wright-the state of the union is shameful
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Natalie Wright First PlaceSerious Column The VoiceWashtenaw Community CollegeTRANSCRIPT
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March 4, 2013 The Washtenaw VoiceVoices
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Volume 19, Issue 12
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EDITORIAL
Bedizen: It makes me think of bedazzle.Exiguous: Spontaneous or exotic, I
guess.Imbroglio: It makes me think of some kind of food, a dish like pasta.
Rebecca Mohr18, Brighton, biology
Bedizen: Stagnant.Exiguous: Like exquisite, syn-onymous with that.
Imbroglio: Lighting stuff on fire, like immolate.
Eric Liebetrau20, Cadillac, science
Bedizen: Maybe like energetic, or something?Exiguous: A person-ality trait, maybe?Imbroglio: I have
no idea.
Jessica Johnson19, Pinckney, veterinary transfer
Bedizen: I dont even know what to guess. Happy? I have no idea.Exiguous: Spontaneous.
Imbroglio: A type of disease?
Jake Bond19, Manchester, exercise science
Bedizen: To sleep.Exiguous: It sounds like studious.Imbroglio: It sounds like a human cell.
Gabby Stewart21, Dexter, general studies
Bedizen: It describes an opening of the eyes to see something in a different light.
Exiguous: A way to describe a spastic style of movement.Imbroglio: Something like embryo.
Mukai Dinnan16, Romulus, liberal arts
Bedizen: To lag behind, I guess.Exiguous: Full of char-acter, life, or
vibrancy.Imbroglio: It reminds me of embryonic makes me think of prenatal whatevers.
Carmen Walters19, Hartland, general studies
Bedizen: Can I Google it? I dont even have a guess.Exiguous: Some form of being pretentious.
Imbroglio: Some form of anarchy?
Jordan Lewis20, Albion, radiology
Bedizen: It sounds like an enzyme or chemi-cal of some sort.
Exiguous: Only partly exclusive.Imbroglio: Its some sort of flower.
Jason Youngs30, Ypsilanti, nursing
Bedizen: It sounds like a negative word, so Im go-ing to say its a synonym for dislike.Exiguous: Someone that exudes iguous, but I dont
think thats a word.Imbroglio: It sounds like a biology term pertaining to an embryo.
Kaylyn Freeman20, Ann Arbor, elementary education
Bedizen: To bedazzle.Exiguous: How somebody acts around some-body else.
Imbroglio: Does it have to do with embroidering?
Rachel Marengere18, Southgate, child care
Bedizen: It sounds like a town or city in a foreign country.Exiguous: A motion or
something.Imbroglio: I think its a thing, something like a machine.
Cory Armstead30, Ypsilanti, culinary arts
Many students have an impressive arsenal of words they like to toss about like grenades. So, we thought wed test their acumen with a few bombs we dug up.
We asked: What does each of the following words mean: bedizen, exiguous, and imbroglio?
According to Websters New World College Dictionary, the verb bedizen comes from Dutch and means to dress or decorate in a cheap, showy way. The adjective exiguous comes from Latin and describes something that is scanty; little; small; meager. Finally, the noun imbroglio comes from Italian and is an involved and confusing situation; state of confusion and complication.
Interviews and Photographs Michael J. Hlywa Staff Writer
Voice Box
Fear and loathing at Washtenaw
BEN SOLIS
A strange and definite sensa-tion of being gagged and strangled has gripped the faculty and staff of Washtenaw Community College and no ones really sure what to say about it or anything at all, for that matter.
What was once a pretty easygoing campus filled with helpful individuals willing to share their insight with any random passersby looking for infor-mation has now turned into an uncom-fortable cage populated by fit-prone administrators and department heads.
Ask them one question about a ru-mor on campus or even something as simple as what cool things theyve got going on and theyll start shaking in feverish bouts of paranoia and fear.
Recently, some news came down that part-time employees with more than one part-time job on campus will have to pick just one and end any other jobs they have with the college.
