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All this construction has created mud, unsightly debris and the annoying sound of hammering. But before we complain about the mud and the noise, we must think about what this construction represents. TCU is growing. With the renovation of Foster Hall, tentative plans for renovating the Student Center and plans for a new technology center and a new Rickel Building, TCU is expanding and improving its facilities. New buildings just don't appear, and renovations aren't neat affairs. Expansion has a price. But messy walks across campus and the sounds of constructions are small prices to pay for the improvements underway at TCU. The emphasis on growth and improvement at TCU is definitely welcomed, but we must be careful not to measure university improvement solely in terms of construction. While the evidence of physical improvements is obvious, academic improvements are much harder to measure. TCU needs better residence halls and technology centers, but that is not all it needs. While tough curriculums and teaching skills may not make for glossy pictures in brochures, it does make for a better university. Students need adequate facilities, but we also need a strong academic background. While TCU is obviously trying to improve its facilities, its commitment to improving students' actual education is less obvious. TCU will get recognition for its state-of-the-art buildings, but its lasting legacy will be the contributions its students make to society. So isn't it worth spending just as much time and money on things of lasting value?
Old news relevant in new year Hello and welcome back! It's been awhile since I wrote a column, so to get my creative juices flowing, I shall touch briefly on a few recent news events:
Y2K Wow! What was that all about? Not much, it appears. Was it much ado about nothing? Maybe, but let's be glad it turned out that way. I sincerely believe that all the effort that was made to fix the potential Y2K problems really made a difference. If nothing was done at all, I bet we would have endured a lot worse (and yes, I know about Italy). In this instance, it was better to be proactive than to take a "wait and see" attitude. (I never thought I would use the very overused word "proactive." I blame the Y2K bug.)
New Millennium Celebrations I just had to mention ABC's non-stop broadcast of millennial celebrations from different parts of the world as it struck midnight there. Probably for the first time for me, I really felt a connection to the "global community" that has often been written and spoken about in recent years. It was a real contrast to the protests of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. It goes to show that we can "all just get along" - as that old aspiration goes - if we are motivated enough. Seattle demonstrated that we still have our differences, but peace and celebration seem to be universal values, so let's hope that the celebratory spirit that I witnessed this New Year's Eve will carry over into the next century. And speaking of Seattle ...
The Battle in Seattle That was something, wasn't it? What does that say about the drive for the "global community" when protests arise such as the one in Seattle? For certain, it did raise questions as to who is leading this push toward globalism and why. The protests seem mainly centered on the fact that trade agreements are made and enacted by multinational organizations and corporations all without the votes or approval of Congress or the people. It is a problem because often these agreements greatly affect the lives of the citizens of the participating countries. This leads to my theory that we in the United States have entirely dismissed the concept of slavery. We have simply transported it abroad so that we do not have to see it. I will deal with this issue in a separate column later this semester.
Charles Schulz's retirement I will miss Peanuts. I knew Schulz had to retire eventually, but it still came as a surprise to me when I heard the news. Schulz is one of those rare artisans that can only be compared to rarities in other fields, like Mozart to music, Michael Jordan to basketball, or Albert Einstein to science. These people not only set the standard in their respective fields. They elevated it. When they left, only a vacuum remained in their place. Happy retirement, Mr. Schulz.
Sports First, congratulations to our two bowls in a row, Power of Purple TCU football team. With such an exciting team, why can't we fill up the stadium? Change is the order of the off-season for the Texas Rangers. They traded away Juan Gonzalez and brought back Kenny Rogers. No more Todd Zeile, Mark McLemore or Aaron Sele either, but the Rangers have some new uniforms. Will our inability to advance in the playoffs change along with all these other changes? Stay tuned. Mark Cuban certainly stirred up some excitement with his purchase of the lowly Dallas Mavericks. I hope he lives up to the hype that he has been putting out because us die-hard Mavericks fans deserve better.
The candidates for president It's a crowded field of the usual suspects. It's too close to call, and everyone is being too careful not to make the stupid mistake that will bounce them out of running, so it's been rather boring right now. We will just have to stay tuned until something interesting happens.
