Chattering Class: Trading tackling for teaching

Chances are this will be the last Carolinian you'll pick up this semester. It seems like any break that lasts long enough to tie your shoe means many students scurry back to their hometown. This is really unfortunate since the weekends should be a pretty important part of college life and anything is more memorable than vegging out to HBO at your parents' house. 'School Spirit' has always been supposedly a problem at UNCG. Contrary to what a lot of people say, I don't find Greensboro boring - nowhere outside of a real metropolis is terribly exciting. It is also not our lack of a football team. Last week in the Sports section, Mr. Veltri gave an excellent nuts-and-bolts explanation for why we haven't got a football team. Well personally, I'm glad we don't. The amount of money required to start, recruit and maintain a team is really dire compared to any hope of return revenue. We have many fine athletic teams from tennis to baseball and they don't seem to be raking in the cash for Old Minerva.

This simply isn't a football campus either. We're a liberal arts and professional school. We also have a large majority of female students - a fact that for me has always been more enjoyable than watching helmeted guys with mouth guards hit each other. All of us, students, faculty and administration need to realize and accept the fact that we aren't UNC-Chapel Hill. A state system should have only one flagship campus. That's the point of a flagship. I'm okay with that. In fact we do many things better than they do. Each of the 16 UNC campuses has its own mission and community. For too long the administration in particular has been appearing painfully envious of the bigger schools.

Why on God's green Earth are we talking about demolishing the Quad to get more bodies into a school precisely when we're axing professor positions right and left? More students times higher tuition minus staff costs equals profit. I can do that math and I failed algebra I in 9th grade. Is money why we're all here anyway? Not too many people seem to care about learning for its own sake or to improve themselves. The administration, teachers, students and most certainly the parents view 'college' as merely a way to get a 'good job.'

Truth be told there aren't that many 'good jobs' out there just to be had with a four year degree. That's why I came back to UNCG for grad school. Education and Nursing, two 'feminine' programs that are UNCG specialties are probably your best bet for a financially healthy future. These programs would have to compete for funds with the football team.

I think we all need to take a step back and see the cynical system of money plus grades might equal bigger money. Autotech may be more profitable than a Communications degree if money is the only thing you're looking for. I sincerely enjoy learning new things and acquiring information. The more I understand about the universe, the more I feel human. People do need to learn how to do things that society deems useful enough to pay for. There shouldn't have to be a conflict between these two goals. Unfortunately it seems that most students from middle school onward are taught to look at education as a burden that is to be shouldered in exchange for money. Professors want you to learn what they teach, they want you to care. You should care and make yourself a better man or woman, I mean you are paying the teacher for their knowledge. Why does nobody care what the professor says except for what will be on the test? That's a subject for a wiser guy than me to address.