The Experience

Is this really our last blog? Well, I am not going to try to get emotional but I just realized that this was one of the better learning experiences in my entire education. I can honestly say that I have learned far more useful things than anything involved in my undergrad. It was not the type of learning that I am used to, however. I can really see how the format of the class can be very impactful and successful in letting students learn about meaningful topics. And, it was as simple as writing blogs on a certain topic and coming in to discuss about them. There are so many viewpoints and it was very refreshing to hear them all from the class as well as hearing the amazing stories from our leader, Sparky. What a great class and I want to thank you Sparky. I also wanted to thank the rest of the class for enlightening me on your personal experiences and opinions. This is a great way to not only learn about the people surrounding you, but the way they feel about the program that your in. We are in the business of developing students and I now have a greater understanding in what it takes to impact the lives of students and specifically college students.

So, what did I learn about in this class? Well, what didn't I learn about in this class? First and foremost, I was introduced to this thing called blogging. This is a great way to express opinions and concerns that an individual is feeling or thinking. I believe that this saved so much time and energy than actually writing a paper every week. Also, this was more of a conversational aspect of learning, which made the atmosphere in the class very comfortable. Again, I want to thank Sparky for letting the class be as low key as possible with the greatest amount of education and learning. We learned about today's college student where I focused my discussion on the motivation of a student actually doing their part to get an education. My experience was somewhat different than most college students as I was blessed to have giving the opportunity to have the full time job of being a student athlete. So in turn, I was very interested in hearing some of the stories from different students. With that, I was amazed with the stories that have developed in Sparky's carreer. With this topic, I really wondered about the motivation that students had for going to class. For me, this was not an option as I was forced to do alot of things. I enjoyed hearing about the freedoms that students had and how they handled it. We then dived into the issue of free speech on campuses. The most interesting thing about this discussion was that aminstrators such as Sparky, are forced into letting certain people or groups have their way in this particular topic. It is something that is very real because it is the law. I went into the technology side of this discussion and wrote about the regulations that website had with students from many different colleges posting about their college or different students on a website. I wrote about the workshops and the overall encouragement for students to stray away from this nasty situation. I wanted to know the limits of free speech and the right to harm others vocally and on the internet.

The next topic really hit home for me as I don't understand how individuals can have a certain mindset and actually want to do something as terrible as shootings in schools. I remember the discussion we had on this matter and it is something that is very real in our society. We talked about prevention methods as well the way these individuals go about doing something like this. I mentioned Columbine High School and how the day of their massecre was described in detail on the internet. The events are described to the minute of that terrible day. How do we prevent something like this from happening and what steps need to be made on informing others what to do if something like this ever happens? The next week, we had a deep discussion on restorative justice and how we are looking to move foward in this process. Honestly, I wasn't aware of this process and was very much enlightened when we discussed about the approaches of going about punishing students in a way that is meaningful for them as well as the victims of their wrong doings. I looked at this topic in an athletic viewpoint and posed the question of when is enough, enough. We looked at student protests where I considered the tuition costs rising in the state of California and more specifically, the University of California. We found that student protests are as successful as the Adminstrators reactions to it. We found that there are certain limitations regarding this issue and is something that needs to be looked at the more our economy goes down.

We then looked at the spiritual side of Universities and talked about faith of many students and the impact of secular campuses. We looked at their challenges as people tend to believe what they want to believe and might not be taught in the college of their choice. I know this was certainly true for me as I went to the same Christian school my entire life and was taught something extremely different in college than what I knew my entire life. This happened as soon as I stepped foot in Geology 101 for my first class, freshman year. I looked at two approaches for professors to go about teaching class in this area. Banishment and Confrontation are the two approaches where a teacher is given the choice of teaching something without regard to certain individuals and their beliefs or if they should let the student have some sort of say so. We then moved into the idea of sex and drugs on campuses. In this blog, I talked mainly on the drugs that we see every day in college and some prevention methods. I talked about how students are very free when they reach this type of atmosphere away from there parents and what they grew up knowing. I gave the many types of drugs and ways of preventing the misuse of them in my opinion, of course. We went to "Greenville" and discussed the many inovations of colleges actually going green. We looked at many different ways that would be the best improvement into letting students know about this situation. Personally, I talked about disadvantages as well as the inovations that I see working. A great learning experience indeed as we are seeing this issue spread very rapidly today. We followed it up with the student unions and how they should be a major part of a college students lives.

So as far as I am concerned, I found out what Sparky thinks about every day of his life. I found this class very useful and meaningful in what I plan on doing with my life. Again, I wanted to thank all of you and especially you, Sparky for making this experience as enjoyable as possible for me with the satisfaction of learning all about the current issues and great events and situations that involve being an adminstrator in the college atmosphere

Greenville

Going Green is something that is obviously spreading on college campuses today. If I look back to when I started college, I never heard or saw anything that resembled the programs and inovations that are being created today. With that being said, people and more specifically students are doing there part in increasing the effort to "Go Green." As I have seen on our campus, we are doing what I think is a large part in the effort of going green. An example of this would be the bags that were being handed out all over campus about a month ago. I was riding around in the Outreach golf cart running errand when I was bombarded with people giving out these Quizno coupons as well as a canvas feeling bag that is obviously recycleable. This bag was for nothing more than a few small items but made alot of sense to me as we are using so much unnecessary material little things.

