Enhancing Campus Climates for Diversity

Research has found that a campus' climate negatively affects students of color. There was a longitudinal study of Latino students, for instance, that "perceptions of racial tension in the first year had a negative effect on academic and psychological adjustment" in the rest of their college career.
With such repercussions, campus climate is an important component of study when searching for solutions to the lack of informal interactions of diversity.

Campus climate is made up of internal and external factors. The internal factors stem from an institution's history of discrimination, or lack thereof against people of color, its structural diversity, and its psychological and behavioral climate. Psychological climates are the attitudes students hold for other races while behavioral climate is the actual intergroup friendships. Since people are found to be most affected by their friends, the psychological climate is most affected by the fact that most people do not have cross-group friends. The external factors are involved with governmental involvement, such as legal decisions on segregation and affirmative action, and the sociohistoric influences, such as current events that bring issues of race and ethnicity to the forefront.

Some solutions or methods to alleviate the issues campus climate perpetuates are to create and execute culturally educational programs that address stereotypes and myths about other sub-groups, to have clear policies set in place to manage racial issues when they arise, to regularly monitor the climate in an effort to maintain a good campus climate, to ensure culture organizations are adequately funded and staffed, to find staff that would professionally support students of color, to oblige students to make peer groups with people of differences in class, and to raise faculty's awareness of their racial biases and how this affects students. Other possible solutions or methods of alleviation include clearly expressing the expectation, based on the university's high value of diversity, that students engage with people different from them along with providing students with on-going safe environments to do so where all participants are regarded as equal and the aura is one of cooperation rather than competition. Furthermore, professors could implement cooperative learning activities to encourage cross-group friendships and consider how to reduce competition in the classroom. Finally, the university can implement more multicultural programs and activities and enlist the support of campus leaders to emphasize the importance of such programs and activities.

When it comes to culture clubs, studies have shown that cultural organizations help people feel more comfortable with their identity and that a possible result of this comfort is an increased penchant for cross-cultural activities. Studies showed that students who were members of culture clubs were more likely to attend diversity workshops and report more diverse informal interactions.

College Diversity - Meta-Analysis

A couple of the benefits of diversity are the reduction of prejudice and the improvement of cognition. There are two types of cognition: cognitive skills and cognitive tendencies. Cognitive skills are a students' information processing, thinking, and reasoning skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving. Cognitive tendencies involve a students' penchant for certain thinking patterns such as effortful thinking or attributional complexity, that is, the understanding that human behavior is influenced by complex factors. Because it is likely that cognitive tendencies are the easier shaped of the two types of cognition diversity experiences may be more influential on cognitive tendencies than on cognitive skills.

There are studies on diversity that have differing results on the relationship but this may be due to the "type of diversity experience measured, type of cognitive outcome, and study design characteristics." Informal interactional diversity, the type of diversity I am hoping to see more of at universities, includes "both the frequency and the quality of interactions with diverse peers that occur outside of class." Although structural diversity is needed for interactional diversity to be possible, merely having a university with a lot of diverse people is not enough to achieve the benefits of diverse interactions. When it comes down to it, "enlightenment", that is, "classroom diversity" is also not enough to achieve the benefits of diverse interactions.

Despite the various confounding variables in studies of diversity, at the end of the day, the evidence from the meta-analysis in this article shows a positive relationship between experiences of diversity and cognitive development. Albeit, the magnitude of this relationship could be considered "small" to some, but, when put into context, this effect can be quite meaningful when one accounts for the fact that measurements of such abstract concepts as cognitive tendencies can be full of measurement error as well as the fact that a "small" effect's smallness depends on what academic field one is in.

Going forward, research needs to focus more on how universities can maximize the benefits of diversity, not whether one exists in the first place. For instance, Bowman (2009) found that cognitive benefits from diversity coursework are often only in White students and students from low- and middle-income families. One way universities can help promote informal interactional diversity is by having a graduation requirement that all students enroll in one diversity course. This requirement would be especially important for students in natural sciences and engineering since these students are less liekly to be engaged with diversity and enroll in diversity classes. Interestingly enough, if students enroll in more than one diversity course, there is no difference seen in benefits versus a student enrolling in one diversity course.

Diversity's Impact - Studies on Diversity in College Classes

The diversity of students has greatly increased since the early 1960s, so much so that, as of 2000, there is one minority for every four non-minority persons. This is possible in part due to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Brown Vs. Board, and affirmative action practices. The value of diversity, specifically "the belief that knowledge or understanding flourishes best in a climate of vigorous debate" has been around since Socrates' time, and it continues to be important to this day.

