Shaping the Future of New York

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/26/two-colleges-what-happens-when-protesters-obstruct-free-speech

This article discusses how the administration of DePaul University tried to stop a student’s speech while he was voicing his grievances against the school. This speech sparked a protest which resulted in the event being shut down. The student, Milo Yiannopolous, was giving a speech bashing topics such as feminism, and the transgender movement. This event sparked anger and discomfort among the crowd and the event got out of hand. Protestors stated that this student had engaged them in hateful speech before and made students feel unwelcome. The article also captures the story of six Jewish students who attend the university. They were in a room and were watching a movie called Beneath the Helmet which told the story of five Israeli soldiers and their sacrifices in the line of duty. People were protesting the students watching the movie. The aggression was quite evident because the students were apparently screaming and belligerent and resulted in one of the students, Lisa Armony, calling the police. When the police arrived, and attempted to ease the altercation, the students finished the movie. This protest should never have happened. A simple movie should not be the cause of such disagreement between students. Both of these students believe in free speech but they have two different ideologies.

I believe hate speech and racism needs to be ended. There is really no reason for me to hate any other person simply because of the color of their skin. They are people just like us and people should not be categorized as different just because they are from a different country or believe in a different religion. Freedom of speech should be limited when it threatens the safety of the students, not when the students want to promote equality. Students who are hateful towards other races tend to be more hostile and as a result, letting them do what they want against other students just allows them to be bullies. In a college or university, people from all over the world are attending in order to gain an education. People should not be discriminated against especially in the cultural melting pot that is higher education.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/spellings-says-unc-system-wont-try-to-enforce-controversial-bathroom-law/111714

This is a very interesting article about a professor who enrolls as an undercover student at the school he taught at. Mike Cross, who taught chemistry at Northern Essex Community College for six years enrolled as a student to see how students handle all their work. He already had a PhD in chemistry, but he wanted to get his associate degree in liberal arts. He wanted to experience the full college experience himself, all up to getting his own degree.

After this experience, the professor says that he was able to empathize with students a lot more. He understood what goes through their mind when they’re doing work and trying to graduate. He mentions that he was able to understand what goes through students’ minds when they are late for class, or even want to skip class. It was also awkward when he ran into his own previous students in his classes. He was able to fix his teaching with this learning experience. He learned that certain classes have uncomfortable chairs/desks, and when he was being a teacher, he would use this empathy when seeing kids squirm in their uncomfortable chairs. He also made sure to write an appropriate size so that kids in the back of the class could read, which was something he didn’t really care about before. The students, when they learned what he did, really appreciated the work he put in to empathize with students.

I feel that this is something all teachers should do. There are many teachers who don’t empathize with how students feel because they don’t know, and they act accordingly. If teachers knew what students go through, they may be able to fix their teaching.  They would be able to empathize with the issues that students go through, and this would allow them to fix any issues that students may have with them. This article was extremely interesting to read, and I was especially able to appreciate what this professor did. I think all of you guys should read this and appreciate what he did as well.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/spellings-says-unc-system-wont-try-to-enforce-controversial-bathroom-law/111714

This article states how University of North Carolina is going against a state government law requiring transgender people to use bathrooms according to their birth gender. This is quite a controversial decision on their part and it serves as a progressive example of how society as a whole is changing. LGBTQ people are slowly becoming more and more accepted into society even while there are forces standing against them. The University of North Carolina had previously agreed to enforce these laws however; but, their student body was completely against it. People have been rioting against the law and it has become serious enough to warrant a few arrests. However, in the city’s defense, the article states that this law is constituted to protect transgender people from discrimination in bathrooms.

In my opinion, they should not enforce the law because this is a private matter that a government should not interfere in. Transgender people do not want to be treated any different than how the everyone else is. If transgender people want to go in the bathrooms they associate with in terms of gender, they should be allowed to. If someone told me I had to use a girl’s bathroom for the rest of my life, I would definitely feel different. Transgender people are forced to do that every single day against their will which should be unacceptable. However, I also understand the perspective that the government is playing because they are saying that is is about safety rather than discrimination. This could potentially decrease the amount of hate crimes concerning transgender people in the area. However, there is a possibility that the people there are generally conservative and not accept people who are different. In the end, there are bigger issues to focus on, people should simply be accepted for who they are so that society can simply get along better. If people united, it would increase general happiness for the people who live there. In higher education, this would lead to better views among future generations who are going to run the world eventually. This would also lead to a better college experience. When students in college are able to empathize and understand situations like these, and then form an opinion with justice, it helps make society a better environment to live in.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/27/arkansas-single-parents-scholarship-helps-pay-living-expenses

This article is about a fund in Arkansas that helps single mothers who need support for going to school. Amanda Codon is a 27 year old mother with 3 kids. She is going back to school after she dropped out when she was 20, because she had 2 kids at the time. She also needs to work full-time in order to support her kids and go to school, and she barely has any time in the day to have free time, and she works really hard to support herself her kids, herself, and her tuition. She gets some financial aid but it doesn’t help.

