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Showing posts from March, 2013

Identity: Education

I took a class once that explored identity and one of the first assignments was to think about our individual identities and the borders we cross every day. I don't remember what I said exactly, but they were probably the obvious ones. This past week I discovered a new boundary that I cross, an identity that I was ignoring. One that has been very painful to discover and one I felt I had to apologize for, which was probably just as painful as the discovery. The identity, the border I cross, is one of education. I put myself through school, both undergrad and graduate school. My parents took out loans that I now pay every month. I am the most educated person in my immediate family, the only other person related to me by blood, who is also as educated, is my uncle (I think). As for my in-laws, I am the most educated, minus a few of my husband's cousins. I never considered this a border to cross, something that would cause problems. I've known most of these people sin

Why help veterans?

“ For the life of me I don't understand this political and media urge to cull the veteran out of the college pack. College campuses are made up of many cohort groups. Older, Married, Minority, Disabled, Non-Trad, just to name a few. Yet they are able to maintain and use the services that the college is providing to all students. This isn't our first Rodeo, we have all had Vets on our campus since WWII and have never set them aside for this kind of special treatment or attention. So why is the Vet so special to get all this special attention and not the rest of the groups? Is it because they have such a lucrative GI Bill that politicals want us to monitor and defend how it is being spent, much like Pells and Loans?” Is the first comment to this article . I’ve been thinking about addressing this, but at first I was stumped. Why is the veteran so special? Why do I want to help this group? Why should anyone help this group? They can consider themselves just students , so w