One of the reasons diversity is vital is due to the critical analysis that occurs in diverse groups in which the "common-sense" knowledge is often not so common, that is, not everyone has the same experiences, perceptions, and knowledge. In today's world of inter dependability and globalization, it is increasingly important that future leaders are able to effectively work in environments of difference. College is a crucial point in people's lives where these said leaders can be exposed to diversity and practice accepting and working with the strengths and weaknesses that come with collaborating with these diverse people.

According to Gurin, there are three types of diversity: structural, classroom, and informal interactional. All of which are required to reap the benefits of diversity.  The type of diversity I will be focusing on is interactional, that is "the extent to which the campus provides opportunities for informal interaction across diverse groups." Benefits of classroom and informal interaction include "increased active thinking, academic engagement, motivation, and academic and intellectual skills [in addition to] greater involvement in citizenship activities, greater appreciation for differences as compatible with societal unity and greater cross-racial interaction." Diversity was found in later studies to be so significant as to influence students for as long as nine years after starting college.

Often universities emphasize structural diversity via practices such as affirmative action but this is as far as the "diversity" that colleges tout goes. It is a superficial type of diversity and I am interested in how to move past this surface diversity into the more beneficial types of diversity, more specifically, informal interactional diversity.

Cultural Diversity and Effect on Students' Futures

Similarly to "you are what you eat", and as naturally social beings, the interactions we have greatly affect our attitudes and ways of thinking. The article "Five Years After Graduation: Undergraduate Cross-Group Friendships and Multicultural Curriculum Predict Current Attitudes and Activities" explains how these interactions do not even need to be limited to social interactions. Students can also be exposed to difference in courses that discuss ethnic and cultural diversity topics. According to this survey study, there seems to be a correlation between students being exposed to diversity and the promotion of multicultural awareness and commitment. There may also be an increase in critical thinking skills and civic engagement activities, such as volunteering, due to exposure to diversity. It can be interpreted that the university's part in exposing students to difference is increasingly important as demographers have predicted that "by 2020, 1/3 of the United States workforce will not be White (Toossi, 2002)" and since universities are often the first opportunity students have to have significant interactions with diversity.

When it comes to the issue of interactions with diversity in a student with mostly White students, the article suggests two ways the impact of a mostly homogeneous environment could be maximized. One way is to have curriculum that covers topics of diversity or ethnic information. Another method is to extend their concept of diversity to not just a person of another ethnicity but also to a person of another religion or sexuality as well. They encouraged, especially, for those in a mostly homogeneous environment to make cross-group friends with those who are stigmatized.

Three recommendations made for the "higher-ups" in universities are, one, to include multicultural courses, especially those that include small group discussions, two, to foil students' tendency to create friendships with like-people by organizing programs that encourage more diverse friendships, and three, to create an environment where students feel safe interacting with different people.

Not For Profit Nussbaum

Progress, democracy, and the soul: all concepts that the United States seems to be doing wrong, according to Nussbaum. Sure, we may be one of the richest countries in the world, and, thus, our economic progress/growth gets an A but in terms of equality of success and wealth and the improvement of quality of life, what should be the true marker of progress, we are failing on many levels. Our recent penchant for the supposed money-making STEM majors over the “useless” critical thinking skills obtained from the humanities and liberal arts serves to drive the United States’ students away from democracy, that is, a government in which informed, questioning, critically thinking citizens are expected to participate and choose their ideal representative. When it comes down to it, then, what suffers the most is the soul, that is, the humanity rather than cold calculations, connection rather than manipulation, and empathy rather than productivity. Everything has its price and what we exchange for efficiency and money is our humanity, our warmth, our soul.

The fact that these concepts are related are explicated by Nussbaum’s discussion of the soul:

“When we meet in society, if we have not learned to see both self and other in that way, imagining in one another inner faculties of thought and emotion, democracy is bound to fail, because democracy is built upon respect and concern, and these in turn are built upon the ability to see other people as human beings, not simply as objects.”    

In other words, our definition of progress as economic progress with no concern for equality of distribution and access, enables and even sometimes encourages anti-democratic practices of manipulation and sole productivity, of seeing humans not as humans but as production tools. The significance from this passage comes from its explanation of how the concepts are interrelated and, thus, may help us to reevaluate our lives. Some might go through their daily lives unquestioning of the end goal to find a career, unquestioning of the authority around them and the penchant for efficiency and productivity. Through this passage we are reminded that there is more to life than production.

