SAU Honors College

The SAU Honors College was founded in 2003 by Dr. David Rankin, president of SAU. Dr. Lynne Belcher served as founding director and is retired from SAU. The Honors College seeks and admits qualified students who seek to pursue a serious academic program with equally gifted peers and committed teachers. Honors classes are small and provide academically enriching opportunities for students and the faculty who teach them. Currently, SAU enrolls nearly 170 honors students and graduates about 66% of admitees in four years or less. Anyone interested in applying to the Honors College or seeking further information should contact the director, Dr. Edward P. Kardas at epkardas@saumag.edu or at 870 904-8897.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Castleberry, Jesse: Beloit List


Have you ever read The Beloit College Mind-Set List Welcomes the “Internet Class” and the 2011 Mind-Set of Faculty (Before 1980)? These two articles describe how much life has changed in college.  When I first read these two articles, I wasn’t really that amazed about how much has changed.  I remember my parents and my teachers in high school telling me how life was before 1980. However, many cultural shocks have taken place in both “societies” today.

In The Beloit College Mind-Set List Welcomes the “Internet Class” and 2011 Mind-Set of Faculty (Before 1980) there are actually some similarities that have still survived. One similarity I found was that labor issues still matter.  People in all parts of the U.S. cannot find jobs.  If they do have a job then their employer’s lay them off because of lack of work. The second similarity is that freshmen are still referred to as “you.”   They will never be on the same level as upper class men.  Freshmen are still looked down upon until they reach the sophomore level.  Those are just some of the similarities between the two articles.

The Internet Class has drastically changed the world today.  We have many differences with the Faculty (Before 1980).  The first difference is that we mainly get all of our information from the Internet. We can look up information about a class or object on the Internet or even if we want to find somebody’s telephone number.  It’s all on the Internet, and we can even communicate with people over the Internet.  We hardly talk to anybody face-to-face anymore. We have to Facebook or text them if we want to talk to them.  The second difference is that we use plastic money instead of real money. Nearly, everybody in the U.S. uses a credit or debit card to buy merchandise.  It is just so much easier to pull out a card and swipe it then it is to count out money.  People who count out the money hold up the line. The third difference is video games.  The Internet Class stays in front of the TV all day long.  Kids play videos games 24/7 now, they never go outside to have fun.  While they are in front of the TV, they are gaining weight because they are not burning off the calories they need to. Those are just a few of the differences that the Internet Class has developed over the years.

 Some of the faculty described in The 2011 Mind-Set of Faculty (Before 1980) are in trouble.  Many are still learning how to operate the Internet and other electronic devices. There are many things that have changed for them since they were in school. One difference is that many faculty members are teaching larger classes with the same amount of pay.   So, they have to do more work and help more students. Moreover, they spend more of their free time grading papers.  The second difference is that colleges used to be run by the faculty instead of administrators.   Faculty members used to make all of the academic decisions.  Now, colleges are run by administrators and faculty members barely have any say about the academic decisions. The third difference is that many of the faculty members no longer meet their students face-to-face. Instead, they teach online classes now.  There are more and more classes that are moving to an online format. Those are just a small amount of differences of how the faculty used to be.

WOW! Life has changed a lot. These two articles showed me a lot of how the faculty members and student have changes since the 1980s.  Even though the faculty members and students have many differences, I believe that people have developed society the way that we need to.  I have function very well with the Internet. I believe that it will be just a matter of time before the “Internet Class” will go through a cultural shock too, and I will have to start learning new things that newer generations already know about.

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