In my opinion, I think its vital that institutions have these programs to help students learn from their mistakes depending on the situation and severity. Support groups that are discussed in this article are also important in rehabilitating the student and allowing them to share their experience(s) with others. This is definitely a hot topic in Student Affairs!

The Response to a Shattered Department at UA-Huntsville

This is week's blog entails school shootings and campus violence. A recent devastating shooting took place on February 12th at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in the biology departments faculty meeting. Was it an active shooter or student? No, but a faculty member herself. This has left millions of Americans stunned over such an incidence. According to reports, Amy Bishop, an assistant professor of biology who was upset over a denial of tenure, showed up at the faculty conference armed with a 9-millimeter handgun. After sitting quietly in the meeting for a short period of time, she purportedly stood and started suddenly blasting away at her stunned colleagues—human targets who may have been implicated, at least in her mind, in her failed tenure bid.

The loss for their families, students, friends, and loved ones have my deepest sympathy for such a tragic loss. What's next for the department and students? The offers, from faculty members at the other two campuses in the University of Alabama system, are clearly welcome. A similar incidence happened at the University of Arizona in 2002, where a student gunned down three nursing professors. It's extremely rare for violence to affect multiple professors in a single department. Departments must meet near-term challenges (such as covering classes or finding new advisers for students) and challenges that emerge further down the line, such as recruiting new faculty members. In the Arizona incidence, students returned to class a week later and college received amazing support from nurses across the country and from the university medical center, where several clinicians covered their nursing courses.

Finding a way to cover classes may be one of the earliest and easiest problems for Huntsville to solve. But other issues are likely to arise such as helping graduate students and undergraduates left without advisers and research mentors to adjust or even receive letters of recommendation from professors whom have known them well. Additionally, committee work in the department is also likely to grind to a halt for now, and when it resumes its going to be hard to take on that on in the face of that tragedy.

As days and weeks go by, a first response during departmental meetings will more than likely include asking how is everyone doing. I can see it definitely being difficult on everyone during meetings by recapturing the incident that took place that took the lives of their colleagues. The counseling center should be utilized by the departmental faculty, staff, students, and even the families.

Rebuilding the biological-sciences department at Huntsville will also mean hiring new faculty members. The tragedy may make the the task uncomfortable at first, but other universities have found that applicants are not deterred. Its an overwhelming process, but it has to be taken one step at a time. The main focus right now is the memorial service and supporting the victims' families at their time of bereavement. The plans for the future is to try to rebuild the department in the months ahead.

As student affairs administrators, how can we protect our students from our very own employees? What campus safety policies are in effect at your institution to combat against tragedies such as this?

References:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Task-Ahead-Rebuilding-a/64213/

http://chronicle.com/article/Tenurethe-Workplace/64197/