Final Piece

FACULTY ADVISORS/Caleb Waldron 1
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS HAVE LOVE, HATE, OBLIVIOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH FACULTY ADVISORS

By Caleb Waldron

The events of September 11^th, 2001 shifted the world’s focus to Islamic issues. “There were a lot of questions and interest about Islam and its followers after 9/11, and I took that as a good way to educate people on Muslim issues,” said sophomore Mohsen Ghazi. He and junior Alyssa Al-Dookhi took that interest as an opportunity to start the Muslim Student Association, a group dedicated to Islamic issues. “The group’s goal is to help create awareness about Islam and Muslims, to explore various feelings people have about Islam, to think progressively about Islamic issues, and to support each other in a non-Muslim setting,” said Al-Dookhi.

The process of forming a student organization proved to be a complex issue. A formal submission of the group’s mission statement, student membership, leadership, and proposed budgeting were all required. The task was overwhelming for the group of students who had little to no experience with the inner bowels of Kalamazoo bureaucracy. Due to issues of paperwork, the MSA was unable to become a formal student organization and receive school funding. But through the help of College Chaplain and Professor of English Mary Ellen Ashcroft, the organization was able to independently raise money for its events. “Mary-Ellen was a lot of help- she really helped us get off the ground,” said Ghazi.

The situation of the Muslim Students Association speaks to the larger issue of faculty involvement in student organizations as a whole. Student organizations have a need for constant, relatable sources of information and guidance. This is especially true for long-term establishment, considering that leadership gap formed by juniors’ de-acclimation to campus issues following their study abroad. Faculty are an ideal resource.

“I think that having a faculty advisor is a great help because we can turn to him for more ideas when we have come to a road block,” said Amnesty International member and sophomore Jillian Belstler. “The students do pretty much all of the work, but it is nice to have Dr. Dugas there when we have questions or need another opinion.” Faculty advisors provide a sense of history, stability, and continuity that helps student organizations overcome otherwise daunting obstacles.

“If from year to year groups don’t see what’s good or bad, they fall into the same mistakes,” said Director of Student Activities and Hicks Center Brian Dietz. “Advisors would help groups work on previous mistakes and build on previous success.”

But while faculty advisors provide a valuable resource to student organizations, the school has no official policy regarding their responsibility or availability. Said Dietz, “I don’t know if we have a clear policy. Nobody’s got a real history; I don’t know if it was ever stopped- no one seems to recall anything official.”

The relationship between faculty advisors and student organizations is forged on a case-by-case basis, independent of any official guidelines or policy. “I assumed that student groups were required to have a faculty advisor. My assumption was that it was a requirement that wasn’t enforced,” said Dan Lipson, faculty advisor for the American Civil Liberties Union and Assistant Professor of Political Science. Lipson had never been asked to sign papers or officially register himself as a faculty advisor. He simply accepted the group’s invitation to join their organization.

While a clearer policy would help broadcast the potential resource of faculty advising, the vagueness of the policy isn’t altogether unintentional.

Not all student organizations want faculty advisors, such as groups that focus on peer-to-peer discussions. But more importantly, faculty advisors pose a potential threat to student organizations’ sense of independence.

“The point of a student organization it to be independent of authority. So I don’t know if the role of faculty advisors is required-- it seems to be another hoop to jump through,” said Associate Professor of Psychology Karyn Boatwright.

The element of independence that surrounds the general college experience seems to prevent many student organizations from seeking out a potentially autocratic authority figure. “We like feeling independent and able to make decisions for ourselves without having to consult a faculty member first,” stated Sexual Health Awareness Group member Caitlin Rider.

Faculty advisors have to strike a delicate balance. They can discuss, but can’t dominate—they can complement, but can’t command.

The administration recognizes this delicate equilibrium between independence and inexperience. It recognizes that leadership must come from the student body and that faculty advisors must not be mandatory, especially considering that there aren’t enough faculty advisors for the 93 student organizations currently running. (With 93 organizations, any policy that made faculty advisors mandatory would either force faculty to advise multiple organizations at a time, or student organizations to officially shut down.) But it also wants to make the resource of potential faculty advisors known to campus, and to create a formal system for helping faculty advisors connect with student organizations.