With such egregious unequal wealth distribution, it always surprises me that there is not more protest from the other 99%. The fact that this unequal distribution can also be seen as a failure of democracy, one of the concepts the  United States prides itself on, is even more reason to protest. Perhaps, however, people do not realize the trend that progress = more money, but only for the 1% and that education is increasingly coming to mean passing a standardized test and becoming dutiful working citizens. The discussion of the soul was especially refreshing to me since I have become accustomed to competing with others by endlessly looking for opportunities for my resume or professional growth. It is easy to forget the value of friendships and humanity when your focus is on surviving in a competitive job market.

Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education by Henry A. Giroux -

In a world where “Higher Education”, according to Giroux, is increasingly the puppet of commercialism and production, students are becoming increasingly apathetic to “his [or her] responsibility to society” and, worse yet, free thinking is silenced by dominant corporations and media messengers something needs to change. Something needs to change because Higher Education’s purpose is not simply to crank out employable candidates but, instead, to develop free-thinking and critical individuals who question the world and are not only aware of its issues but also brave enough and wise enough to know that simply knowing is not enough. One must act upon their knowledge and be civically engaged in the world and change. In the end, if “Higher Education” institutions fail at their main purpose, who will be able to combat and challenge the wealthy authority, the crushing 1%? Who will hold the greed and actions of the 1% accountable?

The fact is, if “Higher Education” keeps producing more and more people who simply go with the flow because their individual lives are superficially fine, it will most likely be harder for any change to be instigated as one of the main ways we can combat the wealthy are by banding together and taking action. We must first, however, recognize that something is wrong and go against the grain of what the dominant media tells us. I am quite sure Giroux would agree as he discusses higher education’s purpose and why free thinking is vital:

“ …confusing a market-determined society with democracy hollows out the legacy of higher education, whose deepest roots are moral, not commercial. This is a particularly important insight in a society where not only is the free circulation of ideas being replaced by ideas managed by the dominant media, but also where critical ideas are increasingly viewed or dismissed as banal if not reactionary.”

 In other words, democracy’s future should not be based off of market and commercialism. Instead, its focus should be morals and the public good. This focus is hard to achieve, however, when any nonconforming ideas that are beneficial for the public good are voiced.

When it comes down to it, it is in our best interest to fight for a more critical higher education system. Sure, we might get good grades from easy classes and find decent jobs but when it comes to solving harder problems and combatting injustices, one needs developed critical thinking faculties. Students should resist passivity and, instead, engage in the world’s issues as critical thinking beings to, hopefully, create a better world. Democracy should be a majority vote, not what the 1% wants.

Academically Adrift Statistics

You would think that after all the money, exams, and paperwork you go through to get accepted and to take classes at a university would pay off in the end, right? All the time and money invested into college, the supposed epitome of education, the supposed equalizer of minorities' systematic disadvantages. Unfortunately, as Arum and Roksa explain with data from their studies in Academically Adrift this is simply not the case. Not only are university students experiencing little to no growth in learning, as demonstrated by critical thinking skills and the like, but minorities' differences in learning stay the same, or are even exacerbated, in college.

Something is definitely wrong with an educational system which fosters academically adrift students whom feel obliged to go to college but have no way to reach their end goal, or an end goal at all for that matter, in mind. What irked me the most was how college is supposed to be the institution where the playing fields are somewhat leveled, to account for discrimination and disadvantages minorities and working class people face, but that it only perpetuated the inequality. Inequality is especially perpetuated by standard examination prep courses that prepare the upper class people way better for future academic endeavors than the working class or even middle class people.

At the end of the day, the United States higher education system is greatly lagging behind that of other countries and the intimidating thought is, although we were the main pioneers of higher education, others are catching up to us as demonstrated by a quote that put this situation into perspective in terms of the United States' economy.

“We may still have more than our share of the world’s best universities. But a lot of other countries have followed our lead, and they are now educating more of their citizens to more advanced levels than we are,” the recent federal report A Test of Leadership observed. “Worse, they are passing us by at a time when education is more important to our collective prosperity than ever.”

Thus, even though we may have been ahead of the higher education game at one point, we are now slacking when it  counts more than ever and this will ultimately be detrimental to our economy and citizens both of which will eventually get left behind.

Academically Adrift with with Arum and Roksa.

Upon reading Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, I was struck by the data presented on college life and how much college life has changed, ranging from how students spend their time to the cost of higher education to the attitudes and focus of universities and their administration. I also found it frightening how all these aspects are interlinked and, thus, if one aspect is bad, it will greatly influence the others. For instance, because the focus of modern-day professors is often research and scholarship, the time and effort put into teaching is often negatively affected and professors are less inclined to assign challenging work or work that will require a lot of grading and feedback from the professor. It was easier to make sense of why such effects might happen when I considered Freire’s “banking concept” of education. I was appalled to see similar negative patterns and data in higher education not just in Nathan’s book My First Year but also in an article from Inside Higher Ed.

