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Dynamite Devon
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Boyd, Joshua
Amesbury News
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Devon Warwick, a player who has had so much to smile about for the last nine years of her basketball career, couldn't help but shed tears after her final shift.
Going in near the end of Colgate University's final game of the season, a 73-55 loss to West Point, the Patriot League's regular season and tournament champions, the tears started to roll as the seconds rolled off the clock.
"It was kind of surreal," said Warwick, a graduating senior at the college in Hamilton, N.Y. "Going into the game, we were thinking we were going to win. You never want to think about losing.
"We couldn't get ahead and it started to hit me that it would be it," Warwick said. "When I got into the game, it was hard to fight back the tears. When the buzzer sounded, I just started crying at the center of the court."
Through Warwick's mind ran eight years of varsity basketball with both Amesbury High School and Division 1 Colgate - yeah, the games were lots of fun, but she remembered the locker room banter, talking during the week between games, and especially, the bus trips.
"Basically, [the tears] were more about my team. That was the scariest part for me - not being part of a team any more," Warwick said. "I'll always have that group of friends, but I won't be on the team anymore."
Warwick finished off this year with 26 starts in games at center (her height is a big factor, as she stands 6-foot-2 on a team with not a lot of height), out of 29 total games. She averaged 4.5 points and 2.4 rebounds per game.
That's not too bad for someone who didn't know much about college basketball as late as the age of 13 in eighth grade.
"I didn't get into basketball as early as most people do," Warwick says. "Most [players in Division 1] started play when they were 5. I started just before high school. I made the varsity team at Amesbury as a freshman because I'm tall, fast, rugged ... beyond that, my skill level was pretty minimal."
Her first game with Amesbury's varsity team ended much like her last game - in tears.
"[Current Indians girls basketball coach] Chris Perry put me in, and I didn't know what was going on. I put up a few 3-point shots that were all air-balls," Warwick says. "At the end of the game, I was all teary-eyed and Mr. Perry said, 'Come here, Devon ...' and he said, very quietly, 'Calm down. I want you to go home and watch some basketball on TV.' I was just starting out. That's when the learning curve began."
That plan worked, as she went on to average a double-double per game as a senior at AHS, with per-game averages of 13.5 points and 13.0 rebounds. In 20 of 24 games in that 2001-02 season, she had a double-double, and twice, she had a triple-double.
Former Colgate basketball coach Beth Combs recruited her out of an AAU tournament, originally.
"After the big tournaments, the coaches that are interested will call your house. I had a lot of Division 2 and Division 3 colleges interested. I didn't know what Colgate was, but when I told my Dad they had called, he'd worked in the college world, and he said 'Call them back!'"
A good call
Warwick has indeed found a home at Colgate, and second-year head coach Kristen Hughes was thrilled to have someone with Warwick's size and energy down low game after game.
"As a senior, her role was night and day vs. her role in her first three years. She's played behind some very good post players in the program," Hughes says. "This year, she was able to show what she can do and she was able to have an impact.
"The work ethic she brings on a daily basis is just phenomenal," Hughes adds. "This year, we only had four post players, the rest of our team being guards. With the sets they ran, we were more perimeter-dominant. What Devon had was a great fadeaway jump shot and a great hook shot."
Warwick was able to show her skills pretty well as a freshman, playing in 21 games and starting three, and averaging 4.9 points per game and 3.4 rebounds per game. Then, those statistics fell to just 13 games played and an average of 1.3 points per game and 0.8 rebounds per game in a sophomore year that saw her sitting more often than playing.
"I've had some struggles during my time here. As a freshman, I got a lot of playing time, and as a sophomore not at all," Warwick says. "As a junior, I played a lot more [27 games off the bench] and in my senior year, I played a lot more, so it was nice to end with a good year."
Warwick feels she defined herself in her time with Colgate as an "intense player."
"That can also turn around and bite me - I foul," she adds. "I'm aggressive. I try to get rebounds inside and I love to block shots. I averaged five points per game [4.5 to be exact], but it's consistently five points per game."
"There's not many people Devon can't match up with," Hughes adds. "She can stop the ball from getting inside to the paint. Fouls sometimes limited her minutes, but that's a hard thing, because you don't want to discourage a player from being aggressive."
While she has several memorable games, such as facing national powers like Tennessee in the national tournament and Vanderbilt in the regular season, one game that particularly stands out for her was this past New Year's Eve. That night, the Raiders played at Boston College in the Conte Forum.
With friends and family in the audience, Warwick and the Raiders fell to the nationally-ranked Eagles, 74-53. Tough game, yes, but Warwick played well with an eight-point, nine-rebound night. The game stuck out for another reason, though.
"I'd gone to a basketball camp there when I was in 8th grade," Warwick says. "It was kind of cool that it was where I started, and that was where it was ending."
Warwick, who originally grew up in Wakefield until she was 7 before moving to Groveland for a few years and eventually Amesbury, is looking to return to Boston once again. She is excited about having secured an apartment in the city once school is out and she is hoping to work in broadcasting.
Internships at both WCVB-5 and WMUR-9 in New Hampshire helped the sociology major catch the broadcasting bug.
