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JerseySmarts.com

The Cost of College Textbooks

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Minding the Campus is a great website that keeps an eye on the many oddities that seem to take place at college campuses. You know these oddities – the private school that believes they do not have to follow American law, the public school that believes they can restrict a student’s right to freely express their views (in a non-harmful way), the college professor that bashes and berates America…while he lives and raises a family in the very country he seems to hate. There are illogical happenings all over college campuses and Minding the Campus is one of the best sites to monitor what’s going on.

Just recently they posted a commentary by Charlotte Allen that discussed the increasing costs of college textbooks. This is one of the most thoughtful, thorough discussions of this topic that I’ve read and the comments on the post are equally as thought-provoking. If you have the time in your day, I highly suggest reading this commentary.

For what it’s worth, my stance as an Adjunct Professor is to assign textbooks that deliver the message of the course and – most importantly – help students learn the material. If that goal can be achieved with a used text or text that is cheaper than a brand new book, then I’m happy to assign an older text for the students.

Back to the Classroom

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Last semester I taught a course and this semester I’m taking one. I’m nuts, huh? Most people who are on the verge of being 27 and already have a Masters Degree are doing all that they can to stay away from being a student in a classroom again!

Monmouth University is offering a course that falls directly in line with what I do for a living (it’s about various approaches to fundraising). My company and I felt that it would be good for my “professional development” and that since it was so close to home, I should pursue the course. I agreed and this ultimately led to a huge hassle with the Monmouth University administration (who managed to not only get a $35 application fee out of me, but also to double-charge me for a parking ticket that I apparently received as an undergraduate and would have to have paid already in order to graduate). For those out there in the working world, I can sum up my experiences trying to take this course very simply – Monmouth University is not prepared or ready to offer professional development courses.

Not only was I treated like an 18 year-old kid who was just starting college, but even after establishing that I was an alumnus of the university, a part-time employee of the university, and that I had a Masters Degree and thus was not interested in applying for a Masters Degree program – the folks on the phone still couldn’t fathom what I was trying to do. What was I trying to do? Audit a course for professional development. Simple. Unfortunately, until their professional development admittance procedure is more “professional,” I will not be able to recommend to any of my professional colleagues that they attend MU to learn more about their trades.

Class started this past Monday night and I immediately remembered why I left Monmouth’s Masters Program after one semester a few years ago. The atmosphere in the classroom was uniquely Monmouth. The teacher treated the students as though they were incoming Freshmen and the requirements for the course look almost exactly like what one would expect out of a Freshman Seminar class. There are four 3-page papers, three 3-minute presentations, and a group project all due in the semester. We were lectured for about 20 minutes on the importance of not having a cell phone ring during class time. We were reprimanded in advance for missing any scheduled classes and scolded about how our final grade would be effected. I’m auditing the course, so I’m getting an “AU” as a grade no matter what I do.

But what shocked me the most on the first night was how the course description was changed before our eyes. It’s a little bit hard to explain, but the course description that sold me on the course was changed to include this course as a subsection of a larger study, which wasn’t what I was sold. The thing is, I’ve been through the Monmouth system before I and I realize there is no use in complaining because it gets no where; the system is specifically set up to be hard to navigate and tedious. This is why I loved going to Rutgers so much (in my view, Rutgers handled problems before they even popped up).

But I’m smart enough to realize that the pre-class administrative nightmare should have no bearing on my perception of the course and the first night of class should have little influence on my overall recommendation of the course itself, so I will reserve a final judgment until the course ends. I will say, however, that so far I’ve gotten exactly what I expected out of Monmouth…

“You’re Going Back to Shawshank?!”

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For those of you who listen to the Howard Stern show, you’ll recognize the title of this post as Chris Rock’s reaction to learning that Howard Stern was engaged to be married. Hilarious! I felt that the quote was appropriate to verbalize what some of my friends and former classmates will think when I tell them that I just submitted an application to take a course at Monmouth this semester.

🙂

They have what looks to be an interesting course in nonprofit fundraising and I’m looking forward to taking it to increase my professional skills. Of course, this has me thinking that with this course and the previous graduate course that I took at Monmouth a few years ago, that puts me 2 courses away from earning a Certificate in Public Relations…but I’ll have those thoughts a little bit later on!

