Exodus

Something beautiful is happening on campus today. Amid the stale-beer smell leftover from last night's festivities, the kids are on the move. Dirty laundry is being carted out, doors are being slammed, cars are illegally parked in front of the buildings. Spring Break is finally here. And it's even a little spring-like outside today, too. I mean, it's not above 45 or anything, but the sun is out, the snow is melting, and you can almost smell April in the air. I've heard that the springs in Ohio totally make up for the winters, and I'm counting on it.

So I spent the morning at a multicultural recruitment/retention conference and picked up all kinds of fun facts....like, did you know that the gap between state support for public institutions and the cost of tuition per year is at an all time high? That the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women? That the average graduation rate for African-American college students, thanks to lousy campus climates, inferior K-12 preparation, and socioeconomic disparities, are 20% lower than the graduation rates for whites? I hear people yacking all the time about how far we've come, and how there isn't a "diversity problem," it's just an idea that liberals throw around so we have something else to whine about. Forget about the facts, the numbers, that show us that even though more minority students are enrolling in college than ever before, the gap between white and minority attendance just keeps growing. It's easier to just say there's no problem than it is to sit down and try to figure out what to do about it. And how the hell are we supposed to help these students pay for college when we've cut the number of students elegible for pell grants, the Perkins Loan program is about to go out the window, and the governor of my great state has yet again chopped state funding for higher ed. Bleh! It's such an overwhelming problem, and my ranting about it probably isn't going to help much. But we HAVE to make our legislators understand that we can't produce educated Americans when we make it so hard for them to succeed in college! The "American Dream" has a great big brick wall around it for way too much of our population.

Alrighty, I've spent way more time on this post than I was supposed to, but, bonus! I get to escape the office in 20 minutes. Now the plan is to blog at least once from Texas, but remember, the computer is in high demand at the Mama Peacegrrl house, so cut me some slack if I can't do it. A happy week to all, and remember, my birthday is the 28th, so be sure and send some love!
-pg