Letters to the Editor

Attendance policies should be absent in GCSU classrooms

Dear Editor,

I would like to address class-imposed attendance policies. I think an attendance policy is unfair, and is an issue that many in the student body have a problem with.
Students have to pay to come to school and it should be up to them whether or not they attend class. I see the positive side of an attendance policy; it forces students to attend class because no one wants their grade affected because one too many classes were missed. It requires students to show up for class.
I think it is extremely unjust. If a student does not attend enough class, then it is their fault whether or not they received enough information to pass a test or the class. It is a student’s own responsibility to be on time and go to class. It should not be something that is forced onto students. It would not be fair if a student received high grades on all assignments but missed one too many classes and got a lower grade than deserved. Obviously, the student went to enough classes to know the material and receive good grades.
I understand that teachers do this not to hurt the students but to encourage the students to come to class on a regular basis. In public high schools, there are attendance policies because it is government run and the government makes the decisions, but public high schools are free. In a university where it is not free and the students have to pay for all materials, classes, and tuition it should be the student’s money that decides how often a class is attended. We are paying to go here and it is our money that is lost if we fail a class. We are supposed to be learning to be responsible adults in college, allow students to make responsible decisions alone without policies.

Sincerely,
Kelly Reagin
Freshman
Undecided

Quick reads for the uninformed

Dear Editor,

Three Tasks for Students Concerned about a “black table” at Sodexho:

1. Ask yourself why white students sit together at Sodexho. Why didn’t Lugo (Feb. 16 issue) refer to white students as making a choice to “separate – to segregate”? She suggests that black students, by sitting together, have somehow rejected a noble gesture from whites to sit with them, thus wrongfully segregating themselves.

It disturbs Lugo and apparently whites who support her view (Feb. 23 issue, “Lugo hit the nail on the head with her assessment”) that “certain groups of people separate themselves and act like they can get away with something because of their color.” I wonder what black students who sit together at Sodexho are trying to get away with? It would appear that they are trying to take over the nation. Lugo tells the reader that Martin Luther King, Jr. did not intend “to create a black elite society, or any other racial societies, that would one day conquer the nation and outnumber the whites.” But the blacks who sit together at Sodexho intend, apparently, to do just that.

2. Read about whites who have worked for racial justice (see reading list online), and you will find folks who are not threatened by people of color who sit together for meals. More importantly, they are unlikely to feel excluded or hurt when people of color prefer their own lived experience as their guide for accomplishing racial equality. As many of the white workers for racial justice describe, self-examination is a major part of their mission. They reflect on their feelings and interpretations and assume that eliminating their own prejudice is a life-long struggle. Similarly, read about men who work alongside women in the feminist movement who are not easily offended when women want their own space, and read about men who understand how to step aside and interact with women as movement leaders. Those who claim an interest in social justice must, at the very least, move beyond egocentrism.

3. Beyond reading to find answers to oft-repeated questions (instead of just asking them without implying some sense of personal responsibility for action), take advantage of the opportunity provided to you by virtue of your presence on a college campus and take some classes in this area – we have to, at some point, take personal responsibility for what is our “singularly appropriate education” around race in the U.S. This will be true for you if, and only if, you actually want to be able to find answers to these questions and not just to ask them as a way to let yourself off the hook for taking any action.

Sincerely,
Sandra Godwin and Stephanie McClure
Assistant Professors of Sociology

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 2 2007. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry