Ohio State takes off the kid gloves with the campus crybullies:
It’s gonna take a lot to restore my faith in American higher education.
But it’s a start.
28 thoughts on “Like Intellectual Mannah From Heaven”
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http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Houston-news-7234538.php?cmpid=gsa-chron-result
Follow that article. If a progressive rag such as the Chronicle takes McClelland’s side, maybe, just maybe there is a glimmer of hope.
I especially appreciated it when the admin said he wasn’t going to answer their stupid questions. This may be the first time some of those kids were confronted by a responsible adult; it may be the most valuable lesson they receive during their college education.
JPA, there is a paywall oppressing me at that link. My RIGHT to FACTCHECK has been stifled by THE MAN!
There is something to be noted when kids who occupy a building with the express purpose of obstructing the operation of the university can’t clue in to how they would be perceived as a threat.
Dartmouth…a soriety has an annual party (a private party at their house)…the theme is the Kentucky Derby. They had to cancel it this year because the loony tunes at Dartmouth have a problem with the Kentucky Derby. Something about ties to slavery. Although the derby started in 1875. And for the first few decades most of the jockeys were black athletes. You’d think if you were paying $60,000 a year to go to Dartmouth you would demand at least a couple of history classes.
Heh, the guy in the background, the one playing with his phone the whole time. He is just there to get laid.
Here is the text. Sorry. Twitter exchange is priceless.
Scott McClelland had planned to share his marketing insights to 200 business students at the University of Houston, but by the time he finished the hourlong lecture, he’d thrown one student out, started a Twitter feud with another and provided a life lesson for all.
Many Houstonians would recognize McClelland as the smiling, bespectacled pitchman who appears with Astros Hall of Famer Craig Biggio in H-E-B television commercials. His day job is president of the grocery chain’s Houston region.
“People notice little stuff. In many of our locations, there is a Wal-Mart or a Kroger right across the street from an H-E-B, and often there’s a fine line of distinction in the customers’ mind about what gets them to turn in to our parking lot,” McClelland told me. “You seek to differentiate yourself from others, and it’s little things that make a difference.”
About 20 minutes into his talk, he spotted one student leaning back in his chair, sound asleep and “sawing logs.”
“I asked the student sitting behind the sleeping student to tap him on the shoulder. When he sat up, I told him that he looked tired and he needed to leave. He just sat there, so I told him again that he needed to go,” McClelland recalled. “The whole class looked on (as the student left). I think they were surprised someone would actually address what probably is tolerated in other classes they attend.”
McClelland said he didn’t plan on doing anything that dramatic, but in that moment he saw a teaching opportunity.
“When you are at work, or school, you need to bring your ‘A’ game, because people are always watching,” he said. “A year from now, the students in the class won’t remember the slide that I showed them on how we partnered with Whataburger to develop a retail package for ketchup, but they will remember that a kid fell asleep in class and the H-E-B guy didn’t tolerate it.”
McClelland said doing nothing would have made him guilty of “the insidious acceptance of the B grade.”
“It’s easy to walk by little things that aren’t a big deal – like someone sleeping in a class of 200,” he said. “However, doing that detracts from excellence and lowers your expectations about what you’re willing to tolerate on a daily basis.”
Life’s most important lesson is that actions have consequences, and sometimes we learn those things in embarrassing ways.
One student, though, disagreed and anonymously took to this generation’s soap box: Twitter.
“@HEBScott of @HEB overstepped his authority and publicly humiliated a student at @UHouston during his guest presentation by kicking him out,” the person who adopted the handle @UHStudent1 wrote. “It was not his place, nor his right, to discipline and humiliate a student.”
Apparently UHStudent1 doesn’t know how disruptive a sleeping student is to a lecturer. But because Twitter is public, and millions of people can watch the conversation, public figures and businesses know they must respond to critical tweets.
“You go to UH to learn how to succeed post graduation. Sleeping in class won’t get you there. Lacks basic courtesy,” McClelland responded. “In the business world, which student is training to enter, you don’t sleep during meetings.”
Other students came to McClelland’s defense, and Chronicle sports columnist Jerome Solomon alerted me to the debate. I asked if @UHStudent1 would identify himself or herself and explain what happened.
“I have to protect myself, as you well know from your position,” UHStudent1 responded. “I was horrified by what I saw transpire.”
In my position I’ve reported from war zones in Africa and the Middle East. I’ve interviewed aid workers and human rights activists about real atrocities when revealing their identities would get them killed. I asked UHStudent1 to dial back the drama and got no response.
Which is the second life lesson: Keep things in perspective.
Despite criticism from other students, UHStudent1 hectored McClelland for two days before he provided an email address to take the conversation private.
Professor Amy Vandaveer wasn’t in class that day, but she doesn’t think McClelland was out of line. While many UH students are the first in their families to attend college and often work multiple jobs, the importance of courtesy and professionalism is part of the curriculum.
And she has good news for anyone worried about those young whipper-snappers.