Perhaps Amesbury has not seen the last of Devon Warwick - perhaps one day, you'll turn on the TV and there she will be. |
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College Board Acknowledges More SAT Scoring Errors
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Romano, Lois
Washington Post, The
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School administrators were stunned yesterday by the revelation from the College Board that an additional 27,000 SAT tests from the October exam had not been rescanned for errors.
The announcement was the third admission in two weeks by the testing organization of potential errors and underreported scores in the college entrance exam used by thousands of schools. A spokesman for the New York-based company said that the largest error was a discrepancy of 450 points out of a potential 2,400. The total number of students who will have higher scores resubmitted is 4,411.
"It's incomprehensible to me that there have been three separate discoveries of scoring errors on the same exam," said Gary Ross, dean of admissions for Colgate University, which was informed that it had received 57 erroneous scores. The College Board reports only the scores that were erroneously lowered -- not scores that were mistakenly raised.
"It's a disgrace that upon discovery of the first series of scoring errors the College Board was not able to get to the bottom of the problem," Ross said. "They owe all of us a detailed explanation of what went wrong and how they are going to avoid these kinds of mishaps in the future."
Lee Stetson, admissions dean for the University of Pennsylvania, which had 103 affected applicants said he was "disappointed" in the way the errors were dribbled out. "It makes us very unsettled."
Jennifer Topiel, executive director of communications and public affairs at the College Board, which administers the test, said yesterday that "nothing like this has ever happened before, and we are going to ensure this does not happened again."
"We are 106 years old and have a long history of excellence," she said.
The College Board announced Wednesday on its Web site that it will implement new policies along with its scoring subcontractor, Pearson Educational Measurement. In the future each answer sheet will be scored twice, and steps will be taken to ensure that answer sheets are protected from humidity. In addition, Booz Allen Hamilton has been hired to review scanning procedures, and will provide recommendations within 90 days.
Two weeks ago, the College Board disclosed that of the half-million students who took the October SATs, 4,000 had scores that were higher than originally reported. A week later, it reported that an additional 1,600 sheets had not been rescanned. And then this week, it reported that an additional 27,000 of the October tests were not rechecked, notifying schools and affected students.
"It's the latest installment of a soap opera, and it makes you wonder what's coming next," said Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, which is critical of schools' reliance on standardized testing. He said he would lobby Congress for hearings. "There's less regulation over these tests than over what you feed your pets," he said. "This demonstrates how much human error is involved in making high-stakes education decisions."
The timing is terrible, several admissions directors said. At the University of Virginia, Dean of Admissions John Blackburn found out yesterday morning that 12 more applicants had incorrect scores. So officials will pull out their files just as they did for 66 other applicants, look at the numbers, and see if they need to reconsider. So far, he said, the news has not changed any of their admissions decisions. "SATs are just one factor we consider," he said.
Blackburn said he has never seen a problem like this, in nearly 40 years in admissions. "This group has tested millions of people . . . they're amazingly consistent. Every once in a while the score sheets got some humidity, rippled, so the scanner didn't pick it up."
At Georgetown University, 15,000 admissions decisions letters get mailed today. Officials reviewed 93 applications because of incorrect scores. One was wrong by a significant 200 points, but most were in the 10-to-30-point range, said Charles A. Deacon, the dean of undergraduate admissions. "The concern many of us have is they only adjusted scores that went up -- not the scores that went down. That's the most troubling part," he said, articulating a concern of many administrators that there could be students with inflated scores who got slots another applicant deserved.
The news of testing errors fueled opponents of standardized testing as some schools are reevaluating how much weight to give the SAT.
Twenty years ago, Maine's Bates College made the SAT optional, and the results have been positive, said William C. Hiss, vice president for external affairs.
"First of all, our applicant pool doubled," Hiss said. "It's very simple. You can build a better class with a larger applicant pool. You end up considering a dozen different variables and get a more diverse group with intellectual breath and varied interests.
"Ultimately we concluded that testing was an artificial indicator of success and that intelligence is more multifaceted and complex than what can be measured by any single testing system." |
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Taxicab Confessions: Racism on the Road
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** Editor's note: Colgate pscyhology professor Carrie Keating was interviewed at length as an expert source in an hour-long Primetime Live broadcast about how people react in violent or racist situtations. This article and the two subequent related ones were posted on the national network's website as additional components to the package. To view some clips from the broadcast, go to http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/. **
The movie "Crash," which won an Oscar for best picture this year, posed the stark questions: Are we all driven by prejudice and fear? Do we all harbor racist thoughts?
"Primetime" tried to answer that question by finding out what happened when people were confronted with hateful racial slurs. Say you're riding in a taxi and the driver starts a racist tirade -- denigrating blacks, Arabs, Jews, Asians, or Hispanics. Would you argue with him, tell him to shut up and let you out, or just keep quiet? Or would you maybe even join in?
"Primetime" equipped taxicabs with hidden microphones and cameras and hired two actors -- one white and one black -- to play the racist cab driver in two different parts of the country -- New Jersey and Savannah, Ga.
Carrie Keating, a psychology professor at Colgate University, says even complete strangers of different races can form a tight bond when one of them goes out on a limb and begins talking about race.
"Oddly enough, sometimes we're more honest with strangers than we are with people we know well," Keating said.
Us vs. Them
In a northern New Jersey town near New York City, the first fare is a Puerto Rican woman named Inez on her way to work, and she seemed to bear out Keating's claim.
