This week, the University chose to cut ties with English professor William Brown, an 11-year CMU professor with 31 total years in higher education. He spent 18 years as a professor at Fairfield University, and has an impressive list of published works to his name.

Despite his accomplishments and experience, Brown never earned a tenure-track position at CMU, teaching on a year-by-year basis.

Brown is an atypical professor by CMU’s standards – he is an eccentric, lecture-based teacher who uses his unmatched knowledge of literature and composition to stimulate the minds of students. He is a supporter of educational self-discovery, using interesting anecdotes and discussions to promote learning outside of the classroom. His intelligence and knowledge of his craft are unrivaled amongst professors at this school. He is more experienced, worldly and successful than any other professor in his department.

Now, he’s out of a job.

Unfortunately, Brown gets thrown under the bus because his teaching methods aren’t easily quantifiable. No Child Left Behind stresses that education must be “measurable,” and that’s exactly the approach Tim Foster and administration have taken. Students are spoon-fed tedious worksheets, tests and teacher evaluation forms in an attempt to prove that students are learning.

However, students don’t learn a damn thing.

The only thing Foster accomplishes by quantifying education is keeping the feds off his doorstep. As long as administration can uphold ridiculous educational “standards,” the school’s doors will stay open. It’s more profit for Foster, and more profit for the university.

It’s an easy system to cheat. I can sleep through class to earn my attendance grade, turn in multiple-choice worksheets, take the tests, and forget all of it two weeks into summer break. If I repeat the process for another three years, they’ll give me a degree – and I won’t learn anything.

With a professor like Brown, learning is about engaging the mind and discovering new ways to improve reading and writing. Rather than spending hours trying to highlight the technical aspects of formatting an MLA-style paper, Brown directs students to form original ideas through analysis and reflection.

In a normal CMU class, I learn how to double-space a paper. In Brown’s class, I learn how to put my thoughts to paper. He makes students smarter, not better attuned to margins and text size – and somehow, he’s getting canned anyway.

Brown’s termination shows that Foster and his staff are out of touch. It’s a move that is disrespectful to Brown and detrimental to the school. If administration cared about higher learning more than money, they would keep a professor who serves as a breath of fresh air at a suffocating educational institution.

Foster chooses to run CMU as a business rather than an institution of higher learning, and the students are worse off because of it. Dollars and cents trump scholarship at this school. It’s a corporatized leadership style that plagues many universities.

We are no longer students – we are walking checkbooks that put cash into the university’s pocket by paying for thoughtless education and terrible Sodexo food. If those who run this institution are willing to part with an inspiring educator in order to save a few bucks, they need to get their priorities in order.

Dear Bad Technique,
I wouldn’t say a bad girlfriend, but it makes you a jerk. Isn’t honesty the top value of a relationship? You also have to realize the pride fellas have after a good session of sex. If he finds out that you lied to him and faked it, he will be devastated. Just work through the pain.

Dear Anthony,
Why do girls expect life to be like romantic movies? Don’t they realize that love in a movie is scripted? Should I feel like any less of a man because I can’t match up to those guys? Help me out.
Sincerely, Not Hollywood

Dear Not Hollywood,
Girls love the fantasy life. They get so wrapped up in love stories that don’t even make sense that anything outside of that is a bad relationship to them. You have to ignore that. I suggest finding yourself a sugar mama. That’s a woman who would do anything to take care of their man. If you find one of those, you are set for life.

Dear Anthony,
Is sleeping with someone on the first date a bad thing? I don’t think it is, but it’s hard to explain that to the ladies.
Sincerely, Love at First Sight

Dear Love at First Sight,
I completely agree with you. Let’s be honest, we can tell if we want to sleep with someone or not the very first moment we lay eyes on them. For the most part, the first time you have sex with a partner is from pure physical attraction, not love. That’s why I say it’s not love at first sight, you’re just horny at first sight.

Dear Anthony,
With graduation coming up, I have one last chance to get with the hottest girl I know. Is it a bad idea to start seeing her since we’re leaving in just a couple weeks?
Sincerely, Last Chance

Dear Last Chance,
What do you have to lose? Give it all you got. Make it the greatest sex you’ve ever had. In two weeks, it won’t even matter. Just don’t fall for her. Long distance relationships suck and you both have goals to push for. And again, make it the greatest sex that you will ever have.

When the Orchard Avenue residence hall opens in August, there will be about 2,100 beds on campus and a projected incoming class of 2,500 freshmen. The entire sophomore class is required to live on campus and will need beds as well.

This is the most recent challenge for CMU Residence Life director Troy Seppelt.

“For me, 90 percent of it is a financial issue,” freshman John Bishop said. “It’s at least $2,000 cheaper for me to live off campus.”

While some freshmen want off campus to have a relaxed living environment away from the all-seeing-eye of Resident Assistants, the issue of finance is showing up more and more.

“As an institution (CMU) they have a budget to meet,” Seppelt said. “Is it in the University’s interest on the business side for the resident halls to be full? Of course.”

Like any other university, CMU is a business. In order to keep the doors open and the lights on it takes lots of money.

Seppelt explained that generating revenue isn’t the sole reason that the school requires all first and second year students to live on campus. He referenced surveys that show academic success and better dropout rates for students who live in dorms. CMU President Tim Foster believes that campus living has much more incentive than just the financial aspect.

“I think there’s value to freshmen living on campus,” Foster said. “I think it’s helpful to have some structure. And then I think there are students who mature at different rates, and can handle living off campus.”

Foster explained that living on campus has been a requirement since the first dorms were built in the 1960’s.

“Contractually with every group of folks that leant money to help us build our dorms, that’s a requirement that was put in to the bond documents,” Foster said.

While administration and Residence Life agree that it’s not all about money, sophomore Tyler Funk feels a little differently.

“It is all about money,” said Funk. “It always has been. There is no resistance for students looking to get off campus that live in nice dorms like North Ave. and Grand Mesa compared to the resistance that students that live in not as nice dorms like Tolman and the Four Point apartments.”

This year’s freshman class was one of the biggest on record. The 2011-12 freshman class showed a 14 percent increase from the year before. The housing situation for most of the fall semester saw a number of freshmen living off campus in hotels.

“I wouldn’t call it a mess,” Seppelt said. “Do we have a challenge on our hands? Of course. Right now, if you look strictly at the numbers, I don’t have enough beds.”

Stout, a CMU alum, is president of the Foundation for Cultural Exchange, a nonprofit organization founded eight years ago by CMU students to promote cultural understanding and mutual support between the Grand Valley and the community of El Espino, El Salvador.

FCE promotes relationships through cultural immersion trips, development and relief projects, scholarship funding, and formal sister organizations.

An on-campus poster led Stout and other students to El Espino alongside former CMU sociology professor—the late David Harmon—in June 2004. While living with El Salvadorian families, Stout and several other students fell in love with the culture and the people.

“I felt that fire and didn’t want it to fizzle,” Stout said. “When people go on trips like these, it’s a typical experience for them to be moved at first, and then fall back into the routine of life.”

Upon their return to Grand Junction, the students incorporated the FCE as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in November and petitioned the Grand Junction City Council for its endorsement of a formal sister city relationship with El Espino.

“[The sister city relationship] is more symbolic than anything,” Stout said. “I think City Council was so impressed that we were so energized. We were not going to ask for municipal funds, we just wanted a relationship between both communities.”

City Council voted unanimously and the relationship was formalized in 2005.

FCE takes interested students and community members on a 10-day trip to El Espino each summer.

“The point is cultural immersion,” Stout said. “We don’t go down there to build roads or schools. The first-world mentality is to fix things. We ask the community because they know what their needs are. We don’t want to take work away from the locals or the responsibility away from the government. We are there to empower the community. The community should not feel like they are a charity. As world citizens, we want to see them succeed.”