“The majority of my students were embarrassed that he had to stop the lecture and kick someone out,” Vandaveer said.
UHStudent1, however, remains defiant, she said.
The most powerful classroom experiences take place when lectures transcend into life lessons. Guest speakers with real experience offer those opportunities, and students shouldn’t diminish them by creating a distraction, either by sleeping or acting out.
Let’s hope most of the students learned something from McClelland that day that will prepare them for the workplace.
When I was going to Navy A & C schools, the rule was if you are tired and in danger of falling asleep, stand up against the wall. It’s something I do to this day in monotonous or lengthy meetings; never had an objection, and I think everyone appreciates the effort to remain attentive.
No one wants to the “that guy” snoring away.
I think this link to jpa’s article works: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Houston-news-7234538.php.
There are great stories of Woody Hayes dealing with folks who had a basic lack of respect for others. He didn’t exactly put up with a lot of that from his players and it was well known that even his star players weren’t immune from getting his full fury. He struggled with the academic preparedness of his students (OSU was a land grant college and officially required to admit many students with diplomas they didn’t deserve) and he really emphasized studying and tutoring and he brought down the hammer on any athlete who didn’t go to study sessions. At the time, he had one of the better graduation rates for his athletes despite being at one of the less selective schools.
I love it that the administrator played the ‘safety’ card, and also loved that the students were shocked to have it played on them. They have been trained to say ‘safety safety safety’ because most colleges have a generic ‘safety is our number one priority’ policy. So they can say ‘that white kid wearing a t-shirt with an American flag on it makes me feel unsafe!’
Screw them all.
Good foer McClelland; I agree that a student should not be sleeping in class, that it is disrespectful.
But as to the Ohio State students; they have some legit beefs, and being removed from a building where they are protesting is not going to resolve any of those things, and is likely going to lead to increased friction and less temperate protests. So long as they were peacefully assembled they should have been left where they were.
Or don’t you support peaceful assembly as a right?
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/01/28/ohio-university-students-protest-tuition-hike/
So long as they were peacefully assembled they should have been left where they were.
No, DG, they were making others feel unsafe. That is not allowed.
Whether their problems are legitimate or not does not matter. You would need the wisdom of Solomon to judge such a thing. But people are definitely able to tell whether or not they feel unsafe. So off to jail they go.
Or don’t you support peaceful assembly as a right?
Peaceful assembly where you have a right to be, when you have a right to be there, in a way that infringes on nobody else’s rights (because a right that infringes other rights is not a right at all)? Absolutely.
BTW, DG? Do me a favor – leave me a “hi” or something to indicate that you actually read responses to comments after you leave ’em.
Thanks.
Dog Gone; there a difference between Ohio University in Athens and The Ohio State University (not just any old Ohio State University) in Columbus. Those at Ohio State (excuse me, “The Ohio State”) are not protesting tuition hikes, but are rather demanding a degree of control over the budget and investments, demanding companies be eliminated from the endowment because they sell products to Israel, and are demanding control over the food Buckeye students eat.
You cool with all that? I’m not; it more or less hands control of OSU over from the taxpayers who fund it to any group of motivated twits on campus. Plus, the motivated twits in question are doing so in a building and are obstructing the operations there by rushing doors and such. It is on tape.
Had these ignoramuses learned anything about Dr. King, they would have realized that when you do a sit in, be prepared to be arrested. That is how it works; the bet is that the morality of what you’re for is so obvious, people will take your side when you’re arrested.
Peaceful assembly is a right. As is petitioning government for redress.
Occupying state property, however, is not a right. Those dweebs were quite welcome to “occupy” the space outside the building, but they wanted to be in-your-face and disrupt the work of the university and run up bills for security, etc (what? you think they’re as well behaved as Tea Party protesters and would leave the place cleaner than they found it?!).
As such, I have no sympathy for them. I’d have respect for the strength of beliefs if they’d have been willing to actually take the risk of being expelled for their beliefs, but according to the Columbus Dispatch, after being warned none of the student hung around much past midnight so you can tell how serious these folks were about their “movement.” They tried to pick on what they thought was an easy target, but they quickly backed down at the slightest resistance.
After reviewing Dog Gone’s comment, I realized that it might make some chance reader feel unsafe. So, if this chance reader would like to avoid feeling unsafe (and who wouldn’t?), they should, instead of reading Dog Gone’s comment, read her comment after it has been translated into Swedish Chef, below:
<a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/07/OSU_protest_at_Bricker_Hall_xNoendsNOW.html" How clueless were the protesters?
A group called the Afrikan Black Coalition declared on its blog that university officials were “starving” protesters because they would not allow them to have food brought in the building.
I’d call them snowflakes, but they’re flakier than fresh mid-winter Colorado snow, and more fragile than a snowflake in Phoenix in the summer.