Brian, the white cabbie, began by denigrating Arabs, then took it a step further. "Let's face it, people with brown skin shouldn't be allowed into the country," he said.
Inez pushed back, saying she didn't agree. "That would be a form of prejudice and I am far from being prejudiced," she said.
And she was quick to take issue with the notion that all Arabs are terrorists. "If you talk to a real Muslim who practices the Muslim religion, they don't trust the terrorists, the Arabs, because that's not the teaching of Islam," she said.
But then the conversation turned to Asians, and Inez complained, why can't they speak English?
"If you don't have it in English and you're in my country, then you don't want my business -- that's just the way I see it," she said. "So therefore, you shouldn't be allowed to have a business in the United States."
When confronted by "Primetime" after the ride, Inez said she was shocked by the cabbie's racism, but she defended her comments.
"I said exactly what I was thinking," she said. "They're here in this country, they should speak the language, our ancestors had to speak the language, and not be so blatantly obnoxious about the fact that they're anti-American but they're making money in our country and living in our country."
Keating said the cramped space of a taxi can be a kind of confessional, and turn quickly into an "us versus them" scenario.
"A taxicab ride is so personal and so intimate, so these two people are really negotiating their own social relationship by identifying out groups," she said. "It helps protect our own self-image."
The next passenger, Eric, a white man, was headed to work when he jumped in "Primetime's" taxi.
Brian the cab driver said to him, "I'll tell you, I won't pick up black people."
Eric's expression indicated he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I don't trust 'em in or out of the cab, frankly," Brian continued. "When you're alone on a dark street at nighttime and you see two big black guys walking toward you, what is your first thought?
Eric replied: "I don't worry about it too much. I don't like to see two big any guys walking towards me."
After talking about Mexicans, Brian started in on Jews. "Do you work with a lot of Jews?"
Eric, a cable television producer, responded, "Sure. ... No problems there either. Sorry to disappoint you."
Brian asked Eric point blank if he was Jewish. Eric, who is Jewish, refused to say.
"You know they control all the money, right?" said Brian, as he continued to try and bait Eric.
Eric didn't bite, nor did he confront Brian about his racism. When asked by "Primetime" why he didn't say anything, Eric said the cabbie seemed like a "lunatic" and it wasn't worth picking a fight with him.
"As long as I let him know I disagreed with him and didn't just sit there and go along with him, I was comfortable with myself," Eric said.
During two days of driving in New Jersey, some passengers agreed with the driver and joined in with his bigoted rants. A few openly challenged the driver, including a woman named Adhana. "I think that this country is great, and I think if we start to open up and start to learn about one another, I think that we can start to mend and heal," she told "Primetime" after the incident.
Although many seemed uncomfortable with his rants, no one told the driver to shut up or pull over and let them out. Keating said that was not all that surprising.
"[It's a] tough situation. You basically entered a cab in which you put all your trust in a driver whom you don't even know," she said. "You're trusting this guy to get you to your destination safely. To challenge that person would be very difficult and somewhat risky."
Only Blind to Some Colors?
What happened 800 miles to the south, when "Primetime" took the hidden camera-equipped cab to Savannah, Ga.?
As with the taxicab experiment in New Jersey, most passengers in Savannah considered themselves openminded and not at all racist. Yet, while they defended some racial groups, they denigrated others moments later.
When Michael, the black driver, complained that Asians are taking over the neighborhood, one passenger insisted she was so color-blind she hadn't noticed and that she learned tolerance early.
But the conversation took a stunning U-turn when the driver mentioned Atlanta, where the woman lived until recently.
"Atlanta is like a weird deal nowadays. It's like going to like frickin' Cuba, don't you think? I mean, you like cannot go anywhere without seeing like people that don't speak English," she said.
The woman complained that Hispanics take Americans' jobs, but then she argued that not all Arabs are terrorists.
The driver decided to make one last complaint -- about Jews. "What's crazy is they control everything, but every time I get a Jewish person in the cab, I never get a tip," said Michael.
The woman replied: "I'm gonna tell you something: you never will! They want to keep hold of their damn money, they don't want to let go of it, you know?"
After the ride, the woman told "Primetime" she was just kidding around -- and that she serves on her company's diversity committee.
The final fare "Primetime's" cabbie picked up in Savannah was perhaps the most shocking.
The driver made a slur against Mexicans, and the passenger, a man from Texas, said: "Well, I like to go target hunting, you know -- Mexicans, Puerto Ricans."
The Texan continued: "But one of the things I hate worst is the lazy-ass ... n***er and especially these Savannah n***ers. They think they, you owe it to 'em, plain and simple. They don't have to work for all that paycheck.... And there's some of the damn poor white trash -- the son-of-a-bitches are the same g**damn way."
When asked by "Primetime's" John Quinones if he considered himself racist, the Texan said, "I don't think so."
He said his racist comments were just jokes. "I mean, that comes from Texas. Like in Texas they used to set back with all of the Mexicans and say, 'Well you're still wet behind the ears from swimming the Rio Grande.'"
No one topped the Texan when it came to offensive comments. But during the four days of the taxicab test, "Primetime" picked up 49 passengers -- and just seven of them challenged the drivers' racist slurs.
The experiment, though unscientific, led Keating to say America needs to have a national conversation about racial prejudice -- about the things we think, and the things we will even say out loud to a complete stranger when we think no one else is listening.