FCE does not fund the trips, but Stout said they take people of all ages with open hearts and open minds.

“The trips are tailored to the travelers’ needs,” Stout said. “It’s meant to take you out of your comfort zone into a new experience.”

FCE holds fundraisers throughout the year, including a spring orchestra concert and participation in the Alternative Christmas Fair. Most of the proceeds fund scholarships for high school and university students in El Espino.

Scholarship students are selected based on financial need, academic merit, and community-mindedness. FCE has funded 32 scholarships since 2009.

For $300 per year, one can “adopt” a high school scholarship student. For $1,000 per year, one can “adopt” a university scholarship student.

“We hope to guarantee to continue to fund a high school student into college,” Stout said. “This program is sustainable when people are invested.”

FCE Secretary and CMU freshman Noemi Viera, 19, will make her first trip to El Espino this summer.

“I’m so excited,” Viera said. “I can’t wait to meet this community that I’ve learned to love so blindly.”

Viera, who was featured as “Student of the Week” in the Daily Sentinel in January 2011, is a native of Honduras. Since there was no contact information for her, Stout reached her through Cental High School. Viera said she wanted to be involved with the organization before Stout met with her to tell her the details.

“I always wanted to study abroad and help people, but I never thought it would be in the nonprofit world,” Viera said.

FCE wants to establish a study abroad program with CMU.

“I have some really big visions with Mesa,” Stout said. “Grand Junction is very connected with the people in El Espino, and Mesa is a big part of Grand Junction. It’s only logical that Mesa has a prominent place. I’d like to see a study abroad program where students become invested in the community. The relationship was born of a Mesa class, after all.”

The next cultural immersion trip is scheduled for July 24-Aug. 2. Translation is available at all times.

“You’re not going to El Salvador to see things on this trip—you’re going there to live things,” Stout said. “When you leave, you feel like you’re leaving family.

For more information, contact Stout at 433-2897, visit www.fce-elsalvador.weebly.com, or email FCEelsalvador@gmail.com. You can also find them on Facebook and Twitter.

“I always tell people that I didn’t choose El Salvador,” Stout said. “El Salvador chose me.”

“It was a really great experience,” freshman Steven Foster said. “It was an honor to be chosen and to represent CMU. I loved getting to know more about PBS, especially because they’re located at home in the Fine Arts Building, and what it was like to be a news anchor.”

The luncheon also included the presentation of the 2012 Be More Award. This year’s recipient was John Parvensky for his 26 years of working with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

“You can’t get too much better than this,” Parvensky said. “PBS is truly a classy organization.”

The event’s keynote speaker was senior PBS NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Brown. In his address, Brown noted the evolution of media from being a mass market to a niche world, and discussed the implementation of social media.

“It’s far too early to make any theories or assumptions on the Internet,” Brown said. “I’m in news and I see things change daily.”

Brown discussed the country’s move into being more progressive and less conservative, and the media’s move into being biased and playing up certain events.

“The country as a whole is very open, but it seems that politics are not, and it doesn’t seem like the news media is helping any,” Brown said.

The CMU attendees were sponsored in part by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel and CMU.

“It was great hearing what’s going on outside of Grand Junction with the awards given, along with the keynote speaker that spoke,” Kilman said. “It was a great opportunity for us CMU students to network and see what’s going on in the professional realm of things.”

Students also met with RMPBS President and CEO Douglas M. Price.

After the keynote address, the CMU students attended a Student Press Conference with Brown, and asked him questions pertaining to the future of social media and online content, among others.

C-SPAN’s 2012 Campaign Bus parked on campus Tuesday to inform students about the upcoming presidential election.