However, she applies to the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund, and this fund is able to not only support her tuition, but it also supports the daily living of herself and her kids. This fund really helped out a lot, as Amanda didn’t need to work full-time to support herself. She is able to use this time in order to take care of her kids and also go to school, and study more. Hilary Clinton really supports this fund, and she’s planning to spread this charity out on a National Level. Arkansas is one of the only states that provides something like this, so spreading it out nationally would help single college mothers all over the country. Hilary’s campaign would be called SPARK (Student Parents in America Raising Kids). The money used to pay for it would come from her New College Compact.

I think this program is extremely helpful to single mothers, as they really need this type of support. This article gave me the ability to empathize with Amanda, and I fully understand why she needs this type of support. I support Hilary’s decision to spread this out to the world. Amanda needs her degree so that she can get a better job, and have a much easier time supporting herself and her kids. I hope that this change also leads to other types of change that need to take place, including teenage college students, and even senior citizen college students.

 

            In an interview with SUNY’s chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, Ian Wilhelm attempts to get to the root of the problem with unprepared college students. Students who enter college straight out of high school are typically lacking in motivation and adaptive skills necessary to a successful undergraduate career. However, this interview also mentions students who are simply not as exceptional as schools in the SUNY system prefer. Rather than pointing finger at the K-12 system and demanding better students, Zimpher hopes to collaborate with them by training teachers to become better educators and advisors. Excuse me? Isn’t that simply sugarcoating their previous allegations? True, there may be educators who are not dedicated or qualified enough to prepare their students for college, but the exact problem lies in the overall education system, not simply in incompetent teachers.

            I draw upon Nel Noddings’ “An Ethic of Caring and Its Implication for Instructional Arrangements” that I read for one of my education courses to argue my stance:

“If it is not already obvious, let me say explicitly that I think university educators and researchers are part of the problem. Our endless focus on narrow achievement goals, our obsession with sophisticated schemes of evaluation and measurement directed naturally enough) at things that are relatively easy to measure, our reinforcement of the mad desire to be number one- to compete, to win awards, to acquire more and more of whatever is currently valued- in all these ways to contribute to the proliferation of problems and malaise” (Noddings, 226).

         Many blame teachers when children do not do well on tests, or when they seem to not be learning or on par with their classmates and others their age. However, teachers are only following the curriculum. If the system dictates that teachers must meet a quota, then this places teachers in a difficult situation. As a prospective educator, this is also my concern. I want to teach my students to be motivated, caring, and hard-working future leaders, but the system tells me that this is not enough, and this is not the way to cultivate the American mind. Instead, they say our children should fight to be at top, but these administrators and politicians do not realize this is only harming the children and placing the future of America in peril. Rather than stressing school readiness in preschool and academic excellence in elementary school, the K-12 system should promote an encouraging learning environment by placing emphasis on creative thinking and personal growth. Children who are exposed to an environment that values abstract and critical thinking earlier on will have the capacity to succeed in college, which is more or less a forum for active discussion and debate. Remove the adherence to standardized tests and rules, and focus on discovering the child’s potential instead.

http://chronicle.com/article/Video-Owning-the-K-12/236400

To answer my own question, no, but I do hope there is. This ties into the long-held belief of the “Asian Advantage”, a myth with racial implications. Asian Americans as a population have long been underrepresented in the United States’ social justice system; only recently did individuals begin to take a more active role in raising and spreading awareness of the micro-aggression that Asian Americans experience on a daily basis. Part of this micro-aggression happens right on the college campus, and sometimes even before getting to college. Admissions offices across the nation hope to diversify their respective campuses by accepting students of various backgrounds. However, Asian American students are often thrown under the bus for the generalized misconception that the entire population is high-achieving and therefore, must become exceptional in order to be considered, much less secure a seat in the prospective college.

I believe strongly in equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, and in an era when racial tensions continue rising, this should apply to college admissions as well. Asian Americans should be subjected to equal treatment, and not have to rely on an inflated average or the excess of extracurricular activities to put them on a level playing field. This also ties into the model minority myth, which is debilitating to the Asian Americans who are not as “outstanding” as they are perceived by the general public. There is no one single type of Asian American; we are different in the same way members other racial groups are unique. I am proud of my culture and heritage, not of someone’s wrongly held belief of my race.

As Hrishikesh Joshi says about the Fisher v. University of Texas case, “it is hard to see how giving a boost to white applicants relative to Asians is defensible in light of America’s historical and cultural context.” As a member of a historically underrepresented race, I too find it difficult to support Fisher’s claims. Using the argument of social justice to justify her case is simply hypocritical, considering her privileged background. True, I may be biased towards my own race, but I do believe affirmative action is fair and necessary in every way; what it does is simply take reality and apply it to the college campus. American whites are not the only ones walking the streets of American cities, so why should they be the only ones walking across the campuses of American schools?

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/05/13/elite-colleges-should-not-penalize-asian-applicants-essay