The focus on research and scholarship usually results in the cop-out method of lecturing/teaching a classroom material and administering a multiple choice test on the material. This kind of teaching, thus, encourages students to “learn”, that is through rote memorization, the bare minimum to pass the exam. This concept reminded me of Freire’s “banking concept” of education in which rote memorization is often used and the teacher is the ultimate authority in what is important/what you should “learn”. Any students whom disagree or do not understand this will do often do poorly in the exam.

When one juxtaposes the information presented in Nathan’s My First Year and that presented in Academically Adrift, it is troublesome to see the similar trend of strategic students that seem to care less about true learning than students in the past. This disturbing idea is demonstrated in Arum and Roska’s novel when they present data on cheating in college:

"In a longitudinal comparison of nine colleges, for example, college students who admitted that they copied from other students on tests or exams increased from 26 percent in 1963 to 52 percent in 1993.”

This comes to show, also, how strategic students take advantage of this watered down system of education to get their degree with minimum effort. With modern students studying less hours per week than students in the past, as Nathan reports, and the ease of cheating true learning in this educational system, one can understand why the percentage of cheating students as recently increased.

As if lack of dedication to true learning weren’t enough, the focus of universities also seems to be shifting from academia and students’ education to serving their desires and attracting “customers”, another common theme in both novels. One example of this can be found in the Inside Higher Education article that I wrote about earlier in which the university is aiming to attract customers by approaching domestic violence from a unique viewpoint.

College Life According to Nathan

The two chapters I elected to read from My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan were chapters 2 and 4, respectively titled "Life in the Dorms" and "As Others See Us". I found both these chapters to be eye-opening and relateable in the drastic contrast between how media and the first week of class makes college out to be versus how it is in reality. Below I will discuss what I found to be the most interesting points made in these two chapters. I will also attempt to relate the chapters to a past theorist we have read in class, specifically Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

One of the concepts I found most interesting in chapter 2 was the fact that students, according to recall-based interviews and activity logs, not only studied less than past students but also relaxed/had fun less. Instead, modern students use their time working. I found this particularly interesting because it contradicts the theme of "we are here for a degree" and "school comes first". At the same time, however, I can see how this occurs as prices keep increasing and students feel more pressure to avoid or pay off loans. Another factor that could contribute to this phenomena is the idea that work experience is crucial to finding a job after college. Or, less responsibly, that students need to work to keep up with their spending habits.

In chapter 4, I found it intriguing how different American culture is to other cultures. Having grown up American and being accustomed to the traditions and customs, I never noticed how confused and ostracized foreigners must feel when we are friendly to them but not interested in being more than that, in being true friends. This superficiality reminded me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave when the people merely saw shadows of reality. There was a deeper reality but all the people in the cave were interested in was the surface of their world, that is, the shadows. I found it interesting how people from other countries are close to their classmates, to the point of going out to eat with them after class if the timing is appropriate, as well as to their friends' families. It occurred to me that part of the reason we are so lonely is due to the emphasis on individualism. In part because of this, we do not make the time to forge bonds with others. Instead, we focus on ourselves and our goals. We are friendly to others but we have no friends.

University Student Experience Now vs.Then

This week, our reading came from Rebekah Nathan's My Freshman Year. Her project consisted of an ethnographic study, in which she did her best to immerse herself in undergraduate university life by becoming a student and observing her peers. Throughout the reading, I felt a sense of de ja vu because the description of the university system and its educational methods seemed similar to Freire’s description of the oppressive banking educational system.  Both, for instance, establish a hierarchy in which the teacher is superior giver of knowledge and student is inferior receiver of knowledge format, as demonstrated by the different tones of conversation and conversation topics Rebekah was exposed to as a student versus as a teacher. Both in the novel and Freire's article, there exists a cold, machine-like functioning of the school system that stifles creativity and critical thinking as demonstrated in a passage on page 9:

"Despite the great variety of planned activities, there was a curious sameness to many of them. As an anthropologist, I saw a "script" in these introductory experiences...More important, I could begin to see the repeated (and, after a while, anticipatable elements of the experience that marked shared understandings and  cultural elements."