“I’ve been an advisor of the WRC for three years, and I’ve never been asked for advice or to attend a meeting,” said associated professor of psychology Karyn Boatwright on a crisp fall afternoon.

Heide Taylor, member of the WRC, said later that night: “We have an advisor? I’ve never even met her.”

The administration would like to prevent situations like these from re-occurring.

It’s a delicate balance, and the school will address it accordingly. The school’s plan for dealing with the unclear policy is to gradually introduce the concept of faculty advisors to the campus. The next few years will be a bridge period, in which the concept of a faculty advisor will be set in place and organizations see the benefits of having one. “Initially we wouldn’t make it mandatory. If a group wants a faculty advisor they’d be assigned one, to build a concept of what an advisor is. Other groups will see that setting goals, committees, and faculty advisors helps groups. And then, we’ll see where it goes from there,” said Dietz.

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Article Critique 12/1

The following is a critique of the December 11^th “New York Times” article “Feminist Pitch for a Democrat Named Obama,” which is accessible via the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/us/politics/02women.html?hp

I find this article’s title to be unnecessarily long. The words “A Democrat Named” add nothing to the title’s meaning- they’re dead weight.

I find that the article’s lede adequately conveys the heart of the story- it provides the reader with the five “w’s” in a loose sentence structure that gets the information across without overwhelming the reader.

The paragraph structure loops in on itself and creates a sense of repetition. The piece alternates between a description of how Mr. Obama is an enticing candidate to feminist political circles and how some feminist political circles are epistemologically torn over the upcoming presidential election. Each paragraph provides more general information on the themes, but no sense of chronological progression or thematic focus. The piece presents facts, but it doesn’t give the reader incentive to read the entire article.

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Critique 11/25

ARTICLE CRITIQUE/Caleb Waldron 1

ARTICLE FALLS SHORT

By Caleb Waldron

The following is a critique of the November 25^th New York Times piece “As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts,” which is accessible via the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us/politics/25dems.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

My impression of this piece is that it tries to get too much information to the reader at a time, starting with the title. The title’s attempts to reflect both the potential security gains in Iraq for Democratic candidates and the shift in Democrats’ tone at the same time makes the phrase seem awkward.

In the coming paragraphs, the piece attempts to address these issues at the same time. This makes the reader feel like they’re hopping from one storyline to the next. There’s no sense of flow or natural progression, only an anxious scattershot of information. The following sentence is a suitable example: “if security continues to improve, President Bush could become less of a drag on his party, too, and Republicans may have an easier time zeroing in on other issues, such as how the Democrats have proposed raising taxes in difficult economic times.” This reads like an anxious leapfrog, manically hopping from one Lilly-pad of an idea to the next.

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Article Critique for November 18

The following is a critique of the November 18^th New York Times Article “A Guerilla Video Site Meets MTV,” which is accessible via the following link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/business/media/19vice.html?hp

I find this article to have the structure and tone of a casual conversation.

Structurally, the story follows the rise in popularity of Vice magazine according to chronological sequence. There are no erratic jumps from one topic to the next that leave the convey a feeling of disorganization or lack of professionalism.

Stylistically, however, this story conveys the feeling of a casual conversation. The following excerpts are especially glaring examples:

1) “Vice did some work…” This description doesn’t provide information in regards to when this action occurred.

2) “Vice was started in Montreal in 1994…” This description personifies a corporate entity and doesn’t give specific evidence that supports Vice’s surprise.

3) “So the magazine started to cover more serious issues.” The word “so” at the beginning of this sentence creates an off-hand tone, in which separate sentences are blurred together more than most newspaper pieces.

4) “The deal with MTV gives Vice the resources to apply its D.I.Y. approach in a new medium, and it has enlisted Spike Jonze, the film director, as VBS creative director.” The large number of clauses in this enormous compound sentence draws the reader on through the sentence, which more emulates a conversation rather than conveys brief clips of information.

5) “There are no lights or makeup.” -This sentence doesn’t explicitly explain the situation in which there are no lights or makeup. While that piece of information was detailed earlier in the piece, the abrupt sentence is still irregular for its dependence on a larger context of the piece to be understood.

