How would you react if you found out that a student in your online course was really your professor in disguise? Would you be outraged or unfazed? Perhaps your response would depend on the level of the offense. Try these transgressions on for size:
When Indiana University – Purdue University at Indianapolis Professor Barbara Christe felt disconnected from her online students, she decided to create a student alter ego by the name of Bill Reed. When she logs onto Bill’s account, Christe can see messages students send to “all students” and therefore flag potential problems in her courses. But Bill is just a silent observer – he doesn’t participate in discussions or respond to students’ queries.
As part of a one-time study at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Instructor Lynette Nagel invented Jane Malan to improve student engagement and prevent dropouts. Unlike Bill Reed, Jane was an active participant in class discussions. In previous offerings of the master’s level Web-based learning course, more than 50 percent of the students vanished before the course ended. But when Jane Malan came on the scene, 80 percent of the students passed the course. Do the ends justify the means?
At the University of Hartford, Professor Frederick B. King created Joe Bag O’ Donuts to stimulate participation in his online classes. When King posted comments under his own name, discussion died down. But when Joe speaks, students listen. King even discloses upfront that Joe Bags is bogus (as if there could be any doubt), but Joe still manages to get students talking.
Personally, I don’t think it would bother me if a professor invented an alter ego because I don’t envision myself sharing deep, personal information with every student in a course, anyway. If the prof was truly using the alias to spark discussion and improve the learning experience, I probably wouldn’t give the ghost student’s presence a second thought. On the other hand, if it seemed that the faux student was being utilized for cyber-spying, I would obviously be upset by the invasion of privacy. The issue for me would likely be level of intimacy – as long as the professor didn’t use a fake student to connect with me on a personal level, I don’t think his or her presence would affect me too deeply.
What’s your take on online professors posing as students?
When it comes to graduation, there’s no shortage of urban legends designed to inspire, frighten, or just elicit a chuckle. Decide if these popular tales are true or false, then scroll down to find out if you’re a candidate for a diploma in discernment.
1. The Graduation Gift
A man asked his father for a sports car as his college graduation gift; he received a Bible instead. Angered by the gift, the son never opened the Bible. He rediscovered it years later, after his father passed away. When he opened the Bible gift box, he found a car key and the words “Paid in Full.”
2. Making the Grade
Henry Kissinger was the last student to graduate from Harvard with perfect grades. He graduated summa cum laude in 1950.
3. The Sneeze
In response to a legal injunction barring invocation and benediction prayers from a high school commencement ceremony, a graduating senior faked a sneeze during his speech so that a group of students could cry out, “God bless you.”
4. Suicide Prevention
A boy befriended a nerdy kid at his high school. Years later, in the valedictory speech at their high school graduation, the nerdy kid thanked the boy for befriending him that day. Were it not for that intervention, the boy admitted he would have committed suicide that weekend.
5. Handshake Ban
In some colleges, congratulatory handshakes at commencement have been banned as a precaution against disease.
6. Virgin Awakening
If a virgin ever graduates from the University of Maryland, Testudo – the school’s bronzed mascot – will rise from his pedestal and fly over the crowd during commencement.
7. Dangerous Caps
A university has requested that graduating students not throw their caps in the air, calling the action a safety hazard.
True or False?
1. Gift: It’s an oft-told tale of hidden treasure, but there’s no record of this ever actually happening. To stay on the safe side, never spurn a gift!
2. Grade: Though Kissinger reportedly received an A in all his courses at Harvard, he was not the only student to achieve that distinction. In 2001, Kevin Schwartz earned perfect grades; in 2003, his sister, Lisa Schwartz, earned straight A’s as well.
3. Sneeze: It’s true, and it happened on May 20, 2001 at Washington Community High School in Washington, IL. Ryan Brown was the student who used a sneeze to protest the court’s prohibition of commencement prayer.
4. Prevention: It’s an inspirational story about the impact we can have on another’s life, but there are no reports of it happening for real. The story is based on a fictional tale that first appeared in “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”
5. Handshakes: Unfortunately, it’s all too true. At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Indiana University, Purdue University, Northeastern University, the University of Hawaii, Florida Gulf Coast University, and the University of South Florida, commencement handshakes were banned this year as a precaution against swine flu.
6. Virgin: Many college students spread superstitions about virgins at their schools, but we’ve yet to see statues come to life.
7. Caps: It’s no joke. Anglia Ruskin University has advised students against throwing their caps in the air because of the potential for injury. Several years ago, a graduating student at the U.K. school needed stitches after being hit by a flying cap.
Have you ever played the icebreaker game “Two truths and a lie”? Basically, each person tells the group three things about herself, and the group has to decide which two items are true, and which one is the lie.
Sound easy? Try your hand at the game with these college urban legends. Choose the lie before scrolling down for the answers. No cheating!