This passage describes how the system can be so efficient and mechanical to the point of being predictable. Such a system, thus, makes it easy to follow precedence and not think outside of the box or to critically analyze how the repetition of the same types of events and activities impacts the students and posterity. Students and future generations are given the "script" and are often expected to follow it. In a sense, then, the information that is being "deposited" into the students is this undergraduate student life script which they are expected to rotely memorize.

I find the experience Nathan had to be true. When I first came to university I was excited to see all the new and exciting events and people but now that I have been going to school for three years, I see how all these events follow a certain skeleton. I also see how all these events are organized into neat boxes and are scheduled for certain recurring times and days. These events are consistently, mechanically, predictably the same. If you try to stray away from the system, if you are honest that you are straying away from the system, you get hit with fees and with obstacles.

Education and Poetry

This week's articles, Pedagogy of the oppressed (Freire 1993) and Poetry is not a luxury (Lorde n.d.) were on the two types of education, that is, the banking concept of education and the libertarian education/problem-posing method of education, as well as women’s power, especially in poetry. The former article discusses how the banking concept of education, that is, the type where rote memorization, docile obedience, and non-critical thinking are emphasized is beneficial to oppressive systems. It also juxtaposes the concepts of libertarian education. The latter article discusses the power of poetry to set women free and as a vehicle for the courageous expression of their dreams and ideas. Both articles are related to freedom and knowledge.

A particularly interesting passage I wanted to point out was my favorite section from Poetry is not a luxury (Lorde n.d.):

"As we learn to bear the intimacy of scrutiny, and to flourish within it. as we learn to use the products of that scrutiny for power within our living, those fears which rule our lives and form our silences begin to lose their control over us."

Essentially this passage is talking about how, once we learn to accept scrutiny as a way to learn from our weaknesses and mistakes, we are stronger and more able to live our lives without being controlled and in fear of scrutiny. This is significant because a lot of people can be held back from their full potential due to fear of scrutiny or doing something wrong. This fear can be very controlling and limiting in one's growth and, thus, this statement helps to rectify that fear and paint scrutiny in a different positive light. Since we are interdependent and social beings, it is in everyone's best interest for individuals to reach their full potential because their talents and skills can make a positive contribution to the world in some way. Thus, if we all accept scrutiny and free ourselves of fear and control, the world will probably be better.

I agree with the argument in the above passage because as social beings, we are conscious and wary of the opinions of our fellow peers. That is to say, what people think of us and whether they like us, matters. Thus, we tend to filter our thoughts and ideas when presenting them to others for fear of rejection or offending someone(s). If we were, however, to take the scrutiny that comes with rejection or dubiousness, we can grow that much stronger. Criticism and scrutiny, therefore, are not always negative concepts.

Education: Then and Now

This week we also read the article Experience and Education by John Dewey. In this article, Dewey discusses traditional versus progressive education and proposes his ideal form of education. He identifies the true problem with traditional education and the problems that arise when trying to implement a progressive type of education. Dewey also addresses common misconceptions of both types of education. Dewey explains how practical matters cannot be fit into neat black or white boxes but must deal with compromise, just like the education system.

I would like to direct your attention to the passage in which Dewey discusses a student's experience in the traditional educational system:

"It is a great mistake to suppose, even tacitly, that the traditional schoolroom was not a place in which pupils had experiences. Yet this is tacitly assumed when progressive education as a plan of learning by experience is placed in sharp opposition to the old. The proper line of attack is that the experiences, which were had, by pupils and teachers alike, were largely of a wrong kind."

In other words, students in the traditional educational system did have experiences, contrary to what anti traditional educationists would have you think, but they were the wrong kinds of experiences. The experiences from traditional education systems killed a student's desire to learn and have more learning experiences. This is significant because education is dependent on experience, especially good experiences. Thus, the main issue with traditional education was its dealing with experiences.

I agree with the argument that traditional education fostered the wrong experiences. It is, indeed, the learning experiences that the traditional education forced onto youth that played a huge factor in the students associating learning with boring, useless, and long experiences. I am hesitant, however, to say that all the experiences the traditional educational system offered were bad. In fact, even seemingly boring, useless, and long experiences can be beneficial in teaching the students discipline, focus, and determination. If these “negative” experiences were left out of the educational curriculae, students would not have anything against which to compare the “positive” experiences and they would not have a well-rounded education.

Petrach's Life and the Humanities

This week, the article we read was Petrarch and the Origins of the Humanities. In it, the countless sudden and gruesome deaths of Petrarch's loved ones is recounted in relation to how Petrarch's style of writing changed. Petrarch is stated to be a pioneer in the study of Humanities. Petrarch also reflects on how his writing has changed from that of a mature man into that of a young boy, thus making him feel shame to share the letters he wrote, especially knowing he cannot deceive the readers since each letter is dated. Petrarch's main emotions, due to the time period and environment he grew up in, was that he would lose his friends and/or his own life suddenly as well grief for his suddenly taken friends.