So this would be the first step to going green. In the yerby center, there are two rooms with trash cans used for nothing else but plastic bottles. Others are used for nothing but cans. This is a major inovation that has proven to work for a number of years. I find myself throwing a coke can away in a normal trash can while looking over to the one used for cans only. I immediately make the conscious effort of throwing that can away in the proper area. The same goes for newspapers. There is an area where you can throw you newspapers away. Recycling goes far beyond paper, newspapers or plastic bottles at a college campus. there are actually many items that can be recycled on a college campus. this is especially true for technological products, such as computers, computer disks and printer cartridges. Light bulbs and batteries are just two of many items which need to be changed fairly frequently that can also be recycled on a college campus. Anything that can be recycled on a college campus should be recycled. this is one of the easiest and most important things that can be done on a college campus to go green. janitors should be given reminders about recycling and recycling bins should be placed in convenient locations all over campus.

Aside from the many offices on campus, the going green effort can be taken to the dining halls of college campuses. From what I have seen, one of the easiest ways of of this matter is for dining services to purchase their produce from local farmer's markets and to be organic. Obviously recycling cups, utensils, and plates would be an easy adjustment. Coffee is probably the most popular drink without alchohol and is served should be served in compostable products. Lastly, the detergents that are used to clean all of these items can be purchased in an environmentally friendly way.

Some obvious disadvantages of this would be that there are so many students living in a small area that it is hard to control their recycling habits. College campus are usually in cities where these students are forced to be crammed. Now probably not all students do this, I am going to assume that most students deal with a ton of gargage and are not able to do their part in a conservative recycling campaingne.

More invations are the public transits driving across campuses. This in my opinion is especially effective which keeps students from actually taking their cars to campuses. I believe that this is a great way to becoming more eco friendly and should be free to users. With that said, I have been seeing more and more bicycle riders on campus.
These are the main invovations in todays world.

The freedom, prevention, and types of drugs on college campuses

Let's face it, drugs are on college campuses across the country. They have been a major problem for a long time. For students on many different campuses, drugs can be looked at in many different ways. Drugs can be as simple as an experiment or as a lifestyle for many individuals that are enrolled in college. How do drugs come into the lives of these individuals? What are the temptations? Well from research, the majority of it talks about how a student has a sort of new freedom when entering college. These students finally realize the freedom when exiting the confines of their parents. Whether it be moving to a college in another state, or in an individual's home town, these students obviously feel that they are old enough to make decisions without the consent of their parents. So, I am going to talk about freshmen. They are just getting out of high school where their lifestyle has been somewhat planned with activities and extracurricular situations not found in college. The college atmosphere brings out a new lifestyle.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 35% of the new freshmen population will comprise the bulk of new drug users and potential drug abusers on college campuses. This statistic shows that the incomers are prone to "experiment" with something that has not been available to them in years past. Drug tests are expensive but effective in my opinion. Just the simple fact of knowing that you might be tested will do good in the minds of these students. I can not imagine being a parent right now with a child in college. Just thinking about what he or she does and does not do in their spare time drives me crazy. So I would propose that Universitys somehow educate parents the preventions of drug use. This could be a start. Also, for any scholarship sponsored, greek affiliated students, student athlete, ROTC, and any other student that is apart of a program in college should be tested in some sort of way prior to joining the program or accepting of aid. Again, I know they are expensive but should be neccesary.

"And rightfully so considering the fact that 43% of the overall college student body has either tried or is currently addicted to at least one of the top ten drugs found on college campus.

I found the list of the types of drug abuse on college campuses.

Alcohol would be the widest known type of drug. "The most prominent effect of alcohol is dependency and according to national statistics 15% of college freshmen are alcoholics or enrolled in an AA program ending their freshman year."

"Stimulants or uppers are both abundant and widely used among college students and are probably of the most volatile of the drugs available on college campuses. Most college students who abuse stimulants do it to avoid sleep and study for long periods of time but other reasons can include increased energy, heightened sexual stimulation and to lose weight." The most serious conditions that rise from stimulants are strokes, convulsions, and heart attacks. The four main stimulants are ampetamines, methamphetamines, sexual stimulants, cocaine, hallucinogens, and marijuana.

"Aside from alcohol, nearly 65% of student drug abusers smoke or otherwise imbibe in marijuana. Marijuana can be mixed with other controlled substances also commonly used on college campus."

Finally, I wanted to say something about steroids on college campuses. I see this more and more. It is not hard to tell if someone has been using steroids. Being in athletics, I use to see it pretty much everyday. Even in high school. These drugs are usually bought from somewhere outside our country. Or, at least made out of the country. This was definately not something that I was interested in. However, it was very present. Again, I saw this early on in college which backs up these stats above. Mostly when I was a freshmen, I either saw guys in my class or sophmores doing it from my school or just guys I knew from other schools. They had their parent's money and nothing else to do with it but buy these things. Any how, this was about the time when tests were really starting to be enforced. This put the thought in people's minds they might actually get caught. This was a good start because I rarely saw it when becoming an upper classman. Testing works and should be started early in my opinion.