According to the rumors, which have been confirmed by Human Resources, these students and their supervisors will have until March 8 to declare their choice and the purge will take effect on March 22.
But nobody is saying why this pol-icy is going into effect. Some said it was because of the new Affordable Health Care Act and the colleges fear
of having to pay certain part-timers who log enough hours some employ-ment benefits. Others said that it was a way of tightening up on abuses from employees getting too many hours and milking the system.
Peter Leshkevich, director of Student Development and Activities, said he believed that HR was not tak-ing a punitive route in getting rid of these abuses.
Yet coming down on everyone for a few lousy cases of abuse seems a bit extreme, eh?
Since many of these individuals are students, the loss of additional hours from another job or two could be detrimental to their ability to pay their bills and put food on the table for their children not to mention save up enough to pay for tuition and books.
Take Chris Ulrich, for example. Ulrich works as a teachers assistant in the 3D animation and graphic design department at Washtenaw and also tutors in Learning Support Services.
Ulrich said that the changes wouldnt affect him as much as oth-ers, but it would put a damper on his savings as he prepares to leave WCC for greener pastures. He did express concern that by having his tutoring job taken away, his students would lose a valuable resource provided by his experience.
One of his supervisors, animation instructor Randy Van Wagnen, said that losing someone qualified like Ulrich is what makes this change so tough for faculty and their students.
Learning Support Services Director Debra Guerrero said that she didnt know how it would affect her staff, but that the tutoring services department
has a high turnover rate as it is. While these bits of information
break this story, a two-week hunt for other sources turned into a failed fish-ing expedition that displayed what kind of pressure these people are un-der to not talk to anyone about even the most routine happenings around the college.
Why such loathing on a commuter campus? Why such dire expressions of fear and paranoia, which ultimately imply that there is more going on be-hind the scenes about a small story than meets to eye? By not providing a reasonable explanation and we trust there really is a reasonable ex-planation or the college wouldnt be doing this administrators instead give us the feeling theyre trying to hide something.
Even simple requests for mere confirmations of the changes were met with coded language, ending with Human Resources officials saying that they would rather not talk about why the changes are coming down until after everyone was notified.
Is this the new marketing strat-egy? Shut up until told to speak? Are people so afraid others will find fault with them if they give reasonable an-swers to reasonable questions from a campus newspaper editor?
Between searching stares and dart-ing eyes all over my body, as if those I seek to interview are looking for a wire or some other insidious record-ing device, vital sources of information on this campus seemed paralyzed by uncertainty.
And I know its not coming from me. I am, after all, just the messenger. Im just here to help.
Women add diversity, strength to military
As Washtenaw Community Colleges commitment to veterans support grows stronger and more streamlined, so grows the enrollment of those men and women who have served at home and abroad to keep our nation safe and unified.
Wed like to think that their attraction to Washtenaw goes beyond that simple offer of benefits, community and service. Instead, our collective campus body would much rather view their presence as a staple of the col-leges dedication to diversity, and the celebration of an accepted equality.
For what is the promise of a higher education other than a means to gain an equal advantage when traversing the rocky road of our competitive and troubled times?
As we end our celebration of Black History Month, a period set aside to recollect the pursuit of our social evolution through necessary action and unfortunate bloodletting, we become ever-mindful of the modern battles against inequity and segregation.
The struggle for true equality, as it would appear, does not end with the advent of mere milestones, such as the passing of legislation. It is a series of short steps forward followed by impossible leaps and then back again.
Such is the case with Civil Rights of the 1960s, the slow-motion decades that followed and then the light-speed election of President Barack Obama.
Or, rather, the pride of Womans Suffrage followed by years of discrimi-nation and harassment in the workplace, unequal pay and formidable, in-visible ceilings preventing extraordinary female workers and thinkers from finding their deserved place in the sun.
Although Obama instituted the Lilly Ledbetter Act in 2009, legislation that gave the promise of equal-pay-for-equal-work validation, women still faced impossible odds in high-endurance, physical jobs, primarily in the military.