I would like to call your attention to the passage where Petrarch's attitude towards death is analyzed:

"What then specifically characterizes Petrarch's attitude toward death? Behind the spectre of death, for Petrarch, lies the abyss of contingency. The grief and feelings of desolation that swept over him when a friend died, and the anxiety that tortured him as he wondered about his own safety and that of friends who were still alive, were intensified, if not actually caused, by his perception that the events of life happen by chance. More than death itself, Petrarch was haunted by change, unexpected, inexplicable change. “For man nothing is calm, nothing is stable, nothing is safe.”"

In this passage, Petrarch's true fear, that is, of sudden change that he cannot control, is revealed. This is significant since humanities is the study of how humans interpret and record the world around them and, inevitably, this changes with time and place. Such factors as technological advances and current events can drastically change humanities. This irony is especially obvious when in light of Petrarch being named a pioneer of humanities. It is also significant that Petrarch was haunted by the change since it affected his writing for the worse, thus, we were never able to take advantage of Petrarch’s full potential.

I agree with the argument that Petrarch's main fear was, ultimately, irreversible change. I would add on, however, a minor specification: Petrarch feared irreversible change that he had no control over. I also agree that Petrarch’s feelings were most likely intensified by the realization that life is a gamble and you never know what is going to happen. I am hesitant to agree, however, with Petrarch’s argument that “For man nothing is calm, nothing is stable, nothing is safe” because any absolute statements present ideas in a very black and white formula and there is a lot of gray issues in the world. I would be less hesitant if he were to state it in a non-absolutist form.

Exploring Ways To Deal With Sexual Assaults on Campus

I read an article on Twitter by Jake New on Virgina's new proposal to create a regional center for the investigation of sexual assaults on campus. The purpose was to inform readers of the pros and cons of having a regional center for such investigations and to explain how the center would operate. The article also relayed the program's details thus far. Furthermore, the article summarized the opinions of some of the people present at the panel discussion regarding the program.

A section of the article I found particularly interesting was the one in which the opposing views voiced their opinions on whether the investigations should take place on campus or off campus:

"Since the U.S. Department of Education began urging colleges to more rigorously investigate cases of campus sexual assault in 2011, some politicians and advocates have questioned the wisdom of allowing college disciplinary proceedings to tackle offenses as serious as sexual violence. Victims' advocacy groups and the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights argue that colleges have an obligation to do so under the gender discrimination law Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and that campus processes can be more victim focused than formal criminal proceedings."

 This passage mentions some of the points made on the matter, that is, that a college may not be suitable for such serious offenses versus the fact that regional centers would not be as victim-centered as university center would be. These arguments are significant because they are part of the collective arguments that will determine whether or not this regional center will come into being. The center for investigation of sexual assault is also significant since sexual assault is becoming increasingly prevalent on college campuses.

I agree with both sides of the argument. I believe in a balance and everything in moderation so either argument is too extreme. Thus, the best solution would be to have some sort of combination of the two sides. One solution could be to have a regional center where university staff also work or visit. An alternate solution could be the reverse, that is, to have a center at the university with regional staff present/visiting.

The Troublesome "Q Question"

This week, we read an article about The "Q" Question that summarized how various authors went about answering the "Q" question in their respective books. The article explains that the Q Question has been perplexing those in the humanities field for years and how the Strong Defense and Weak Defense are two different camps people often fall under when attempting to answer the question. Rhetorical education and how that related to morals and being a good citizen. The two methods of teaching, that is, "the Great Books" and "the course in method" are also explained. Overall, the Q Question seems to remain unanswered, controversial, and complex and it is one we should stop trying to evade.

The passage I wanted to discuss was the one involving one's university years, that is, the non-"primal slime" part of one's life:

"In this short time [four years in college] he [or she] must learn that there is a great world beyond the little one he [or she] knows, experience the exhilaration of it and digest enough of it to sustain himself [or herself] in the intellectual deserts he [or she] is destined to traverse. He [or she] must do this, that is, if he [or she] is to have any hope of a higher life... They [the years in college] are civilization's only chance to get to him [or her]."

This passage is explaining the university's crucial role in a person's life in terms of socialization and in achieving happiness via a "higher life." It is during one's college years that one often discovers the bigger, "real" world outside of their own and learns to work with others and their different worlds. This is significant because, at the end of the day, everyone wants to be happy. If university plays such a huge role in happiness a lot of people financially unable to attend college miss out.