“We want visitors to know how we’re funded, what we show, and more importantly, to engage visitors with all of our online resources,” C-SPAN Marketing Representative Jennifer Curran said. “The bus is a multi-media demonstration center meant to be interactive. There are four touch-screen kiosks that you can take trivia quizzes on. You can look through our large video library website. You can find out more information about candidates. You can connect with us through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on tablets.”

C-SPAN has had a traveling bus since 1993. Curran said they have 10-11 events per week, 10 months out of the year. They visit  book festivals, state capitols, city halls, libraries and political events.

The bus visited Mesa County because Fruita Monument High School senior Vinny Castellini won third place in C-SPAN Classroom’s StudentCam Documentary contest. After visiting FMHS, C-SPAN came to CMU wanting to show students that they are student-friendly.

Curran said that C-SPAN doesn’t encourage voting.

“If our visitors choose to vote or not, that’s up to them,” Curran said. “Our function is to provide public access to what’s going on in Washington, D.C. It’s important for citizens to have public access to their government.”

Curran said that C-SPAN is nonpartisan.

“We keep everything balanced,” Curran said. “Our morning show has three phone lines open: one for an independent, one for a democrat and one for a republican. We have a Facebook page that allows people to post comments that aren’t censored based on what political parties are mentioned. We ask ourselves, ‘Did we cover a republican event earlier today? If we did, we need to make sure to make it to a democrat event if possible.”

C-SPAN has been nonprofit since it began in 1979.

“We are funded by our cable affiliates,” C-SPAN Marketing Representative Jenny Marland said. “About 6-7 cents of every cable bill goes to C-SPAN.”

CMU senior Caroline Dowd said she enjoyed the bus.

“I don’t have a TV, so I’m based on my smart phone now,” Dowd said. “Because of the bus visit, I now know that C-SPAN has an app. That’s good because voting is important.”

To find out more about C-SPAN, go to www.c-span.org.

-Chrissy Anzlovar

During my two years as news editor of the Criterion, Professor Sandstrom always encouraged us to challenge ourselves and write for different sections of the paper. Well, I have dominated three out of the four sections. This is my first “opinion” column for the Criterion and sadly, my final Sunday night as news editor. So what does this mean?

It means I will have Sundays off for a while. It also means that there will no longer be bets going on in the Crite office as to how late I will be to Monday night meetings.
I started my “career” in the media by writing for Fruita Monument High School’s newspaper, “The Catalyst.” After the first quarter of my sophomore year, I became news editor. Naturally, I thought I was a fantastic writer. But now that I’m about to graduate with a degree in mass communication, I look back at my writing and scowl because I realize how much I didn’t know.

No matter how far I try and get away from journalism, I always seem to be drawn back to it. Case in point: I started college three-and-a-half years ago as an English writing major. The writing was not creative enough for me. Within a year, I found myself seeking information about mass comm.
I love everything about mass comm. I love writing, designing, photography, working with businesses, and although I hate group projects, I still love the people and professors, and will miss Denver trips and inside jokes.

But I’ve missed out on a lot of jokes as well. Graduating at age 20, going to school and working full time doesn’t allow much time for “college life” (especially when all of your friends are 21+ and you’re not.) The world is intimidating at my age, but I know there’s nothing I can’t do.

Like it or hate it, the Criterion has come a long way this year, and so have I. The experience I’ve received here is invaluable and has helped me be a better writer, editor and communicator. I’d like to thank Flenny, Sandstrom, the rest of my professors, and all of the staff at The Criterion.

-Cloie Sandlin

So how does CISPA work? While SOPA put companies at risk for subscriber activity, CISPA turns it into a game of reward. Companies are rewarded for collecting data, intercepting or modifying communications and providing government with information. Contrary to SOPA, CISPA does not threaten the business interests of web companies. We should not expect big business’ help in combating this bill. In fact, companies already supporting CISPA include: AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, and Intel.

Have fears of the Big Brother crept down your spine yet? Then you should also know that information collected from you is proprietary, meaning you do not have the right to know what is being gathered. Under CISPA, companies can also share your addresses, phone numbers and names from the data they give to the government.