"You can't forget how important a conversation this is," she said. "Because if we don't start talking about what it would feel like to be the victim, then we're never going to get anywhere when it comes to erasing prejudice." |
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Does Race Affect Whether People Help in a Crisis?
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A couple is having a raging fight in public, and it looks as if it could turn violent. Do you intervene or keep walking?
"Primetime" took its cameras to two different cities and hired actors to play a white couple and a black couple. Would this affect how people responded?
The white couple, portrayed by Sarah and Nate, argued in a suburban park in New Jersey. One person after another ignored the woman in distress until a few people finally stepped in.
The black couple, portrayed by Karen and Tom, also argued in a park, but this park was Georgia. In this case, the boyfriend appeared even more aggressive.
At one point Karen screamed, "You're scaring me! Just please, please! Would you let go of me!"
Several people passed by looking concerned, but most insisted it wasn't their business.
"It seemed like they were breaking up," said one woman. "Just a squabble."
Another couple kept walking, saying later that getting involved was too dangerous. A man who appeared clearly shaken said he wanted to call 911 but had no cell phone.
"I wasn't going to intervene in someone's else's fight. 'Cause he, that would potentially escalate him -- he was out of control, or was on his way out of control," the man said.
Tom, the actor, said he was shocked that no one helped, considering what he was doing.
"I was shaking her, kicking her in her booty, you know, head locks and choking her neck," Tom said. "I mean, things that you know you wouldn't think that anybody would let slide by in this society right now in 2006."
What Role Did Race Play?
Does race have anything to do with it? Karen has her own theory.
"I think it is 'angry black man' syndrome," she said. "It's an automatic fear."
But, in fact, of the 58 people who walked by Tom and Karen fighting, 15 of them stopped to intervene or call 911.
Perhaps surprisingly, three times as many people stopped for Karen, the black actress, as they did for Sarah, the white actress.
But there was also a difference in the way people got involved. With Sarah, they stepped in and got between her and the abusive boyfriend.
But with Karen, people were more likely to keep their distance, and many simply told the couple it was inappropriate to air their dispute in public.
"There's a time and a place for things," one passer-by said to the couple. "This is not the time -- and certainly not the place."
That was something no one said to the white couple fighting in New Jersey.
"It did make me feel bad," Karen said. "I didn't get any sympathy."
Carrie Keating, a professor of psychology at Colgate University, said race did seem to play a role in people's reactions to the black and white couples.
"It seemed there was more empathy for the white victim than the black victim," Keating said. "It may be that you suffer a little bit of double jeopardy if you're female and black."
Deciding to Hold Her Ground
As the filming of Tom and Karen was about to wrap, one more woman walked by and decided she needed to intervene.
Approaching Tom and Karen, she said, "Excuse me, do I need to call someone?"
The woman, Tammy Billups, appeared calm and determined, and she looked the "abuser" right in the eye. She insisted she would not leave, even when Tom became confrontational.
Billups asked passers-by for a cell phone to call for help, and she continued to comfort Karen.
"It's OK, they're calling," she said to Karen, patting her on the shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere. I don't care."
For several minutes, Billups held her ground. Finally, she escorted Karen away. "I don't want you to be by yourself until he's gone," she told Karen.
When asked why she intervened, Billups said that she was frightened, but she remembered something she saw on TV.
"I've ... seen something like this on television before, but where they told you what to do, and they said to call and don't back away and get eye contact," she said. "And so, I thought I have to force myself to do that no matter what, even though I was shaking."
The show Billups had seen was last fall's "What Would You Do?" segment on "Primetime."
"I just thought, in the show it said, 'Stand there and don't leave,' and so I just thought, I have to do that for her," she said.
Karen was moved to tears. "Yes, it was in character, but it was also like, 'Thank you for seeing me as a person in distress.'" |
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Scholarship for Hong Kong students
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| Professor C. F. Lee, J.P. attended a function of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation yesterday. The Foundation announced the establishment of a scholarship for the Colgate University, a renowned liberal arts college established more than a hundred years ago in the U.S. The scholarship will sponsor the tuition fee and living expenses of one Hong Kong student to study at Colgate from 2006 to 2007. Mr Ho graduated from Colgate in the 50s. The Foundation has already sponsored many cultural activities before and here comes the chance to contribute to his alma mater. Students who are interested to know more about the scholarship can browse www.colgate.edu for details. |
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The Robert H. N. Ho Scholarship for Colgate University
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Rebecca S. Chopp, President of Colgate University, a renowned liberal arts college in the U.S, together with Mr Robert H. N. Ho and other alumni in Hong Kong, announced the establishment of a scholarship for Hong Kong students in a cocktail reception for the Hong Kong education sector on the 16th.
Mr Robert H. N. Ho, a graduate of Colgate in the 50s, said “Colgate provides excellent liberal arts and science education. We set up the scholarship to encourage the youth of Hong Kong to experience the unique education in Colgate.” |
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Are Women Quicker to Help Kids Getting Bullied?
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On a quiet morning in a suburban park, a boy is sitting alone at a picnic table. But the calm doesn't last long. Another group of boys approaches him and starts hassling him -- throwing his books on the ground, calling him names and shoving him.
The bullying looks vicious, hurtful and out of control, but again, all these boys are actors who are being filmed by "Primetime" to see who steps in to help.
