The Fine Line Between Safe Space and Segregation

The passage The Fine Line Between Safe Space and Segregation discusses different attempts
by colleges to make underrepresented students feel included. These attempts included opening
up certain courses and learning communities to African American Students. The goal was To
carve out a safe space on campus where black students can get support from people who look
like them and share similar backgrounds which may ultimately help these students feel a sense of
belonging and safety. On paper that seems like a good idea because they are able to connect
with students who have similar struggles as them. McMillan Cottom pointed out that black
students do not enter college at the same equivalence to white students. Black students might
have come from high schools that did not have advanced courses, may be struggling financially
or be first generation college students from their family. These factors make it challenging for
the students to excel in the classroom so the idea of creating safe spaces will help them
tremendously. Although this idea came with a lot of positivity there was also some criticism.
Critics said this was basically moving backwards instead of forwards and resegregating the
students. Also it is grouping the black community into a broad group, not recognizing the
uniqueness of every individual. Comeaux said research suggests that when students interact
meaningfully across racial lines, they reap educational benefits. But those cross-racial
interactions dont happen inevitably, and positive cross-racial interaction only happens under the
right conditions. This leaves me asking the question, shouldn't we be trying to help the
underrepresented black students in a multiracial setting instead of creating an unrealistic Safe
Space for them? The real world does not have safe spaces, therefore it's important to help
underrepresented individuals learn to overcome the struggles they feel in a normal integrated life
setting.

First Step to Fixing Gender Bias in Business School: Admit the Problem
This passage is discussing the gender bias occurring in Harvard Business school. Every year
women enter the school with the same prerequisites as men, but were receiving lower grades.
The lower grades were thought to come from a grading bias. Particularly from harsh grading of
students participation in the classroom. The first thought was to get rid of the participation
aspect of the grading system, but it played a vital role for students to learn from real life business
simulations. Instead they created scribes in classrooms so professors would no longer rely only
on memory of who said what when assigning each student a class participation mark. This gave
the professor's information about who they called on for discussion in class. The installation of
the scribe seemed to work and women's grades started improving. It is known that purposely
excluding a specific gender from an opportunity is rare to none now a days. If it is rare to none
why are women still receiving lower grades? According to Ely, a co author of a Harvard
Business Review, these lower grades come from a second generation bias, a subtly cultural
barrier from an organization's DNA that seem to put women at a disadvantage.
How America's 2-Tiered Education System Is Perpetuating Inequality
This passage discusses the inequalities between top tier schools and community colleges.
Community colleges are underfunded and this impacts the students. Community colleges can't
seem to get the funds they need to restructure which currently leaves some community colleges
with 2000 students per 1 advisor. US money for higher education usually goes to elite research
institutions and hardly any of it finds its way to community colleges. Amherst University
decided to do something about this, they reserved most of their transfer spots to students coming
from community colleges. The author liked to note that just because community colleges are
usually populated with low income or minority groups that doesn't mean they are lacking
intelligence. Community college was probably the only option for these groups to pursue further
education. Anthony Marx, Amherst's president comments on this truth when he stated "we could
find amazing jewels that no one else is looking for". Students transferring from community
colleges have a restricted college list to chose from. The author stated that if other top tier
schools became more open to transfers like Amherst, students transferring from community
college would have a wider list to chose from. Currently though top tier schools have a very
rigorous and restrictive transfer process, and accepting a student from community college is not
in the picture. This leaves me wondering if top tier schools don't accept community college
students because they don't think they would excel academically or because they think these
students would negatively impact their reputations?

The Post-Lecture Classroom: How Will Students Fare?

This article discusses a more effective teaching process for college students. It is referred to as
the flipped classroom, students would watch short videos before class and then work on
activities during class. This replaced the typical lecture style classroom. A study was conducted
showing students taking an identical test, some of the students were taught the traditional lecture
style way and the other students were taught through this new flipped process. Between 2011 and
2013 students who participated in the flipped classroom improved their grade 5.1%. A main
struggle is getting students to accept this new process. After attempting it students actually prefer
this new style over lecture style classes. How will they starting integrating this beneficial new
system into universities nationwide?

Wasting Time on the Internet 101

This article brings to light the benefits of mindless browsing on the internet. Goldsmith, a
professor at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia is starting a new course called
wasting time on the internet. College students tend to browse through facebook of twitter, or
watch hours of cat videos on youtube rather than pay attention in lecture or do their homework.
This is usually frowned upon and considered lazy, but Goldsmith is encouraging it in his class.
He says it's important that students learn the digital language. The simple process of sharing
tweets and liking facebook posts needs to be examined more critically he believes. Social Media
in today's day and age actually encourages reading through news feeds on facebook or twitter
posts. His unconventional way of teaching will give students a new way to view social media
and learn the importance of it they would not find elsewhere. I don't see how students will be
interested in learning the mechanics behind using the internet, they just enjoy using it for what it
is. A question this leaves me with is how will Goldsmith actually get students interested in his
idea of the course instead of just taking it as a break in their schedule?