The goal with taking these professional development courses (aside from increasing job-related skills) is to not spend a dime. My company is covering this course so I win this round.

“But Those Damn College Kids…”

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Once again, there are problems in Ocean Township. While the brainwashed masses (which seem to be dwindling) continue to rant and rave about the local off-campus college constituency and how they are ruining their “family neighborhoods,” it looks like those families aren’t so wholesome themselves…

From today’s Asbury Park Press (this has been edited to withhold names):

It might have seemed like something from “That ’70s Show,” but it was no laughing matter to the six people who got arrested, five for underage drinking and a sixth for joining in a scheme to bake marijuana into brownies, police said.

When police were called late Wednesday night to a wall-shaking party on Oakhurst Road, they heard loud music and found Bryan J. K——, 19, hosting a party where underage drinking and marijuana were evident, Detective Lt. Steven R. P—– said.

You know what this shows? That Ocean Township is a regular, normal American town. So for all of those Monmouth University students out there who are either forced to go to these “coalition” meetings or are stuck in a situation where you are berated by police officers when they walk into your home or berated by the local judge in the courtroom, remember this story (and the countless others on this blog).

Some people in Ocean Township will try to make you feel like you are a blemish on their idyllic little community. Bullshit. Their community hides much more than just what you read here – they’re just like everyone else so don’t fall for their holier than thou crap.

But hey…someone better do something about those damn college kids, right?

What a joke.

Mike Huckabee vs. Ocean Township, NJ

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After listening to Governor Mike Huckabee make a great comment during the ABC News Presidential debates tonight, I had to quote him here. When asked about illegal immigration and what he would do, Governor Huckabee said a bunch of things, but one quote caught my mind:

“When people live in the United States, they ought to have their head up – they ought not to live in fear. Everytime they see a police car, they shouldn’t run and hide. Nobody ought to live like that in this country.”

Ha ha ha ha!!! Governor Huckabee!

I like Governor Huckabee – I really don’t have any major gripe against him, but at this point in the campaign I really don’t have a desire to learn much more about where he stands on each issue (remember, as an independent I can’t vote in New Jersey’s primaries without declaring a party – which I won’t do). But let me make this comment about Governor Huckabee’s quote up there…

As a person with a larger-than-normal degree of empathy, I can appreciate the fact that illegal immigrants are forced to live in a manner that many of us find abhorrent. Yet while I find the Governor’s statement to be a great political quote and one worthy of repeating, I wonder when a candidate will step up and make the same, truthful comparison about the good old boy system that has ravaged New Jersey and many other areas of this country.

In other words, I lived through some of the worst abuses of civil liberties that I’ve ever seen when I was a college student renting a home in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Police officers sat outside of our house, they routinely followed my roommates into the driveway of our home and questioned them at all hours of the day (and night), they would open up the front door of our house at 2am and walk through and tell us they were “just checking” even when only 2 people were home. It was a disgusting abuse of power that took place 6 – 8 years ago and to this day my roommates and I have a great disgust for the Ocean Township law enforcement and a much greater disgust for the anti-college student feeling in Ocean Township.

We ARE the people who see police cars with “Ocean Township” on the side of them and we attempt to run and hide because we know that in this town you can be arrested (or at least given a big money ticket) for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s happened to my former roommates, it’s happened to our friends, and it’s happened to me damn it. And I don’t buy the crap that we were “rowdy college students living in family neighborhoods.” Bullshit on that! We weren’t nearly as rowdy as the “family” that lived two doors down from us with the high school-aged daughter who was selling drugs to half of the town. Our rent (our very HIGH rent, I might add) paid the same taxes the rest of the town paid. And, we added a great deal to the local economy.

So I love Governor Huckabee’s comment that no one in America should live in fear of the police. But what happens when the local police (or an entire state’s police system) has turned into nothing more than a civil liberties abusing fundraising arm of the politicians? It’s disgusting and if America really wants “change” then we all need to start by no longer permitting the vast abuses of power that we see at the local level.