There is a move afoot on some university campuses to lower the legal drinking age to 18 from 21. We
fully support the effort — when we were in college the age to drink
was 18 — and having that legal limit sit at 21 now only indicates a
failed intention and false effort to curb college drinking.
Helicopter parents are hovering over higher education like a black cloud waiting to pour its contents onto a blissful countenance. When parents become the students for their children, the entire structure and memeingful experience of a university education is discounted and downgraded.
Why do universities allow parents to attend class, have access to grades they did not earn, and sit in on meetings with professors?
Do the children of these helicopter parents have any rightful privacy? Or is the only meter of power held in the hands of those who pay the bills?
Part of growing up and away from your parents must include making mistakes, falling down and getting up and — as hard as it is to confess the reality — lying and getting caught should teach more than it punishes.
We need to remove the parents from the higher education of their children or there will never be any hope for the future in helping to create a smarter and more independent generation that can stand alone on the shoulders of those that came before them while thinking and wondering with the same freedom that was won by those that fought the condescension of the paternalistic master and slave dyad of experiencing only what is allowed in the world instead of what should be in the universe.
Many universities make the mistake of investing too heavily in the hopes and feelings of the current student body instead of taking the long-term view of the best interests of the world surrounding the university.
Continue reading → Universities Are Forever; Students Are For Four Years
Health Affairs recently released a disturbing and disparaging report concerning the health and wellbeing of minority children in America:
Bethesda, MD — Almost 17 percent of black children and 20.5 percent of Latino children in the United States live in “double jeopardy,” meaning that they live in both poor families and poor neighborhoods, according to research released today in the March/April issue of the journal Health Affairs.
In contrast, only 1.4 percent of white children live in double jeopardy. According to researchers, the type of neighborhood one lives in plays a significant role in racial and ethnic health disparities. In addition, poor white children are more likely than poor black or Latino children to live in better neighborhoods.
A typical poor white child lives in a neighborhood where the poverty rate is 13.6 percent, while a typical poor black child lives in a neighborhood where the poverty level is nearly 30 percent.
A typical poor Latino child lives in a neighborhood where the poverty rate is 26 percent. Segregated, disadvantaged neighborhoods affect health in the following ways:
· By limiting economic advancement for minorities because of poor education, limited job opportunities, and a poor return on housing investment.
· By exposing minorities to violent crime, environmental hazards, poor municipal services, and a lack of grocery stores and healthy food options.
· By leading to segregated health care settings with poorer-quality health care.
The University of Iowa’s famous Writing Program is under fire from its graduate students — and the creative world at large — for its new “Open Access” philosophy of publishing creative works of its students on the internet to be found and indexed by Google and other search engines.
Many universities are giving up on their idea of “One Laptop Per Student” theory in the classroom because computers interfere with learning.
Traditional Universities also want to remove WiFi and other communication connections from being available during teaching sessions because students are surfing the web and creating email instead of being involved in class.
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