Archive for the ‘30-40P’ Category
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
“You’re anal,” concluded a student in one of my writing classes after I told her I wasn’t accepting her late class assignment. It’s clear in the class guidelines that first drafts of story assignments must be turned in on time or the grade for the assignment is F. But she seemed to believe, for reasons I didn’t understand, that I would overlook her serious omission. Well, said a student in another news writing class, we feel that the class is disorganized. We show up we and we never know what to expect.
These were the most notable comments in the face-to-face meetings I scheduled with my student writers in March. This semester, like the others, many didn’t read the syllabus nor the assignment guidelines and many came to class unprepared. Some can’t or won’t follow simple directions.
They, like many before them, Do the DUH a lot.
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Tags: college education, undergraduate education
Posted in 30-40P, Journalism Education, Student Journalism | Comments Off
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Two students taking Media 386, a journalism ethics course, last semester had their final grades reduced by one grade because of repeated violations of class guidelines about text messaging. Both were whining that they were treated unfairly. They were not identified but one actually did a whine-whine on the WORD’s facebook page: She was responding to my description of the other student because she believed I was discussing her “case. When I informed her that I wasn’t, she refused to believe me. In a sense, she outed herself in a public forum!
The other notified me that she was appealing her grade (which is not a bad strategy in a department with the most sordid grading scams at Hunter). But never mind that. Below is a metaphysical rejoinder to them about the perils of texting inappropriately.
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Tags: cell phone texting, texting, Youtube
Posted in 30-40P, Commentary, It Was One of Those Semesters, Journalism Education, Podcasts/Video Blogs | Comments Off
Friday, December 31st, 2010
What’s left to say? The consequences of using a cell phone in my classes were clearly stated this semester. Students were advised. Enlightened. Warned. Caveats to the left, caveats to the right, caveats right down the center of the class in Room 504 Hunter North, where Journalism Ethics and News Responsibility was taught. Started with about 35 students, eventually whittled to 24.
All advisements and enlightenments and warnings and caveats delivered with deliberation: F for the class after an initial warning. Yet, when it came time for the big F, I chickened out and, instead, took off one grade of the final grade. Two students this semester.
Both, of course, provided cheesy excuses, like the one below: 6:48-6:50? Not my recollection. More like smirking and gee whiz and all shucks. A mid 20s student.
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Tags: cell phone etiquette, cell phones, cell phones in classrooms
Posted in 30-40P, Commentary, It Was One of Those Semesters | Comments Off
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Pushback can range from physical threats & menacing behavior to moderate passive aggressive behavior (such as, I dare you to make me do the assignments) to the negligible. Extreme, never to be tolerated; moderate, up to a certain level until it threatens to fuel rebellious anticipation of 30-40Ps; negligible, hardly worth mentioning (a little slack shouldn’t hurt but don’t tell that to 30-40Ps and the Colleagues who support them).
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Tags: college students, disruptive students, undergraduate education, undergraduate journalism
Posted in 30-40P, Journalism Education, Student Journalism | Comments Off
Friday, February 5th, 2010
AKA Feature Writing
In many ways, this was a typical D:F/M advanced news writing class. The students were talented, all could write. Yet … !
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Tags: academic standards, City University of New York, Hunter College, undergraduate education, undergraduate journalism education, undergraduate journalism students
Posted in 30-40P, Journalism Education, Student Journalism | Comments Off
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
This is an introduction of sorts to a six-part series. A few years ago, I invited the New York Time’s first Ombudsman to my journalism ethics/responsibility class. That position, now occupied by Clark Hoyt, is primarily known now as the New York Times Public Editor. I’m speculating that the presence of a Public Editor is more preferable to Ombudsman which sounds akin to a lawman enforcing the law in a lawless community (at least, that’s how I imagine the NYT natives perceive the position when it was announced in the wake of the Jason Blair scandal and other journalistic ignominies which didn’t get as much attention but contributed to marring the public image of the Times).
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Tags: Clark Hoyt, Daniel O'krent, Hunter, New York Times, New York Times Ombudsman, New York Times Public Editor, undergraduate education, undergraduate journalism
Posted in 30-40P, Dogfighting in the Department of Chimera, Journalism, Journalism Education | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Several years in the making.
If institutions of higher learning desire academic honesty, they must be institutions of obvious integrity, places where students, faculty, and administrators seek truth and wisdom and technical expertise in an environment marked by trust, honesty, respect, fairness, responsibility, and courage. — Peg Hogan, Former President, The Center for Academic Integrity
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Tags: academic failure, academic integrity, academic scams, Cheating, flunk, Fs, grades
Posted in 30-40P, Commentary, Journalism Education | Comments Off
The Perils of Bovine Texting
Thursday, January 20th, 2011Two students taking Media 386, a journalism ethics course, last semester had their final grades reduced by one grade because of repeated violations of class guidelines about text messaging. Both were whining that they were treated unfairly. They were not identified but one actually did a whine-whine on the WORD’s facebook page: She was responding to my description of the other student because she believed I was discussing her “case. When I informed her that I wasn’t, she refused to believe me. In a sense, she outed herself in a public forum!
The other notified me that she was appealing her grade (which is not a bad strategy in a department with the most sordid grading scams at Hunter). But never mind that. Below is a metaphysical rejoinder to them about the perils of texting inappropriately.
(more…)
Tags: cell phone texting, texting, Youtube
Posted in 30-40P, Commentary, It Was One of Those Semesters, Journalism Education, Podcasts/Video Blogs | Comments Off