Last month, the final shard of glass fell from the top floor of the Pentagon as outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued an end to the centuries-old ban on women in heavy combat positions.
The news came with some confusion to those familiar with the branches of the armed forces. Women have for decades served in support positions to the most rigorous areas of operations, such as Special Forces and infantry units. In addition, women have taken and continue to take an active role in armor and artillery units with great success.
With this ban lifted, women of strength and valor will be able to serve openly on any frontline and in any sector that the military finds need for them, including the infantry.
At last, the boys club has no ceiling a renovation that many in the higher echelons of rank are calling a dangerous experiment.
That bit of rhetoric came directly from Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykins in his opinion piece published by CNN.com, in which Boykins said that the repeal was based on ideology rather than military wisdom.
Boykins did not doubt a womans ability to serve with honor, asserting only that such a move could lower the bar of physical standards of training, might and readiness.
Boykins is not alone in his thinking, as many other retired generals and pundits have waded the waters of political debate since the Jan. 23 decision.
Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., stated that if the military wants diversity, it should just reinstate the draft.
Such musings are doused not in logic or reasoning, but rather fear of the unknown. Let us not forget that men were afraid that if women could vote, attend college or succeed in business that their homes and children would fall apart in shambles. That if black men could do the same the very fabric of society would be torn asunder.
Now the same unfounded arguments harp on our ability to defeat foes be-cause our military would be fundamentally different, somehow less powerful.
Like the promise of success as a CEO or a judge who comes with a degree from Washtenaw, so too should women in the military have an avenue to success as high-ranking officers.
Of course, discrimination and more struggle is sure to follow as women take this next jump forward.
But what is the promise of achievement without a hard-fought victory to guarantee it?
JASON DUNCAN THE WASHTENAW VOICE
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Febuary 10, 2014 The Washtenaw VoiceA4
EDITORMaria Rigou
MANAGING EDITORNatalie Wright
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EDITORIAL
Letters to the Editor
The State of the Union is shameful
NATALIE WRIGHT
If you tuned into the State of the Union address on Jan. 28, you were probably as shocked as I was to see who made an appearance. President Obama may have been the headliner, but he was not the nights biggest star, according to the media response and the twit-ter feeds of congressmen.
It wasnt Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House John Boehner, the first lady, or even the recovering wounded warrior Army Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsberg, who stole the show.
No, it was Willie Robertson, star of A&Es reality hit Duck Dynasty who had congressmen lining the aisle to get their picture taken with him. Every media outlet was talk-ing about him from NBC to the
Associated Press. For those who have managed
to avoid Duck Dynasty, first: Congratulations. Second: The show centers on the Robertson family which runs a duck-call fabrication business in Louisiana.
The shows (unfortunately high) ratings dropped last year after the familys patriarch, Willies dad, made anti-gay comments. He was suspended from the show for a short time, but was reinstated when members of the anti-gay community rushed to defend him.
Robertson was at the address as a guest of Louisiana Republican Rep. Vance McAllister, whose 2013 special election victory is widely seen as a re-sult of his support. I am proud to have my close friend,
constituent and small business own-er, Willie Robertson, attend tonights State of the Union Address as my spe-cial guest, McAllister said in a state-ment. I look forward to the two of us representing the Fifth District in DC this evening and bringing some diver-sity to our nations capitol.
Rep. McAllister, this is not what people mean when say they want more diversity in Washington
Forget the fact that Robertson has no place representing people
who didnt elect him. Forget that he is in the business of making duck calls, which has absolutely no relevance to running a country. Forget that hes not even the one who made the anti-gay remarks that Republicans stand behind so steadfastly. Hes a celebrity, and that makes his presence news.
It would be easy to rail against McAllister for bringing Robertson into the center of our governments affairs, a place where he has absolutely no business.
It would be easy to criticize the me-dia for even showing him on camera, let alone having conversations about how appropriate his star-spangled bandanna was.
It would be hard to admit that we are the ones to blame for this. But we are.