Almost immediately after the bullying begins, a few women in the park spring into action. Alexandra Sproul strides over to the group of kids and threatens to call the police.
Another woman, Barbara Geiger, gets on her cell phone and calls 911. Meanwhile, she rebukes the bullies: "How dare you!"
One of the bullies tells her they "were just playing." "You're not playing!" Geiger responds.
Sproul rips the book out of a bully's hand. Then she takes the victim's book bag and says, "Let me hold this for you until those brats get out of the way."
Later, when she is told the fight was staged, Geiger said that women may be quicker to respond to bullying because of a maternal instinct. "That bear ... wanting to take care of little ones kind of kicks in -- whether it's yours or somebody else's you just want to take care of 'em," she said.
Maternal Instincts, Male Dominance
But many people in the park do ignore the fighting, even though it's clear they hear the taunts and see the shoving.
But wanting to take care of a little boy being bullied is one thing; knowing what to do is another. One woman watches the bullying transfixed, appears to be paralyzed by indecision for nearly two full minutes.
Another woman who has been watching with alarm approaches the group warily and reaches for her cell phone. But instead of call the police, she goes to get her husband, who stalks over and yells at the kids: "Hey! Cut that out! Hey, you got a problem?...Beat it!"
And the bullies scatter.
During the day of shooting, out of 66 people who came by, 18 stopped and got involved, and 11 of them were women -- almost twice the number of men.
Women might be more willing to help, but perhaps men have the advantage when it comes to actually stopping kids from misbehaving.
"I think it's it's the male figure, the dominance," says one man. "And I can raise my voice a little louder than she did."
Yet other female bystanders discover there's strength in numbers, and approach in group
One of the women who intervened says she felt a "horrible anger welling up and me" and was spurred to act by something she'd just seen on TV. "I think when I saw on TV last night was this Japanese woman whose stroller got stuck in the train and nobody came to help her except this woman finally ran [to help]," Fox said. "I think that was so fresh in my mind that I thought, 'Uh-uh. No way!'"
Having a Plan
Carrie Keating, a professor of psychology at Colgate University, says that most people have an instinct to help but many don't know how.
"On the one hand, you do want to step in and protect people who need protection," Keating says. "On the other hand, you'd better have the expertise and the plan to do it."
One woman who broke up the fight seemed to have a plan. Marta, who was carrying her own baby, confidently approached the group.
"Hey guys! Why are you doing that to him? Excuse me! Why are you doing that?" she says. Marta drives the bullies off and then watches to see that they've gone. Then she takes the victim to safety, asking him where his parents were and who the bullies were.
"Everyone walked by, was staring at them and kept walking," Marta said later. "I think people are scared maybe, or just don't want to get involved. But I stepped in because I have children of my own. Iwould never want that to happen to my child."
And much like a bear protecting its cub, she put herself in what could have been harm's way to save someone she perceived as weaker.
"She served as a block," Keating says. "She guarded him, she stepped in between the victim and the three aggressive boys to block their calls and punches and yells, to protect that young boy, to protect the victim." |
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Putting Parents In Their Place
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Strauss, Valerie
Washington Post, The
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They are needy, overanxious and sometimes plain pesky -- and schools at every level are trying to find ways to deal with them.
No, not students. Parents -- specifically parents of today's "millennial generation" who, many educators are discovering, can't let their kids go.
They text message their children in middle school, use the cellphone like an umbilical cord to Harvard Yard and have no compunction about marching into kindergarten class and screaming at a teacher about a grade.
To handle the modern breed of micromanaging parent, educators are devising programs to help them separate from their kids -- and they are taking a harder line on especially intrusive parents.
At seminars, such as one in Phoenix last year titled "Managing Millennial Parents," they swap strategies on how to handle the "hovercrafts" or "helicopter parents," so dubbed because of a propensity to swoop in at the slightest crisis.
Educators worry not only about how their school climates are affected by intrusive parents trying to set their own agendas but also about the ability of young people to become independent.
"As a child gets older, it is a real problem for a parent to work against their child's independent thought and action, and it is happening more often," said Ron Goldblatt, executive director of the Association of Independent Maryland Schools.
"Many young adults entering college have the academic skills they will need to succeed but are somewhat lacking in life skills like self-reliance, sharing and conflict resolution," said Linda Walter, an administrator at Seton Hall University in New Jersey and co-chairman of the family portion of new-student orientation.
Educators say the shift in parental engagement coincides with the rise of the millennial generation, kids born after 1982.
"They have been the most protected and programmed children ever -- car seats and safety helmets, play groups and soccer leagues, cellphones and e-mail," said Mark McCarthy, assistant vice president and dean of student development at Marquette University in Milwaukee. "The parents of this generation are used to close and constant contact with their children and vice versa."
Academics say many baby boomer parents have become hyperinvolved in their children's lives for numerous reasons. There is the desire to protect youngsters from a tougher and more competitive culture. And there is the symbolic value of children.
"It was just about 20 years ago that we started seeing those yellow 'Baby on Board' signs in cars, which arguably had little to do with safety and a lot to do with publicly announcing one's new status as a parent," said Donald Pollock, chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
"I imagine that parents who displayed those 'Baby on Board' signs are the ones who are now intruding themselves into the college experience of those poor babies 18 years later," he said.
