I am absolutely floored that Stockton is going to allow a racist student to remain in their nursing program. America has a significant problem with racist treatment of minorities in medical fields. I often, when speaking on these issues to my own students, use the example of Serena Williams' treatment by her doctors while pregnant. We see on social media white nurses mocking patients. We see so many videos of minorities being abused by white people. To allow a racist nursing student to remain at the university is unfathomable to me.
I make these statement in a few regards. I am an alum (2006) of Stockton University. I majored in literature, but also did minors in writing and philosophy/religious studies. In my classes, we often spoke to racial justice issues in the days after 9-11, in the run up to the illegal Iraq War, and in the aftermath of our government's incompetent response to Katrina. We did events on campus focusing on Darfur, and Iraq, to show solidarity with the university's incredible Muslim community, and I joined the University's Gay/Straight Alliance as I was trying to find my voice as a mostly straight and cis, but definitely queer male. I loved my time at Stockton and have been involved with the Literature program over the years as an alum and also have done events for the Career Services program too.
I also make these statements as a donor. I did a scholarship for some years at the college I teach at now to award students who were transferring from us, a community college, to Stockton. I was always so proud to do so and broke down crying the first time because I was so happy to do so. I am generally a fairly unhappy person, so moments of joy like that are to be treasured. Due to our transfer agreement with another university, I don't do that scholarship anymore, but I still regularly speak to students considering transfer to Stockton.
In more recent years I have been very disappointed in Stockton. Between the "rouge fraternity" problem, and other stories I have heard about the mistreatment of women on campus, labor issues I have heard about from faculty, and now this disgusting decision I am no longer a proud alum of Stockton University. I am sickened by this decision and will not, in the future, donate or promote the university. It really saddens me to do this, but black lives matter more than any one university or my memories of it as a privileged white male.
I hope other alums will join me in doing so.
Stockton Scholarship 2016
One of the best days of the academic year is our annual awards breakfast in the spring. I have been nominating faculty for a few awards over the years, but the past two years I have given a scholarship to an RCBC student who is transferring to Stockton University. This year the scholarship was awarded to Christine Liddie. As I mention in my remarks, I never had Christine as a student but the RCBC community came forward and I got tons of positive feedback about her. I am thrilled to continue doing this scholarship and look forward to next years ceremony.
What I Am Up To This Semester
I had a rather busy winter break. I tried to squeeze in a bunch of doctor's appointments, visits to family, and other stuff. I also got new glasses.
This semester I am teaching only one section of Composition I, but three of Composition II. I requested this: I wanted to see what it was like to have such a strong variance, which is normally in the opposite direction. I am also teaching American Cinema again.
My office hours for this semester:
Monday 1130-1230 (Laurel Hall Work Rooms)
Tuesday 1000-1100 (Parker 413B)
Wednesday 1130-1230 (Laurel Hall Work Rooms)
Thursday 1000-1100 (Parker 413B)
Friday 1300-1400 (Laurel Hall Work Rooms)
I will, of course, be traveling down to Stockton University in April for the annual Literature Program party. Around the same time, I will be giving another scholarship award to an RCBC student that is transferring to Stockton at our annual academic awards ceremony.
I will have more information about THATCamp Community College 2016 at the semester goes on. Registration should open very soon.
Academic Awards 2015
This year, instead of giving an award as I had in the past, I awarded a $250 scholarship to a student transferring to Stockton University from BCC/RCBC. I decided to do this because I now have a nice amount of students who have transferred from us to Stockton and as an alum I want to help the students of Stockton as much as I can.
I explain in more detail in the video. I had a hard time getting it to embed at the time stamp, so here is a direct link to it.