I agree with the fact that one's university years can be very impactful and eye-opening but I am hesitant about the final statement from the above passage. University is not the only socialization structure that exists. Even if one did not go to university, they would still be socialized and exposed to civilization via their job, errands, and the like. Thus, although college may be the most effective way for civilization to reach people, one does not necessarily need to go to college in order for civilization to reach them.

To Standardize or Not To Standardize

In the readings for class today on The Education of Statesmen in Cicero's De Republica by J. Jackson Barlow and The Faulty Foundation of American Colleges by Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas, I found an underlying theme of whether or not standardization is ideal or not. Barlow's piece demonstrates this theme in its exploration of what constitutes the best regime, that is, one that is "the most nearly changeless" and, most especially, in its exploration of true law, that is, law that is "of universal application, unchanging and everlasting". In both of these concepts, standardization, then, is the sameness of something over time. Rose and Ogas' piece's main discussion is on standardization, and they argue that individualized education is superior to assembly line, Taylorist education.

Rose and Ogas' claim is mainly supported by the metaphor used throughout the article on the diversely "jagged" pilots and the attempt to fit these pilots into standardized cockpits. They referenced the real life metaphor multiple times as evidence that their claim is valid. They also touched upon theories and beliefs of famous individualists that were mostly not accepted because the idealists didn't have a practical science or efficient method to apply the theories.

I found it interesting that both pieces provide information on arguments made by critics and then proceeds to debunk, or at least add some food for thought on, the critics' argument. Rose and Ogas, specifically, anticipated critics' arguments by using the cockpit metaphor to address the possibility of

"the idea of redesigning higher education around the principles of individuality might seem hopelessly quixotic. That's how aircraft manufacturers reacted when the Air Force abruptly commanded them to redesign cockpits. They insisted it would be prohibitively expensive. A few suggested that the presumed complexity of an individualized cockpit would impair pilot performance, not improve it. But then, to everyone's surprise, the engineers came up with solutions that were both cheap and easy."

In essence, the above passage is Rose and Ogas offering a possible problem that critics might bring up, that is, that the solution to higher education might be too expensive, complex, or even detrimental to performance, and negating it, by detailing how those critics/skeptics ended up coming up with cheap and easy solutions.

When it comes down to it, I agree with Rose and Ogas' claim that individualized education is superior to standardized education because we are all unique beings and, thus, we should have an education tailored to our unique and individual needs, aptitudes, and shortcomings. I also believe that we should not be penalized for these certain needs, aptitudes, and shortcomings, that we are born with and, thus, have no control over, if they do not conform to the standardized educational system. I found the key principles for individualistic education interesting and especially true and the methodology of "analyze, then aggregate" and "tests of competency" to be helpfully practical.

Plato vs. Aristotle: Battle of the Ancient Greeks

In both readings by Benoit and Haskins, comparisons are made between ancient Greek figures' teachings and writings, specifically that of Plato and Isocrates and that of Aristotle and Isocrates.

The purpose of Haskin's piece is to call for more diverse readings, other than the go-to ancient Greek figures such as Aristotle and Plato, to be added into education so as to compensate for the voices that were silenced or overlooked as not worthy of the "canon." Haskin's piece also serves to explain Aristotle's central position about rhetoric in his kairos. Haskins goes into detail on good rheotric versus bad rhetoric, and how rhetoric came to be associated with persuasion thanks to Aristotle. He also touches base on performative models and politics, explaining Aristotle's performative approach and his mindset that imitative training should only be used at the start of one's education, as well as the importance of "culturally significant speech" when it comes to getting involved in politics.

In Benoit's piece, Isocrates and Plato are compared through the lens of their sophist criticisms, their beliefs and teachings on rhetoric's function and definition, as well as their contributions to the teaching of rhetoric. Isocrates and Plato had three main similarities when it came to their criticism of sophists: the hypocrasy and irony of sophists apparently failed lessons on virtue as demonstrated by their distrust of their pupils, the apathetic attitude of sophists towards truth, and the prioritization of sophists' personal gain over society's general well-being. These three arguments are all sub-similarities, however, when one considers the fact that all of these similar arguments were all used for the similar purpose of attracting students to their school while simultaneously debunking other teachers. It should also be noted that although these figures are similar in their concern with truth that their definitions of truth are different, partially due to their mentors' influence. That is, Isocrates views truth as abstract and not preferable to practical knowledge. He believes certain knowledge does not exist and Plato views truth as an all powerful, inarguable and abstract concept. When it comes to Isocrates and Plato's teachings and beliefs on rhetoric, both figures believed rhetoric was mostly for the purpose of persuasion. Furthermore, Isocrates and Plato view rhetoric differently in the sense that Isocrates views rhetoric as a concept that comes before knowledge whilst Plato views rhetoric as happening after and being dependent on knowledge.  Both figures believe morals is part of rhetoric's function. More specifically, Isocrates believes rhetoric's function to demonstrate the author/speakers' talent, to improve, not flatter or deceive, the audience, and to discuss serious topics. Plato believed rhetoric's function is mainly to save the audiences' souls as demonstrated by his call for "true orators" to focus on justice, control, and virtue. Both Plato and Isocrates' schools gave pupils an opportunity to be educated in one area for a more permanent stay than they could with traveling sophists.