CISPA has gathered over 100 congressional co-sponsors. However, this atrocity is recently beginning to appear on the public radar. This is in part because the user is under the influence of the bill’s co-sponsors. Without the motivation and guidance provided by these networks, we, the people, have been doped. As George Orwell put it, “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Sign the petition at www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa/.

CMU has lots of students from the Grand Valley. Locals and the non-trads, this is not directed at you. Students who came from all over to attend our school, don’t just leave once the semester is over.

Far too often, I meet students that have little knowledge of the wondrous place our school is located. One in particular did not know where Palisade was. Palisade is the town in the Grand Valley closest to the Grand Mesa, which our school is partially named after.

I can understand this detachment. Students are busy adjusting to college life, making new friends, studying and trying not to get caught drinking. However, I have witnessed a separation between campus life and Valley life. I was a victim of this. Until I started writing for this publication I had little involvement in school activities outside of class, nor did I make any friends that I didn’t already know before college.

It is a goal of mine to blur the line drawn between our school and the city it resides in. I long for the day when students drive out to Palisade for the afternoon, and when citizens of Grand Junction with no personal connection to our school pick up The Criterion to see what the school is up to.

I have a simple proposition for students planning on leaving the Grand Valley as soon as they walk out of their last final: don’t. Take a few days and explore the place that you have lived for the past nine months. Take advantage of school being over, the lack of schoolwork and the sleep surplus.

It should be warm, so try floating the river. The Grand Mesa turns into a humid, forest wonderland in the summer, abundant with flowers and wild mushrooms. Spend a day up there. Downtown Grand Junction, Fruita and Palisade have a plethora of festivals, farmer’s markets, concerts and other events.

This community is dependent on this university from the money it brings to local businesses to the construction jobs its growth gives local workers. It is the obligation of students to venture and to discover, as you are in your field of study, in the parts of the Grand Valley and western Colorado they have left unexplored.

What better time than summer? Try coming back a few weeks early, check out the Palisade Peach festival, just one of the many reasons the place you go to school is one of a kind.

The school took a big step in gaining academic respect by wanting to increase the index score from 85 to 92. That shows that we are no longer just that small school everyone can expect to get into by just applying. It also indicates that education remains a priority at CMU. High academic performance is expected from all students. The strong push for Greek life here also shows that our school can compete with bigger schools on the Front Range. Since ASG approved a bill allowing sororities on campus, one group has already taken steps in becoming successful by participating in Relay For Life over the weekend.

The year in sports was one that gave CMU national recognition. It started in the fall when women’s soccer took a strong and crazy ride that reached the national tournament. They couldn’t be beaten in the final stretch of the season and a big run in the RMAC tourney gave them the nod to compete in the big dance. The Mavericks said good bye to football coach Joe Ramunno after 14 seasons. With a record of 80-77, Ramunno took the Mavs to the postseason three times, including a 40-21 victory over Northeaster Oklahoma State University for the program’s first D2 postseason win, before resigning after a 4-7 season. Kris Mort is also calling it a coaching career after 19 seasons as softball head coach. Mort has guided the Mavs to 542 wins and took the team to the national tournament seven times and won three RMAC championships.

The Cab and Andy Grammar each rocked the CMU campus, making them two of the bigger concerts we have seen here at the school. The names might not be as big as those who perfome at Colorado State or University of Colorado, but we are getting closer to attracting those big names. The turnout is still low, but more and more are starting to go to these concerts, and it would be worth the risk to bring in a bigger band.

CMU students should be proud of the school they attend. For a first year university, we have made an impact on education in the state. The name change has triggered other schools, such as Western State and Metro State, to also become universities. We are also becoming one of the fastest growing school in the state because students want to be a Maverick. The more days that pass, more and more more maroon and gold sweep the Valley.