Attitude, Academics, Rights and Responsibilities

"To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to."
- Kahlil Gibran

Well, here you are at the beginning of your College of the Siskiyous college career. Perhaps you have been to college before and didn't finish, or perhaps you did finish and are starting on something new. Perhaps you are coming straight from high school and are just hoping to get everything out of college that you have been dreaming about.

College is a completely different setting than that of high school or the workplace or anything else you could have experience. Whether it is a good and successful experience is entirely up to you. There are many myths about college life and what a student can accomplish. William Shakespeare once said,

In the Counseling office we always hear one or two students comment that a class or a teacher is stupid or that they didn't pass a class because there was no help available. The main thing to remember about your education is that it is ultimately your responsibility to make or not to make your dreams into reality. Watch your choices, take personal responsibility for your choices, and speak up if you think or see something that is not right. When you take an active role in your education there is no other result but success. In this class I will present some of the tools necessary to be a successful student however, it will be up to you to use the tools.

On that note as a student and an individual you are eligible to certain rights. However it is when you are responsible for your rights and the rights of that you become a citizen of the campus community. When you begin your college career you enter a new sort of freedom with your education that you most likely haven't had before. For example you can choose to skip class or not do you homework. However, one thing many new students learned with this freedom is that when you exercise this right you choose to miss the information in that class session and therefore risk the potential failure of the class. Choices and consequences are one of the most important lessons students learn in their first semester in college.

Another right students like to exercise is the right to agree or disagree with an instructor or classmate. Most college professors encourage students to think for themselves. They love an intelligent debate in the classroom because it assists in active learning. However, sometimes students are so new to this freedom that they forget that with every right comes great responsibility. Remember that it is OK to disagree with someone without making him or her feel wrong or bad about his or her opinion. Be respectful and treat others the way that you would like to be treated, and you should have no problems. When you stop respecting your peers and professors you only dampen the potential of the class and yourself as an individual.

Another issue that faces students is plagiarism. Did you know that if you forget to put "quotations" in quotations and document the author you are guilty of plagiarism? Or if you use someone else's idea with out giving them credit, that also is plagiarism. This has become a huge issue in college work in recent years, especially with the Internet bringing ultimate information right to our fingertips. Most students never realized that they were plagiarizing and for example:

Bob read a great article on George Washington for his term paper. He decided that he would just rewrite what the author was relating in the article in his own words. After he had turned in his paper, Bob found himself in trouble and not even knowing how he got there. Plagiarism is taking someone else's ideas and presenting them as your own. Even if you put them in your own words.

What you need to do is to give the author of those ideas credit. You do that by endnoting or footnoting your paper. That just means that you put a note in your papre either after the information (Endnoting) or at the bottom of the page (Footnoting) There is a proper way to do this. Ask your English teacher, look it up on the internet, or go by the writing lab at COS to get the info.

An instructor can fail a student for the assignment or the class if they are guilty of plagiarism whether it was intentional or not.

Have you ever felt uncomfortable and trapped in a situation with no way to get out? Has anyone ever made sexual remarks at you that made you feel uncomfortable? This isn't always a male making advances on a female it happens vice versa. Even sometimes it happens male to other males or females to other females. The harassment is when someone/anyone makes consistent remarks to you that make you feel uncomfortable or degraded.

O.K. so it's happened, what do you do about it. First off it is usually best to be up front with the person. A lot of harasses don't realize that the other person doesn't think they are funny or cute saying what they say, and those that do usually won't stop until someone challenges them. Sometimes just laying in on the line stop harassment before it becomes really bad.

If this doesn't work however, speak to your Instructor or a Counselor about what is happening. If that doesn't resolve the problem, then you should make a formal complaint to the Vice President of Student Services, Robin Richards.

If the harassment is coming from an instructor than you need to go to Nancy Miller the Gender Equity/Personnel Director. She will take action from there.

The main thing to remember is that your harasser needs to take personal responsibly for him/herself and that it is not your fault that he/she is harassing you. It is your responsibility to take action and make the predator stop. This will make a stronger individual of you.

I am aware that taking any formal action in these types of situations is something that most students do not opt to do. This is too bad. If the unacceptable behavior of either students or teachers is not reported then the behavior is likely to continue. This simply puts others at risk. I believe you have a responsibility to report these people so that the school can do what it is required to do, that being to effectively stop the behavior. Can't do it without you!

Diversity is such a wonderful and exciting thing and we are very fortunate to live in a country that is diverse. Not only in culture, but also in lifestyles, personalities, and ethnicity. Think how boring the world would be if there were no diversity. We would be like the storm troopers in Star Wars, rows upon rows of the same thing. No new ideas, no feelings or new experiences. If you embrace your fellow man, You will find that you grow not only as a student, but as an individual.

Below is a web site that contains a wealth of good information concerning diversity. For this week's assignment, you will need to be familar with it.

Below are two other web sites you might like to look at. These are not a part of the assignment.:

This is a list of competencies that identify what it is you should accomplish while at college.

a. Instrumental Independence = the ability to manage time, money, clothing, health, diet, and personal needs
b. Emotional Independence = the ability to deal with authority figures in a mature and productive manner

a. Sexual Impulses = the ability to develop a consistent code of sexual conduct that allows a person to function in a safe and comfortable manner with others
b. Aggressive Impulses = the ability to redirect the negative emotions of anger and hatred in ways that are mature and nondestructive to self and others

a. Intellectual Competence = the ability and willingness to acquire knowledge, to think critically, to enjoy learning for its own sake, and to feel the excitement of entering new realms of knowledge
b. Social and Interpersonal Competence = the ability to acquire the social skills that will allow a person to interact successfully and confidently with others
c. Physical Competence = the ability to develop the manual skills associated with athletics and creative arts that provide prestige, satisfaction, and enjoyment

a. The successful attainment of this task depends upon the successful attainment of the previous three tasks; developing competence, managing emotions, and developing autonomy.
b. Successfully developing a mature identity that will lead to a productive personal lifestyle also depends upon the ability to clarify physical needs, personal appearance, and sex-appropriate roles and behaviors.
c. Once a sense of identity is achieved, the next three tasks may be approached. Identity is the hinge on which future development depends.

a. Once identity is achieved, relationships become less anxious and defensive and more friendly, spontaneous, and respectful with an emphasis on trust, independence, and the capacity for mature intimacy.
b. Students who achieve this task are able to develop mature relationships with many types of people, become more tolerant of people from different cultures, discover that perfect parents don't exist, and realize that Prince or Princess Charming will most probably never appear to suddenly sweep them off their feet and enable them "to live happily ever after."

a. The question associated with this career-oriented task is not only "Who Am I?" but also "Where Am I Going?"
b. A general orientation toward a career is achieved first, and then more specific career decisions are made as students begin to formulate plans and integrate vocational and lifestyle considerations.

a. Involves the successful clarification of a personally valid set of beliefs that have some internal consistency.
b. College students who successfully accomplish this task examine the values of their parents, religion, and culture to see if they fit them personally.
c. The student's task is then to retain those values that fit, reject those values that do not fit, develop behaviors that are consistent with these accepted values, and be willing and able to defend them in a mature, persuasive, and intellectually-honest manner.

The handouts on Perry and Chickering is a slightly modified version of a paper entitled "The Developing College Student" written by Dr. Virginia Gordon for the 1989-90 Ohio State University Survey.