"There are a lot of things I can't control," said one Bethesda mother who asked not to be identified because, she said, her daughter would be mortified. "Terrorists, the environment. But I can control how my daughter spends her day."
Teachers and principals in the early grades began noticing changes in parents in the 1990s. Parents began spending more time in classrooms. Then they began calling teachers frequently. Then came e-mails, text messages -- sometimes both at once. Today schools are trying to figure out how to take back a measure of control.
Some parents who once had unlimited access to classrooms or school hallways are being kicked out, principals say. Teachers are refusing to meet with parents they consider abusive, some say. A number of private schools have added language in their enrollment contracts and handbooks warning that a student can be asked to leave as a result of a parent's behavior. Some have tossed out children because their parents became too difficult to work with.
College officials say they, too, are trying to find ways to handle ubiquitous parents. Freshmen orientations incorporate lessons for parents on how to separate and let their children make their own hair appointments.
At Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., for example, administrators issue parents the university's philosophy on self-reliance when they drop off their children, spokeswoman Caroline Jenkins said.
Colgate administrators also send out a memo to department heads at the beginning of each semester reiterating that "we will not solve problems for students because it robs students of an opportunity to learn."
The Parent Program at Alma College in Michigan takes a comprehensive approach at orientation, complete with scripts that allow parents to role-play. A problem is presented and parents are asked, "Tell me what you've done already to solve this problem," said Patricia Chase, director of student development.
The answer often should be nothing, but inevitably parents offer lots of somethings.
"Our aim is not to tell parents to let go completely because, of course, parents want to be an integral part of their children's entire lives," said Walter of Seton Hall, where orientation includes sessions for parents and students -- both separately and together. "Rather, it is to discuss how to be involved in their children's lives, while allowing their children to learn the life skills they will need to succeed in college and beyond." |
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Christianity scholar visits
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Kollali, Sapna
Post-Standard - Madison County Bureau, The
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A visiting Christianity scholar recently spent two days at Colgate University discussing mysticism and historical figures in Christianity.
Bernard McGinn, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School, delivered a lecture, "Why Monasticism Matters," and discussed the paradox of monks withdrawing from society to further develop their commitment to it.
During his visit to Colgate, he also participated in classes, met with the Newman Community and discussed "Women in Christian Mysticism" at the Women’s Studies Center.
McGinn is working on a five-volume history of Christian mysticism in the West. He also has written extensively on Jewish mysticism and the history of apocalyptic thought. He is a graduate of St. Joseph’s Seminary and College in Yonkers.
He holds a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a doctorate in history from Brandeis University. He taught Colgate President Rebecca Chopp while she earned her doctorate at the University of Chicago. |
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Press installer packs his 2 tons of tools and hardware to jobs ...
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Eagar, Harry
Maui News, The
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WAILUKU – When Corey Stirpe graduated from Colgate University with a degree in sociology in 2004, he wanted to travel.
So he became an installer of newspaper presses. Since then he’s been to France, Sweden, Canada and, for the past 2 months, Maui.
He doesn’t travel light. He and his team of DGM millwrights schlep around with 4,000 pounds of nuts, bolts and assorted hardware plus enough power and hand tools to do just about anything.
High-speed presses are not plug-and-play. The DGM Advantage II that Stirpe’s team just finished is about 60 feet long, 15 feet high and weighs 65,000 pounds. It has three towers with four printing units in each.
As you read this, consider that if the four different plates are not exactly registered, the illustrations in the paper will be fuzzy.
Stirpe says the press has to be installed to tolerances of one-thousandth of an inch throughout. So the 2 tons of hardware include shims as thin as one-thousandth of an inch, too. The page this is printed on is three times thicker than that.
This installation has been comparatively easy, says Stirpe.
When The Maui News rebuilt its pressroom 11 years ago, it included an empty space for a new press.
The floor was left unpaved, to allow flexibility for whatever might be required down the line. Newspapers replace their presses once a generation, if that.
Publisher Joe Bradley says that shortly after Ogden Newspapers purchased Maui Publishing Co. six years ago, the floor of the second pressroom was poured. By that time “we knew roughly what weight we had to deal with.”
It was a close call with the walls, however. To raise the 17,000-pound top units into place, DGM rented the biggest forklift in the islands.
It cleared the walls by 3 inches, says Stirpe.
At other places DGM’s installers have been, the ceiling was too low, or the floor started settling.
Newspaper printing is one of the few heavy industrial businesses still found in the centers of American cities, although the use of satellite data transmission is allowing more and more newspapers to move their presses to the suburbs. This has happened, for example, on Oahu.
A big city daily’s presses take up an entire block. When they start rolling, the building shakes and the pressmen have to make hand signals, because they cannot hear each other.
At a small paper like The Maui News, printing is less like a buffalo stampede, though still noisy. Bradley says the new press “is really quiet.”
DGM – Dauphin Graphic Machines – was started in the mid-1970s to supply parts and service for presses by Goss, the manufacturer of the press used by The Maui News for more than 30 years.
In the 1990s, the company began manufacturing presses. It now employs about 225 people in rural Dauphin County, Pa.
It’s an ohana business, says Stirpe, with a lot of kinfolk working for the company. A good proportion of the DGM family is on the road most of the time, installing presses in Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Saudi Arabia, Hawaii and points between.
It takes about 10 people working full time several months to install and adjust a press, plus a few specialists who fly in for short tasks.
The millwrights have to have electrical, plumbing and mechanical skills. Stirpe, the project director, has a team that has been together for a while. Of several at DGM, he claims his works the smoothest.
Stirpe, Matt Chubb, Mark Snyder, Ed Anderson, Derrick Altland and Kevin Burkholder are from central Pennsylvania, but Josh and Tom Normann are from Viroqua, Wis., and Mark Lane is from Vancouver, Wash.
They don’t spend a lot of time in those places. “It takes a special woman to let her husband go off to Maui for two months,” says Stirpe.
Not that they logged much beach time. Twelve-hour days are usual. “We’re here for work.”
Pay is good, he says, with plenty of overtime.
Because of the tourist boom, they have had to shift around for lodging, moving from Kihei condo to Kihei condo.
On Sundays off, they’ve explored the island. “I love being in different places and have been fortunate to meet and establish relationships with local people,” Stirpe says.
Some of his crew were invited out to visit Hawaiian homelands, which Stirpe considers a privilege.
“People have been very nice.”
Next stop? It isn’t definite yet, but DGM has sold a press to a company in Mexico. |
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The Innocent Birth of the Spring Bacchanal
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Marsh, Bill
New York Times, The
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Spring break now sprawls across international borders, with students either welcomed as free-spenders or shunned for being little more than drunken mobs.
It seems to have started out innocently enough. The Colgate University swim coach worried that his 1934-35 team might get out of shape during Christmas break. A student’s father, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., suggested the team train at a big new pool in the city.
So they did. As the first Northerners to swim there, the group was warmly welcomed. Word started to spread among college students that the city was great to visit in winter and, eventually, spring.
Decades of cultural upheaval later, with unruly hordes numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the popularity of “Fort Liquordale” had become a huge annual headache.
Robert O. Cox, a city commissioner in the 1980’s, the years of greatest mayhem, recalled how jittery fellow commissioners once voted to purchase a riot tank with a water cannon to quell feared student rampages.
To his relief, the municipal tank “never went into active service,” he said. Later, when Mr. Cox was mayor, military-style strategy gave way to city planning. Streets were reconfigured to discourage cruising, laws on public drinking were enforced, and icons of spring break bacchanalia were replaced with high-end hotels and restaurants. The effort worked; the crowds went elsewhere.
The American Medical Association has warned for years of dangers, particulary to women, of binge drinking and risky sex. How seriously students ponder that message is anyone’s guess, but it hasn’t stopped their travels: Panama City Beach, Fla., now a top destination, expects more than 400,000 to show up.
Chart: ''Milestones in the History of a Rite''
1928 -- Casino pool opens in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the state's first Olympic-size pool.
1935 -- Colgate University swim team trains at the Casino pool. Other schools follow.
LATE 1930's -- College students from northern climates gradually discover that the swimmers are on to something: warm weather can be more pleasing than arctic weather. Student migrations to Fort Lauderdale begin five decades of growth.
1960 -- Release of ''Where the Boys Are,'' starring Dolores Hart and George Hamilton (right), along with Connie Francis, in which four Midwestern college women head to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. The movie cements the city's image as a student playground.
1961 -- Melees among students break out in Fort Lauderdale; about 400 are jailed. Mayhem becomes a recurring feature of the spring season, as tens of thousands flock to the Florida coast. At right, a 1967 arrest in Fort Lauderdale.
1980's -- Fort Lauderdale's Candy Store lounge is an epicenter of the wet T-shirt contest.
1983 -- Release of the film ''Spring Break,'' a poorly regarded 102 minutes of booze-soaked hijinks. Remarks one character: ''Beer's like... [expletive] great, ya know?''
1984 -- A remake of ''Where the Boys Are,'' featuring a more aggressive quartet of women, is also dismissed by critics.
1985 -- Peak of spring break migration to Fort Lauderdale; an estimated 380,000 visit. Many residents and business leaders join in opposition to the crowds and chaos. Other destinations, notably Daytona Beach, Fla., woo students.
1986 -- MTV's first spring break broadcast, from Daytona Beach. Other destinations emerge, including South Padre Island, Tex.; Panama City Beach, Fla.; and Cancun, Mexico, where the drinking age is 18.
1991 -- Sonny Bono, then mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., bans the wearing of thongs in public; city's allure as a spring break destination diminishes.
2002 -- Candy Store lounge is demolished, to be replaced by a luxury hotel.
2005 -- An estimated 15,000 students visit Fort Lauderdale during spring break weeks -- down 96 percent from 1985.
2006 -- Many colleges -- and even MTV -- promote community service for spring break. Areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina are especially popular, where students help with cleanup and rebuilding efforts.
2006 -- Colgate University, reputed originator of the spring migration, offers students ''safe break bags'' with sunscreen, bandages, ibuprofen, antacids, antiseptic ointment, a condom and instructions on how to help friends who drink too much, how to avoid sexual assault, and what to do if assaulted. |
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Clinton gets an 'A' for effort, but her jobs promise remains unfulfilled
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Zremski, Jerry
Buffalo News - Washington DC Bureau
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WASHINGTON - In keeping with a campaign promise to boost the upstate economy, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped win millions of dollars for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, teamed upstate farmers with downstate restaurants and even enlisted British Prime Minister Tony Blair in her efforts.