The Legends
1. Dissect an Aunt
Imagine rolling up your sleeves for gross anatomy lab, only to discover that you are, in fact, seeing dead people – and one of the cadavers is someone you’ve seen before. It happened to a medical student who discovered that one of the cadavers presented to her class was her great aunt. Of course, a different cadaver was immediately substituted by the state anatomical board.
2. Doing Laps to Get a Degree
At Columbia University, a stellar student who completed his degree requirements in three years, finished at the top of his class, and later earned a Ph.D. from Columbia and taught at Columbia was denied his bachelor’s degree because he failed to pass the mandatory school swim test. After informing Columbia that he had since learned how to swim and asking the school to waive his disqualification, he was finally granted his bachelor’s degree – 60 years later.
3. Beware the Brothel
Have you ever wondered why your school doesn’t have a sorority house? It might be because of local brothel laws, which prohibit more than a specified number of unrelated females from living together. In these municipalities, sorority houses are illegal … so members of the sisterhood stay in the dorms.
Truth or Lie?
1. Dissect an Aunt: It’s true, and it happened in 1982 at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Other urban legends about discovering the cadaver of a long-lost parent or a celebrity, however, are false, including the tale of the corpse of English novelist Laurence Sterne, who died in 1768. But the fact that it could happen and it has happened is creepy enough!
2. Doing Laps: This one’s for real, too. In 1923, Dr. Mortimer J. Adler was denied his bachelor’s degree from Columbia because he couldn’t pass the mandatory swim test. Actually, Columbia and a handful of other schools still require students to pass a swim test before graduation. Untrue urban legends about university swim tests do abound, however, citing that the tests came at the behest of a wealthy benefactor whose own child drowned.
3. Beware the Brothel: Despite constant retelling at colleges across the country, there are no “brothel laws” that tie a building’s classification as a bordello to the number and gender of its occupants. Some municipalities do have zoning laws that prohibit more than a specified number of nonfamily members from living together, but buildings in violation of those codes would only be labeled a brothel on the basis of what goes on inside the house. Plus, sororities and fraternities are exempt from those housing restrictions.
Comment up: What’s your favorite college urban legend?
Let’s face it. This year’s graduating class at Arizona State University had one of the best commencement speakers possible: the President of the United States. With approximately 60,000 audience members gathered in the university’s football stadium – named Sun Devil Stadium – Obama asked graduates to eschew materialistic endeavors in favor of a leading a life of commitment and service to the community.
“It is clear that we need to build a new foundation – a stronger foundation – for our economy and our prosperity, rethinking how we educate our children, and care for our sick, and treat our environment,” said the president.
But unlike most commencement speakers, Obama didn’t receive an honorary degree from the school at which he was speaking. In deference to a tradition of not honoring elected officials, Arizona State University announced prior to the ceremony, that they would not be bestowing a degree upon the president.
Obama understood, even joking about the matter.
“Now, before I begin, I’d just like to clear the air about that little controversy everyone was talking about a few weeks back,” he said. “I have to tell you, I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. It won’t happen again.”
It’s official: the latest victim of the recession, is the higher education system – specifically, college sports teams. From cross-country to skiing, schools have been forced to halt scholarships and cut some teams entirely or face troubling budget deficits.
Here is a small sampling of the colleges affected: Stanford University’s fencing team will have to find some non-Ivy funding fast or be forced to put away their swords; the University of Cincinnati will no longer offer scholarships for men in cross-country, track, or swimming; and the University of Washington is cutting all of its swimming teams in order to cut back on $1.2 million in spending.
The trend is continuing at universities big and small, and teams as popular as soccer and as lesser-known as competitive pistol are feeling the crunch. The NY Times warns that this could “deeply alter the college sports landscape” while also affecting the country’s performance during future Olympic events.
Let’s just hope that the situation doesn’t reach as dire proportions as the Space Olympics did.
How’s this for procrastination? After dropping out of college approximately 15 years ago, Jimmy Fallon is finally going to receive his bachelor’s degree.
As a former player on Saturday Night Live and the current host of Late Night, Fallon’s long been majoring in humor. But back when he attended the College of St. Rose in Albany between 1992 and 1995, Fallon had his eye first on computer science and then on communications. It’s for the latter discipline that he’ll be receiving his degree this month.
Although Fallon had left college with just a semester left to complete, he was able to earn the last few credits he needed by submitting a portfolio of his work from over the years.
With their close quarters and high population density, as well as some students’ rebelliously unhygienic ways, college campuses are popular breeding grounds for disease and viruses. Combine all this with the fact that many students regularly travel abroad – whether for spring break or study abroad programs – and you’ll understand why college administrators sit up and take notice when talk of a global pandemic looms.