Great story, Nerdbert! The “college students” (note that Kasey is not quite willing to acknowledge that all of the occupiers are actually students in good standing) couldn’t be bothered to shove a Snickers bar in their pockets before beginning their long-term occupation. Fargin idiots. I weep for our nation:
“#NoEndsNOW” and “#ReclaimOSU” were among the social-media tags used by those supporting The Real Food Challenge, United Students Against Sweatshops, Committee for Justice in Palestine, OSU Coalition for Black Lives and others. A group called the Afrikan Black Coalition declared on its blog that university officials were “starving” protesters because they would not allow them to have food brought in the building.
The Real Food group wants Drake to sign a pledge promising that, by 2020, 20 percent of dining-hall food will come from non-corporate sources; officials say university-wide responsible-food efforts already equate to more than that.
The Sweatshops group objects to the fact that the university is considering leasing the right to operate its energy and utility systems, saying it will cost some university employees their jobs. A spokesman said Wednesday that Ohio State has made a commitment that any employee displaced by an energy-lease deal would be offered another university job at similar pay.
The Committee for Justice in Palestine has called for the university to divest from three companies it says are involved in mistreatment of Palestinians by Israel.
If you stick your head in a freezer for an hour or so, dg and her moonbat ilk make perfect sense.
I believe The Lightbringer told us to “punch back twice as hard.” Shouldn’t we take that excellent advice and start dropping insulting troll turds all over DG’s favorite blog? Or would that be stooping to her level?
Punching at leftyblogs in general is like punching someone twice as hard…in the shoelace.
They just don’t matter that much.
All due respect, naturally.
I prefer not to increase her hit counter.
The first thought thru my head after reading UHStudent1’s outrage was “Sleeping in class only results in you being asked to leave. Sleeping in a meeting can get you “disciplined up to and including termination” in the real world”. UHStudent1 is in for a very hard awakening when they matriculate into the real world, if they think falling asleep at an inopportune time is no big deal.
Altho, given their attitude, I’m sure they’re angling for a job at an SJW non-profit, or the government. If they go public sector, they’ll be in safe space until their early retirement at 55yo.
And this:
Or don’t you support peaceful assembly as a right?
I want to know what “right” they have to protest by occupying University administration buildings/offices. Is it simply because they are state owned and operated? Fine. Where is my right to protest by occupying Governor Dayton-Hudson-Target’s office 24/7 to protest the irresponsible use of ongoing expense projects funded by a one time surplus?
There is no difference.
Protests like this do not happen in a vacuum. They are driven by off-campus agitators. Humanities professors teach students that the most important thing they can do with their life is to change some social inequity. They do not teach them the critical thinking skills to evaluate society, they simply identify a target for them.
The two most PC college courses I took were physical geography and communications. Physical geography constantly beat at the global warming and economic inequality drums, and blamed capitalism for both. The only existing institutions that were praised were those originating at the UN and international NGO’s. In communications, the bad guys in any discussion were always angry, older, and white, and the good guys were calm, young, and non-white.
C’mon swiftee!
You know damn well that you at least nod off a couple of times while reading Dog’s droppings!
These students really are being betrayed by higher ed. A degree in the humanities is a wonderful thing, because it teaches you about humanity (duh!). How people approached human problems over millenniums. But that is not what they are teaching undergrads in the humanities, anymore. They are teaching kids what to think, not how to think.
Example: a couple of decades ago, Jared Diamond (a geographer) wrote a book called Guns, Germs, and Steel. It describes the domination of the world by Europeans as being (oddly enough) an accident of geography. This book has received prizes galore from the usual committees and been made into a public television documentary. the book is assigned in dozens of undergrad humanities courses.
The problem is that Guns, Germs, and Steel is the academic equivalent of a newspaper opinion piece. It is popular history, not academic history. I have met many college kids (or they were college kids in the 1990s and early 2000s) who treat it like a bible. For them it describes the truth, and the truth is, for want of a better term, geographic determinism. It justifies the Rawlsian notion that you are a being with no control over your destiny.
This is a highly contested viewpoint in academic history. Serious historians treat GGS like any other pop-culture book. It isn’t a conservative-liberal thing, the dispute is over whether history is something that people do, or something that happens to them. If geography is destiny, history has a teleology, the universe is making us into something. This is a fascinating topic, and they don’t teach it in the humanities anymore, at least not in public colleges to undergrads. Instead they teach kids that this truth is known, and that their duty, as societies future leaders, is to act on that knowledge.
And that knowledge is crap.
It’s worth noting that Syria, not Europe, was the center of high tech metallurgy until the Renaissance, and that most of the metal used in the conquest of the New World was iron, bronze, and brass, not steel, to begin with.
Which I guess points out a wonderful weakness in the book referred to by Bento. It’s also worth noting that the willingness and technology to cross oceans was probably the major factor that made Europe, and not the Muslim world, China, or other places, ruler over the rest of the world for a time.
So aside from being taught a theory of history that is (charitably speaking) a massive pile of fertilizer, the humanities are great!
Muslims did rule the world for a time (quite some time, actually) – Ottoman Empire. And Genghis Khan? He was Chinese. Well, a mongol technically, but that’s semantics.