But there's a big part of Clinton's promise she couldn't keep.
"Hillary has a serious plan to create 200,000 new jobs upstate," an announcer intoned in one of her 2000 campaign ads.
The latest federal figures, though, show that upstate New York shed another 34,800 jobs in the five years between the former first lady's arrival in the Senate and January 2006.
That fact leaves Clinton with some explaining to do as she runs for re-election, two years before a possible race for the presidency.
And she explains it by saying things could have been different if Democrat Al Gore had won the 2000 presidential election - and stayed the course her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had set.
Does she regret using that 200,000 jobs figure?
"No," she replied, "because, you know, I think if we had continued the Clinton economic policies, I believe that there would have been a significant, a greater increase in employment."
"But you play the hand you're dealt," she added during a brief interview between Senate votes last week. "And we didn't win the election, and the other side got to implement their policies, which is, you know, largely tax cuts for the rich. And that's something that . . . I've had to work around."
Full-steam ahead
Of nearly 20 business leaders and upstate experts interviewed last week, not one criticized Clinton for a lack of effort on the upstate economy.
What criticism there is stems from that 200,000 jobs figure.
"She, more than anyone else, has worked to make the upstate economy an issue," said David Shaffer, president of the business-backed Public Policy Institute in Albany. "But am I sure glad I'm not the guy who talked her into predicting 200,000 jobs."
Key to Clinton's promise was a seven-bill package of legislation that aimed to bring broadband Internet access to rural areas, improve job training and provide tax cuts for business in areas with lagging economies.
Only two of the seven bills setting up "regional skills alliances" and incubators to aid entrepreneurs - made it into law.
Republicans, who have controlled the Senate for most of Clinton's term, ignored the rest.
"I don't blame her," said James J. Allen, executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency. "She was on the wrong side of the aisle."
While her legislative efforts lagged, Clinton shifted gears. Like Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., she initiated job-growing efforts all around the state.
In the Buffalo area, she helped win $26.4 million for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and, with her colleagues, fought to prevent the closing of the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.
In the Southern Tier, she won federal funding to restore commercial rail service.
And in farm country, she set up a program that boosted the sale of local upstate goods in New York City, said John Lincoln, president of the New York Farm Bureau.
Winning support
Such efforts have won support for Clinton in surprising places.
"She's been absolutely great," said Kirk Gregg, Corning Inc.'s chief administrative officer, who lauds Clinton for pushing policies that boost the company's catalytic converter business. "She obviously had her skeptics, but she's proved them all wrong."
Tom Blasczcykiewicz was a skeptic. President of AccuMed Technologies, a Buffalo company that makes specialized fabrics, he said he voted Republican in 2000. But that was before Clinton's "New Jobs for New York" program hooked him up with a marketing consultant who is bringing AccuMed "millions" in business.
"She brought us to the big city," he said. "If she runs for president, she's got my vote."
Of course, John Spencer - the former Yonkers mayor who is one of two Republicans campaigning to unseat Clinton - sees things a little differently.
"She's got a lot of accounting to do," said Spencer, who promises to work for tax cuts and to partner with local officials to bolster upstate. "It appears to me that she hasn't done much to further that end."
Roadblocks
Clinton fell short on her goal for several reasons. For one, the national economy has lagged for most of the decade, meaning that even if upstate matched the nation in job growth, it would have added only 133,500 jobs, not 200,000.
More important, the problems that many experts say have dragged upstate down for decades high local and state taxes and burdensome regulations continue unabated.
And above all, Clinton set a very ambitious goal.
"I'm really impressed with how much time and effort she puts into upstate," said Don Waldman, chairman of the department of economics at Colgate University.
But when asked about Clinton's jobs promise, Waldman said: "It was probably impossible to create that many jobs . . . Of course, politicians make all sorts of promises. And let's face it: political promises are made to get politicians elected more than anything else."
Even New Jobs for New York, Clinton's effort to team New York's venture capital and marketing might with upstate businesses, seems somewhat small-scale.
While it has held conferences on high-tech topics all across the state, New Jobs for New York has only two employees, and spent only $163,327 on programs in its first 15 months of existence.
"From a staffing point of view, it was always going to be a small effort," said Roger Altman, the former deputy treasury who heads the effort.
Clinton does have one huge advantage in the fight for jobs. As a former first lady, she has what she called "a convening power" - an ability to bring people together - that few can match.
For example, when a Lockheed Martin operation in Owego was bidding for a military helicopter contract in partnership with a British firm, Clinton called Blair, the British prime minister, and asked him to contact President Bush about the deal.
In turn, Blair sent Bush a note, said Greg Caires, a Lockheed Martin spokesman. Lockheed Martin got the contract and added 750 jobs.
Getting things done
In some cases, though, it's easy to see how Clinton's work has paid off.
Four years ago, Karen St. Hilaire, president of the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, told Clinton she wished more local artisans would sell their wares on eBay. Before long, at Clinton's behest, eBay officials traveled to the North Country to teach local merchants to do just that.
Now about 60 North Country businesses are selling products through eBay, and Tim Damon of Potsdam is as happy as any of them. Profits from the sale of his fishing rods and components tripled last year.
"There's four jobs she brought here," Damon said. |
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