The latest cause for concern is H1N1 (swine flu). Originating in Mexico, this virus has a little over 200 confirmed cases across the nation with one incidence of death. College administrators have taken notice, especially considering the amount of schools that have study abroad programs in Mexico, and have begun taking action to inform students about the virus and protect them in whatever ways they can.
If you’re curious about what colleges have had reported H1N1 cases, or how they’re reacting to the virus, you can check out the International Association of Emergency Managers-Universities and Colleges Committee’s online map or this article from Inside Higher Ed.
Some people test well, and some people test exceptionally well — like Willa Chen, for example. Chen, a 17-year-old high school student from Detroit, recently did the unbelievable: she got a perfect score on not only the PSAT, but the SAT and ACT as well.
According to the ACT, the odds of getting a perfect score on their test are one in 14,000. The odds for a perfect score on the SAT? One in 2,400, says the College Board.
With these amazing scores now under her belt, Chen hopes to attend Princeton University. For now she’ll continue spending time with her school’s Math Olympiad and indulging in some of her favorite pastimes: tap, jazz, and ballet dancing.
This past Sunday, The New York Times published an interesting piece that called into question just how exclusive and honorary invitations for scholar programs truly are. These invites, often presented as awards and “great honors,” are mailed out to middle schoolers and high schoolers across the country each year. As The NYTimes points out, the fancy airs and gold lettering on these letters often lure students into believing they’ve been bestowed with a rare opportunity – which may not be the case.
Though the organizations’ names and conference destinations may differ, they seem to follow a standard form. The student is congratulated on their scholastic achievement/being nominated to the position and invited to partake in a once-in-a-lifetime scholastic conference that will not only introduce them to great minds like themselves, but boost their college applications as well.
Now The NYTimes is telling us what we all suspected: these invites are more marketing techniques than marks of honor. One of the companies, the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, decides who to invite based upon recommendations and mailing lists that it pays for. And if you take into account all of the conferences that they run, including the National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C., you’ll find that approximately 50,000 students attend each year – can that really be considered exclusive?
I remember receiving similar invitations in the mail when I was in high school, but I never signed up thanks to slight skepticism as to their validity and their expensive nature. Still, I feared that I was missing out or handicapping myself in the college race by not having something like “Washington Conference Scholar” on my resume. As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. I got into one of the most sought after universities in the nation and neither my classmates nor I had one of these conferences under our belts.
So are these supposed scholar conferences all they are cracked up to be? I clearly have my opinion but if you want to form your own, and learn more about the companies that run these conferences as well as what goes on at them, head over to The NYTimes.
And really, if it’s an honor, should you be the one paying for it?
According to a recent survey by Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana), cell phone use – and smartphone use, in particular – is on the rise amongst college students. After speaking with 300 students, researchers found that while 99.7 percent owned a mobile device of some sort, 27 percent owned a smartphone.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a smartphone is generally defined as a mobile phone that has its own OS and/or has an e-mail, web browser, and other applications.
“College students are increasingly adopting cell phones – particularly the smartphone – as the core communication and entertainment device for their hectic lifestyles,” said Michael Hanley, the journalism assistant professor who in charge of the mobile communications research program at Ball State. “In the few years since instant messaging (IM) leaped from the computer to the cell phone, a new mobile lifestyle has evolved. And save for studying, the computer is quickly being left behind.”
That’s a bit extreme if you ask me. You can’t assume students are cutting down on their surfing habits at home just because they now rely upon mobile Internet or that one form has overtaken the other; it just means that students’ day-to-day lives require more on-the-go connectivity than in the past. While it used to be easy to wait until you were home to log-on for example, these days many professors e-mail about last-minute assignments and canceled classes making it in your best interest to stay on top of your inbox – especially if you find yourself busy with after-school activities, internships, and the like.
As someone who got a smartphone during her last year of university, I would definitely recommend the tool for any student that finds him/herself on the run and away from the nearest computer terminal or WiFi hotspot. I was able to keep up-to-date with my classmates about group projects, stay in touch with friends, and find out right away if my class was cancelled or my office was closed due to weather. And while it did cut down on some of my surfing time at home, that’s only because I was using my smartphone to check my feeds during my commute.
Join four girls who are in love with grammar, coffee, and their iPods as they dish on everything you need to know NOW to make the transition from high school to college. It wasn't too long ago that we walked a mile in your excited, eager, and slightly nervous student shoes. Believe us -- it really can be the best four years of your life.
How would you react if you found out that a student in your online course was really your professor in disguise? Would you be outraged or unfazed? Perhaps your response would depend on the level of the offense. Try these transgressions on for size:
2. Making the Grade
5. Handshake Ban
6. Virgin Awakening
According to a recent survey by Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana), cell phone use – and smartphone use, in particular – is on the rise amongst college students. After speaking with 300 students, researchers found that while 99.7 percent owned a mobile device of some sort, 27 percent owned a smartphone.