As long as our society deems this acceptable, as long as we click-through on the headlines about Justin Biebers arrest before those about actual news, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
How can anyone be upset about an ineffectual congress when we elect congressmen who not only invite peo-ple like Robertson to sit among them, but line up to meet him like star-struck teenagers?
This is the state of our union
Super Bowl car ad sparks super debate
JON PRICE
One of the most compelling commercials aired during the Super Bowl this year was the Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles advertisement, featuring iconic rock legend Bob Dylan.
Is there anything more American than America? Dylan asks the view-er. Across the screen flash images of men riding horses, cheerleaders cheering, an attractive young woman
in gas-station sunglasses standing on a beach, wrapped in the American flag.
This was the last in a series of three different commercials that the automaker aired during the Super Bowl. The Dylan ad was an ode to made in America.
You cant fake true cool, Dylan says, as images of James Dean flash the screen.
Fiat-Chrysler also aired commercials for its Maserati and Jeep lines, but saved the best for last, with Dylan urging con-sumers to buy American.
Let Germany make your beer, he said. Let Switzerland make your watch-es. We will build your car.
The Italian automaker, which took over Chrysler last month, seemed to take an unwarranted shot at Michigans craft beer industry, and the newly popular Shinola watches that are being manufac-tured in Detroit and sold in high-dollar
coastal boutiques.Shinola quickly responded on Twitter:
We propose a different approach: let #Detroit brew your beer, build your car, and your watch, followed by a link to a YouTube video that shows the process of a Shinola watch being made.
Shinola was created in 2011, and employs approximately 200 people, most of whom live and work in Detroit. Founded by Fossil CEO Tom Kartsotis, Shinola has opened stores in New York and Detroits midtown area.
The response the manufacturer gave to the Chrysler commercial was price-less. It was mature and well-thought-out, showing the Italian automaker that there is plenty of room in Detroit for both of them.
And Ill raise a Detroit-brewed beer to that.
SOQs are not the students rightIts not very often that I quote
Ayn Rand, but in thinking about The Washtenaw Voices request for fac-ulty SOQs, one Rand quote comes to mind: Question your premises. In this case, the premise in ques-tion is found in the very headline of the Jan. 27 issue: The customers right?
If one accepts that students are customers, then perhaps there is an argument for releasing SOQ in-formation (though there are still very good reasons not to). However, students are not the customers, de-spite our cultural pretense to the contrary. Washtenaw Community College was created by and is fund-ed primarily by the taxpayers of Washtenaw County and the State of Michigan. The taxpayers are, in ef-fect, THE customers. The staff and faculty of WCC are the producers. Students are the product. The tax-payer-voters elect a board of trust-ees who then hire an administration
to oversee faculty performance. Thats the accountability chain-of-command.
That said, there may be a larger is-sue here. Higher education in the U.S. managed to function reasonably well for hundreds of years without student evaluations of faculty. The movement toward such evaluations began in the late 1960s, gained momentum in the 1970s, and has been with us ever since. This period coincides, perhaps not co-incidently, with the grade inflation phenomenon that anyone in academe is well aware of. In the era of student evaluations upon which promotion and employment decisions may hinge, faculty and students have entered into a Grand Bargain: We, the faculty, will keep you entertained, not ask you to do anything terribly demanding, and inflate grades. In return, youll give us good evaluations. Wink, wink.
There are consequences to all of this. A recent The Wall Street Journal piece (How the College Bubble Will Pop, Jan. 9, 2014) by Richard Vetter,
director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at Ohio University, and Christopher Denhart, a student at OU, suggests that the SOQ chickens are coming home to roost. College degrees, while still of value, are being devalued in a number of ways and by a number of factors. They write that, Declining academic standards and grade inflation add to employers perceptions that college degrees say little about job readiness. Further, A college degrees declining value is even more pronounced for younger Americans. Just as with money, if you debase the currency, it will buy less.
Whether WCC SOQs ever become public or not, in the battle for more student rights the war is already over. Students won. Evidence suggests, how-ever, that it may be a Pyrrhic victory.
