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/

Expulsion??? but no due process...

For the second time Bighamton's Social Work Department has brought allegations against students who share different viewpoints than the department faculty. One would think, is this a violation of the individual's First Amendment rights of freedom of speech? Let's take a closer look at the allegations. A student from Canada enrolled in their MSW program was expelled without knowing why, much less having a chance to properly defend himself against the nebulous allegations. In one classroom incident the student mentioned above to his professor that "he should be careful when he starts his car," after the professor had asked students what format did they want their midterm to be, but later after a consensus was reached the professor told them the actual exercise was their exam and he joked about the students "coming after him after class." In the second incident the student had told the class a past experience related to a class discussion regarding using a pick-axe to hit a chair for having his pay docked. This prompted fellow students to report to the professor that they felt uncomfortable and threatened.

The university took all of its complaints seriously and an investigation was launched. Additionally the student and professor was questioned and the professor had confirmed the second incident was apart of a class discussion therefore, the university policy closed the case and so did the Office of Student Conduct. However, the student was interrogated later by the Advancement Committee for the program and was recommended against his advancement (i.e., continuation in the program) that there "appears... to be a significant discrepancy, at times, between the purported intention of his verbal behavior and the ways in which his verbal communications are perceived by others." The student had to return home to Canada with no degree, a lot of debt, and many unanswered questions.

This story makes me think about things that I may say in my classes or at work. I feel the Advancement Committee took this situation to another level. Simply relating a past life experience and following along with a professor's joke, clearly should not impose of one's free speech rights. Due process is a law within the Fourteenth Amendment applicable to the states in which an individual has the right to a fair hearing and right to appeal a decision. In this case, the student was not able to appeal therefore, his due process and rights to free speech were both violated. As the second time a student has had an encounter with the Social Work department, it goes on to say that the department has some internal issues that needs to be addressed with the assistance of an outside entity. I have to ask the question, should students monitor their responses in classes to not make others feel threatened or uncomfortable? Should students not convey personal situations in class discussions? How does this affect student learning and applying conversation to practical experiences? I hope anything of this sort does not affect other college campuses. This situation was taken to the extreme and the student could have at least been referred to the university counseling center but he was not causing any harm to anyone but I see the department and students thought differently. As student affairs professionals how do we make our students feel safe in the classroom while acknowledging feedback from others? Participating in classroom discussions makes me wonder... should students not convey personal stories to their peers to protect themselves from expulsion or was this another situation where the department did not like the student?

College Students and Civic Engagement

Are colleges promoting civic engagement as apart of their curriculums to students today? In a report released by AACU, a group that promotes liberal education on Sept. 20, 2009 states colleges are not promoting civic engagement nearly as strongly as their students, faculty members, and administrators believe they should be.

When it comes to colleges' promotion of social responsibility , there exists "a troubling gap on campus between aspiration and actuality, " concludes the report, based on a survey of about 24,000 students and 9,000 faculty members, academic administrators, and student-affairs professionals at 23 colleges.

While nearly half of students surveyed strongly agreed that they had come to college aware of the importance of contributing to the greater good of society, only about a third felt strongly that the campus had helped them learn the skills they needed to change society for the better or that their commitment to improve society had grown there, the report says.

Moreover, the gap between the civic education students desire and what they actually receive appears to widen as they progress through their undergraduate years, with seniors being substantially less likely than freshmen to believe their institution is promoting the goal of contributing to the community.

While nearly three-fourths of the campus professionals surveyed strongly felt that getting students to contribute to the larger community should be a major focus of their institutions, fewer than half saw doing so as a top institutional priority.

Caryn McTighe Musil, senior vice president of the AACU, said the report's findings "really reveal for higher education that we need to walk the walk" when it comes to promoting the civic education of students. "We have to provide an array of opportunities for them, and we don't," she said.

George L. Mehaffy, vice president for academic leadership and change at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the leader of an effort by that group to promote civic education, said the AACU report suggests that colleges are much more effective in promoting civic engagement in freshman general-education courses than they are in the classes that students take later on, as part of their majors. Colleges need to do more to promote community involvement throughout the curriculum, and not merely as a separate activity, he said, adding, "It is important for all of us who are involved in this work to take this report seriously."

The promotion of civic engagement is widely seen on campuses as a key learning goal, and that some programs and activities appear to be succeeding in making students more community-focused.

Courses that require community engagement and student organizations with service components both seem to make a significant dent in promoting civic involvement, the survey found. Students who prayed or meditated, or interacted with faculty members outside of class, were substantially more likely than others to report a sense of being involved with the community.

Campus professionals at research institutions reported the biggest gap between aspiration and reality. Nearly 75 percent strongly agreed that contributing to the community should be a major focus of their institutions, but only about 42 percent strongly agreed that it actually was.

What's Next?

Colleges and campus professionals may implement civic engagement through service-learning projects, internships/practicums, student organizations, and etc. Civic engagement is also a vital resource that helps students build their resumes. Particularly at my institution, civic engagements is seen in a variety of capacities (i.e. student organizations., Greek Life, academic departments, athletics, staff council, and etc.) Being involved within the community as college students is vital to the learning process that allows the development of leadership traits, networking, philanthropy, character, and social and interpersonal skills to name a few. As student affairs professionals and academic advisors, it is important that we instill in our students the importance of participating within the campus and local communities. From reading the report found on this study, it brings to mind are colleges instilling in their students to be active in their community? Are students focusing more on academics today than before? Are students who were active while in high school more prone to be active in college? These questions may provide student affairs administrators evidence of their student bodies involvement within the broader community.