A passage that struck me as particularly interesting in Haskin's piece was:

"Whether or not I have dislodges Aristotle's Rhetoric from its position of dominance in the minds of contemporary students, I hope to have presented some good reasons for questioning Aristotle's Rhetoric as the pinnacle of evolution of rhetorical thought in Ancient Greece. Indeed, if I were to propose one adjustment to the ways we teach classical rhetoric, it would be a requirement to attend to the contestation among the various "schools of thought" within the "canon," alongside the recovery of "muted" voices of the politically and culturally disenfranchised." Because I agreed

This passage stuck out to me because I agreed with the argument that we should be educating students not only on the "canonical" works of the culturally and socially privileged of the time, that is, upper-class white males, but also on the works of the voices that were silenced due to their disadvantage social or political class. We should teach a variety of beliefs and opinions on concepts so as to expose students to as many different viewpoints as possible and to give them as unbiased ideas as possible. In essence, if such lessons were to be taught, students would be able to get a more whole and diverse view point of concepts. Such diversified lessons are vital to acceptance of other cultures and beliefs as well as well-rounded thoughts and views of concepts.

I agree with the arguments made in the passage I explained above because I believe it is essential to study various viewpoints for development of one's thinking and opinions. It would be comparatively more difficult to formulate one's unique beliefs on a matter if the only information and education they got on the matter came from one source, from one naturally biased point of view. What would leave me hesitant, however, would be what works and information to include in this diversified approach to teaching. Whose authority would be high enough to label the non-canonical authors as worthy enough to study and teach? 

Plato's Republic

Plato's Republic aimed to explain to us what it is like to live in the world when you are educated versus when you are uneducated through his metaphor involving the cave, fire, and shadows. He discusses how unfavorable it is for a newly educated person to go back to an environment with uneducated people as she/he would be ridiculed for their newfound educated beliefs. He encourages educated people to share their knowledge with the uneducated "prisoners in the cave". He advocates for a better world in which each class should share their skills, talents, and knowledge with each other so each class can improve and live in harmony. He also believes it is better for rulers of a society to not have the desire to rule than to have multiple people fighting over ruling the society.

Plato discusses understanding and empathy when it comes to people and their educational situation in the passage:

"But anyone with any understanding would remember that they eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, namely, when they've come from the light into the darkness and when they've come from the darkness into the light. Realizing that the same applies to the soul, when someone sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he won't laugh mindlessly, but he'll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brilliance. Then he'll declare the first soul happy in its experience and life, and he'll pity the latter -- but even if he chose to make fun of it, at least he'd be less ridiculous than if he laughed at a soul that has come from the light above."
In this passage, Plato attempts to ruminate on, and perhaps even empathize with, the lives of those who see things are they really are due to their education living in a world surrounded by uneducated people that would not understand and would most likely ridicule the educated person for being different and having alternate views. This portion of the passage is significant because it opens our eyes to the possibility that just because someone has alternate views, it does not automatically make them abnormal, nor does it give cause for the person to be made fun of. The second part of this passage is about how people's confusion may be a result of one's situation when it comes to their exposure to light and darkness and that it is worse to have come from darkness into light than to come from light into darkness. This is significant because it causes us to re-evaluate how we see educated people and uneducated people.

I agree with Plato's argument when it comes to educated people being ridiculed by uneducated people because more often than not when people have different viewpoints, they tend to scoff at the other's. I would argue, however, that the same can be said when an uneducated person come into a world surrounded by educated people. This ridicule experienced is a two way street, depending on what environment you are in and whether you are educated or uneducated. His argument about it being better to come from light into darkness leaves me hesitant because there are pros and cons to being in both the light and the darkness. In essence, everybody brings their own opinions and backgrounds to the table, providing us with a diverse population and this diversity makes us stronger.