John P. Araujo is an MLA graduate student from Fort Worth. He can be reached at (j.araujo@tcu.edu). Science inventions lack utility Rather than bore you all with yet another column about how Y2K was the most overrated event since The Phantom Menace, I thought I'd bore you instead by grousing about how Y2K really dropped the ball. I did a bit of reading on the future of science and concluded that 1) science is behind the times and 2) I should probably make stuff up because science magazines are tough reads. I tried reading them for the articles, and frankly, I'm not impressed. Let's look at what we've got in the works. Remember when some Scottish scientists cloned a sheep? Yeah, well now some Japanese scientists made a cow. Apparently it's a special cow - it makes milkshakes or grills itself or something - but who cares? Even if it were a super cow, its meat would never make it into a college cafeteria. We will have to wait for bioengineered meat until science clones a better rat. Why not clone something better, like Galapagos tortoises or Superman? Or better yet, Super Galapagos Tortoise Man? The moral dilemma of cloning real people has many scientists terrified and deadlocked, but I think the cloning of fictitious people is an open-and-shut case. If not Super Galapagos Tortoise Man, then definitely Holden Caulfield, the Cat in the Hat or some 1940s pinup girls. Science has really let me down with the flying car. I thought about this while sitting next to "chronic-halitosis guy" and near "owner-of-colicky-baby guy" on the plane. Truth be told, I don't like flying. My distaste for flying is not for fear of crashing or hijacking. I hate flying because other people ride in planes along with me. I do, however, like to drive, and driving across the friendly skies is certainly appealing. So where is the flying car? Not in my garage, that's where! While those "scientists" and "inventors" are busy making self-milking cattle, I have to wait at stoplights and crawl down the interstate while all three lanes of traffic rubberneck. (And what is that all about anyway? Haven't Texans ever seen a car wreck? Lord knows you all like NASCAR.) Gimme the flying car, or for Texans, flying pickups. Japanese people are at least trying to do something productive (except for the special cows), as Sony recently debuted with the robot yappy dog. I have a dachshund at home, and I would give anything to take out her batteries or throw her in the closet when she gets noisy. Though I have no interest in owning a robot dog, I support canine robotics because they are the link between robot-automobile plants and robot pirates. If I could buy a crew of robot pirates, we would zoom around in our flying full-size van (the kind with the bubble windows) drinking rum (since robot pirates use rum for fuel) and pillaging scientist-filled suburbs of their super-cow steaks. But robot pirates are a pipe dream. I'd be happy if science got serious about putting a man on Mars. Instead of wasting money on social programs, the government could be helping science do great things, such as paying people to use the same measuring system on spacecraft. But no, all we get is testing. When my dad was in college, he got to see a man bounce around on the moon. Since I've been in college, the only bouncing things I've seen have been on a trampoline at the end of "The Man Show." Of course, I shouldn't complain. Political science majors rarely grow up to invent anything useful other than complex ways in which to convey homogenous platitudes comparable to that which is said by colleagues who wish to arrive at aggregate conclusions as their counterparts. If I really wanted to change the world, I should have picked a major such as robotology or clononics and taken the responsibility myself. I'm sorry science, you didn't drop the ball - I did.
Steve Steward is a senior political science major from Lodi, Calif. and has attempted to make his Hyundai fly with limited success. He can be reached at (haoledubstyle@hotmail.com). Growth certain with new programs Welcome, TCU, to the information age. TCU will join a smattering of universities around the country that offer master's degrees online. Online courses for master's degrees in liberal arts and nursing could be offered by TCU as soon as next fall. Now, TCU offers little to meet the needs of nontraditional students who have special needs, such as full-time jobs or families. The TCUglobalcenter, located at the Alliance Airport north of Fort Worth, will help alleviate some of those concerns. Professionals who don't want to brave campus two or three times a week can instead attend master's-level classes there. The online degrees will take what is being started at the TCUglobalcenter one step further. TCU already offers several Web-enhanced courses, in which students meet periodically and participate in discussion boards and other activities on the Internet. Those courses already have some problems: Teachers and students often have difficulty connecting with each other through the Internet. That type of connection, however, is one primarily needed at an undergraduate level among traditional students and their professors. The business person who earns a master's degree online will not need that type of contact. Furthermore, communication between students and professors should be no problem. Don Coerver, director of the master's of liberal arts program, said while the new program will not completely eliminate scheduled class times, it is a step in that direction. As part of the push to make TCU a top-tier institution, the administration should push even harder in that direction. As it stands, students who wish to pursue an online master's degree will still be required to come to campus periodically. While they may not have to put up with Metroplex traffic on a daily basis, they'll still have to live in the area. Granted, this does open up the opportunity for D/FW-area businessmen and women who travel because of their jobs or who have other personal obligations. But part of furthering TCU's reputation nationwide is getting the name out to as many places as possible. Why restrict it to Dallas/Fort Worth? Coerver said eventually someone anywhere in the world could be a TCU student through this program. A major sticking point, however, is getting faculty members who are willing to take the time and make the commitment to learn how to teach classes on the Internet. It will take a professor who is knowledgeable about the Internet and is willing to forgo some teaching opportunities here on campus. Perhaps TCU will have to hire new professors specifically for the job of teaching online courses. It is hard to ask professors who have been teaching the same way for the past 20 or 30 years (which is a problem in and of itself) to suddenly and completely rethink their entire teaching method. Some professors on campus don't yet use e-mail as a way to communicate with their students. How could they ever be expected to teach a class online? Through the new E-commerce degree, the Tucker Technology Center scheduled for construction and now the online master's degrees, technology is becoming more of a priority at TCU every day. As we move into the 21st century, there has never been a better time to expand TCU's reach through innovative technology. TCU would be selling itself short by not fully embracing the possibilities of an online degree program. That means we must invest the time and the money into creating a state-of-the-art program that will be associated everywhere - not just in Dallas and Fort Worth - with TCU.
Jason Crane is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Shreveport, La. He can be reached at (jlcrane@delta.is.tcu.edu). |
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