While this style of writing doesn’t detract from the general idea of the story, it does create a relaxed and slapdash tone.

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Article Critique 9/9

ARTICLE CRITIQUE/Caleb Waldron 1

ARTICLE FALLS SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS

By Caleb Waldron

The following is a critique of the November 9, 2007 New York Times article “Thousands of Police Block Pakistan Rally,” accessible through the link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/world/asia/10pakistan.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

I find that while this article does relay the facts and implications of political turmoil in Pakistan, its contradictions, lack of sourcing, inclarity, and poor grammar detract from the story as a whole.

While the story’s lede does accurately capture the rising tension between the Palestinian government and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, it doesn’t touch upon the situation’s implications or context. The reader is presented with cold facts, but not with a motivation to discover their signifigance.

The article also houses an apparent contradiction. While the article’s fourth paragraph on the second page mentions that Bhutto’s house arrest may be a face saving gesture for the government, the work’s last paragraph states that the situation poses problems for the government. These statements are especially conflicting due to a lack of sourcing or supporting evidence to their validity. The writer merely sources the analysis to “analysts” instead of providing their name or rank.

This article’s grammar is also of poor quality. The writer begins the seventh paragraph of the second page with the a conjunction, fails to place end quotation marks on the first paragraph of the second page, and awkwardly slaps together four seperte clauses in the tenth paragraph of the first page. This crates an impression of sloppy and disorganized writing.

Overall, this is a poorly written journalistic piece.

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Revision of In-Class Crime Story

FIRE/Caleb Waldron 1

SUSPECTED ARSON KILLS CHILD

By Caleb Waldron

KALAMAZOO, Mich. - A suspected act of arson killed a child and destroyed a duplex early this morning, said officials.

According to Deputy Chief of the Kalamazoo Fire Department Patricia Clarkson, the fire occurred at 1275 Monroe St. at 2 a.m. and was called in at 2:10 am. Fire detectors were not up to code. All 10 of the confirmed tenants escaped the building on their own accord, except for Tiffany Blanchard, age 3, and her brothers Tory, age 5, and Terry, age 6 who were rescued by firefighters and brought to Bronson Memorial Hospital at 3:12 am. According to a spokesperson of Bronson Memorial Hospital, Tiffany died of smoke inhalation at 3:57 am. Tory and Terry were released at 10 am after treatment for minor injuries to their mother Marie Blanchard, 32, of Kalamazoo, Mich.

Marie Blanchard, tenant and mother of the three evacuated children, is believed to be the target of the suspected arson. Accelerants were detected by trained dogs of the fire department, and according to lieutenant Regina Sentarpio of the Kalamazoo Police Department, witnesses say they saw a juvenile holding a canister near the premises prior to the fire.

Vincent DeNofrio, 33, of Mattawan, Mich., and a 16-year-old a juvenile has been arrested in connection to the suspected arson. DeNofrio is suspected to be the estranged boyfriend of Blanchard. “What I can tell you, without hesitation, is that there is a nexus
between Ms. Blanchard, Mr. DeNofrio, the juvenile, and the fire,” said Santarpio. The suspects are scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow at 10 am.

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Article Critique 11/3/07

CRITIQUE/Caleb Waldron 1

GUANTANAMO ARTICLE FAILS TO CONTEXTUALIZE

By Caleb Waldron

The following is a critique of the "New York Times" article " New Detainee Rights Weighed in Plans to Close Guantanamo," accessible through the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/us/nationalspecial3/04gitmo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

This piece does an excellent job of relaying the immediate information surrounding the legal conflicts of Guantanamo detainees prisoners. The lede accurately portrays the issue in general, and each of the following paragraphs offers information with a progressively narrowed focus. And while the reader’s presented with a very focused topic, the information is presented in such a way that the reader isn’t overwhelmed. Unfortunately, the piece doesn’t offer a sense of context as to what motivations are behind the issue of Guantanamo detainees. While the reader knows that the U.S. government faces legal troubles for its actions, the reader isn’t told why Guantanamo Bay is considered controversial. While this information is relatively well-known, the reader is still disconnected from the motivations behind the central conflict of this piece, and therefore disconnected from the importance of the affair.

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