R. Wm. La HoteChair, Department of Social Science
Wheres the risk assessment with bad weather?On the first Wednesday in
February, we had a heavy snowfall, producing little to no visibility walk-ing or driving.
I looked out of my window and could not see much out of it at all. I stepped out of my house just to make sure that I was not imagin-ing that terrible weather. I turned my head, and then regretted it. The small, sharp specks of ice were strik-ing me on my face.
I went inside thinking Washtenaw Community College would cancel the classes for to-day, or at least delay the morning classes. I checked the website: no announcement.
My thoughts began to wonder, really? They want me and every oth-er student to drive through this? I remembered one of my classmates
who drives from Detroit and then an-other student in my Social Problems class who drives from Whitmore Lake. While scraping off the wet, packed, icy snow on my car, I thought, How many others need to make such a long drive to WCC?
On the way to school, on Michigan Radio, they were talking about the weather. In-between the many acci-dent reports, they said, If you did not have to be on the roads, then please dont be.
That phrase stuck in my mind. Do I have to be on the road? What level of risk am I taking?
I spoke with our President, Dr. Rose Bellanca, who was nice, and re-minded her of the danger everyone had faced during those morning hours. She acknowledged that while driving in that morning she was thinking that she should have closed WCC, and she
apologized for not doing that. I remembered the Army. All of us
who led troops had to write a report about assessing operational risk. We evaluated the jeopardy that could be associated with performing a certain action.
We weighed the threat involved in doing a task, then planned on how to accomplish it while reducing the num-ber of hazards that may result from performing the said action.
As a leader, my soldiers lives were in my hands. They counted on me not to have them take unnecessary risks. I owed that much to them. Washtenaw Community College owes that much to us.
LaShawn HubbardYpsilanti
Measuring success next challenge for community colleges
Opportunity is what America is all about or its supposed to be. That was the over-arching message in President Obamas recent State of
the Union address. And as a nation, there is much we need to do to improve opportunity for all. Job creation has been the key phrase in every political speech of the last
six years. If politicians can convince America that they know how to create jobs, theyre in.
But in his address to Congress, Obama acknowledged a facet of opportunity that seems to escape many: Job creation means nothing if no one is properly trained for those jobs. Workforce development and education are inherently tied to opportunity, every bit as much as job creation.
So, the White House has big plans for improvement in these areas, Obama said. His proposal for across-the-board reform of Americas training pro-grams, led by Vice President Biden, included expanding apprenticeships and doing more as a country to take advantage of community colleges.
This includes developing a new ranking system for community colleges as well as building stronger connections between them and employers. The ranking system will evaluate a colleges performance and tie that performance to the amount of federal aid available to students.
The American Association of Community Colleges has declared its opposi-tion to this ranking system, stating that community colleges do not support a ratings scheme, and that students choose a community college based on its proximity, not its value as a school.
This is not true at least not in Michigan. A student who lives in Ann Arbor has a multitude of choices in schools that are within easy driving distance. And Washtenaw is full of students who live much closer to Schoolcraft College, Monroe County Community College, Jackson Community College, Wayne County Community College, Henry Ford Community College and Oakland Community College, but choose to come here because of the schools reputa-tion and the availability and standard of their program of choice.
Just as with universities, community colleges all have their successes and failures in certain areas of study, and should be ranked as such.
As for whether or not community colleges support a ratings scheme, they absolutely can the system just has to be tailored to an accepted definition of success.
Unlike the AACC, Washtenaw seems to be excited about this ranking system, and it is very interested in helping to shape the definition of success. Not only graduation rates should be taken into account, but also transfer and employment rates, because for many community college students, a job is success, not necessarily a degree.
WCC President Rose Bellanca and Director of Government and Media Relations Jason Morgan are doing what they can to be a part of the conversa-tion in Washington, and shape a fair definition of student success.
Rather than dismissing this change as meaningless, like the AACC, they are working to make it as meaningful as possible.
Kudos to them.