Thursday, December 10, 2009

Budgeting

Every college spends lots of money everyday on just about everything. In some ways most of them would like to find new ways to save a buck, for some money may not be the issue and its something they don't have to worry about. But most likely, they would want to hold on to as much money as they can just to be able to add to their budget.

For the colleges that have to deal with snow every year, there may be a good way for them to save money. A way that they can save money is to cancel classes on those snow days when it is too dangerous to be on the road commuting from home to the campus. There are a few things that might help them save money, but there is a chance that this kind of thing wont have any effect on these colleges budgets.

One thing might be is that they wont have to use up as much energy with classes being cancelled rather than them going on. Lights wont have to be turned on because those classrooms wont be in use and there is no need for them to be on. Another thing that may help and most likely may not change is the heating of the classrooms. If they wont be in use then there is no reason for the heat to be turned up to a certain temp to keep the room heated enough for it to be bearable to have class. There is a good chance that this wont affect the budget cost but it is a possibility. These are a couple things that might help out budget costs.

Now a reason that it wont save any money is because of the faculty who get administrative leave. The faculty workers will more than likely get paid just like any other work day if they were to get a snow day. It just depends on how things are handled in that area. There could be many other things that might help out the colleges budget, but this may be some of the more major things that could help.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Combining

Im sure that there are many college students who wish that they could have just one more snow day. I believe that colleges should cancel classes when the districts close because of the weather. This is mainly for those who have to travel to get to their class. I am one of those who has to travel to the campus when the weather is bad and i only drive about 5 miles to the campus. Imagine those who have to drive farther to make it to class either to teach or learn.


I think that if NJC was to change this policy it would keep the students and instructors more safe on days when the weather is bad, because they wouldnt have to rush into town to make it to class on time. This could be a good thing for the high school students too, because they travel from the high school to the college for classes. If the high school was cancelled and they still had their college class, they would have to travel from home to the college just for that one class. To me, that isnt worth it. Most likely the teacher may have cancelled class for that day but it depends on the instructor. I just believe that it would cause less problems for everyone if this was to happen.


In a interview that i just recently had was with a person that has been at NJC for over 10 years. This person thought this would be a good change for many reasons. This person works with many faculty that live out of town and have a ways to travel to get to the college and it would be better for them if they wouldnt have to put their lives in danger to make it into town.

A change that this person wanted to make to this problem was to have the same protocol as the school districts do because many of those faculty workers would have to find some sort of childcare for their children which could be hard to do especially if they live in a different town. A negative reason for this change could be for the students that live on campus. Some years ago, classes were cancelled and the students in the dorms had some free time on their hands and many of them decided to have some fun and trash the dorms. They caused quite a lot of damage which is a good reason has to why classes havent been cancelled since then.

Now there are many other colleges out there who are either going through the same problem or have already been through it. Yale University had this problem back in 2007 when someone posted on the website that all classes had been cancelled because of the weather when it was a fake. After this had happened, many started to wonder how come this type of thing couldnt happen.

Many of the instructors werent to fond of this because they thought that if students could go and play out in the snow on their day off, they could make it too class, so most of them still held classes. The college found that its better to have the students in class because there was an incident where a sophmore jumped out a second story dorm window to jump into a drift and ended up in the hospital with a messed up back. Thats a chance that many colleges dont want to take and with any type of vandalism that goes on in the dorms.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Snow Cancellation

1. There are many different groups that can be effected by the change of the snow cancellations. One group could be the instructors, they need to know about this because some of them also drive in from a distance and they need to know whether they should show up to teach class. It may be a waste of time for them because they would have traveled in from a different town when they didnt need to,

2. Another group that can be effected by this is the high school students that travel from the high school to the college. More than likely if college classes were cancelled, so would the high school but if something was to happen they would need to know about it so that they wouldnt have to drive over and find out there wasnt any class, especially those that drive in from Merino, Caliche and other schools.

3. Students who live in the halls and dorms would also need to know about the cancellation of classes. If they were to look and see that classes were cancelled they wouldnt have to get ready and go out in the cold to find out they didnt have class. More than likely though, someone would notify them in the cancellation of their class.

4. The last group that could be effected by this is the off-campus students. Many travel from out of town or on the other side of town, and would need to be notified just like the instructors would. They would be putting themselves through danger with the icy roads just to make it to class in time. If they were to find out about class being cancelled, it would be very frustrating and you would have to drive back home and you would be on the icy roads once again.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Changes to NJC

1. I think that if you have a D in a class for a final grade, you should still be able to pass the class. I know college is different from high school, but i think the grading system should be the same.

2. Another issue is the weather cancellation. The reason classes arent cancelled for NJC is because most of the students live on campus and are in walking distance from classes. But a lot of the students who are local live on the other side of town and put their lives in danger trying to make it to class. I believe that when high school is cancelled, college should be too.

3. I think that all teachers should be required to post grades on the internet. It is hard to find out what your grade is if you cant look it up. You could be failing a class or close to failing a class and you wouldnt know it because you instructor doenst have it posted.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt'












Many people have their own way of doing Thanksgiving. Some people like to change things up every year and others like to just keep it traditional. Well there are many different ways in celebrating Thanksgiving and this could be a way but some may not celebrate it this way.
Most people when they start out with their Thanksgiving day will all soak up the smell of the good food that is being prepared for all of the. Most of them will try picking at the turkey to get a good taste test in. After that is over with, they may read a book about the pilgrims and how much things have changed since then while celebrating Thanksgiving. Then they will all sit down at a large table and start digging into the food, this could take awhile depending on how many people are there. When their food has settled down some they, if the weather is nice, will go out and play a game of football. When everybody is all wore out, they will go back inside sit in front of the TV and watch the big balloon parade and just relax for the remainder of the day.
This is a type of Thanksgiving day that many people may not celebrate, but some may. There is a lot of things that they want to get done in one day as a family. But that one day could lead to a lifetime of memories.



Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Thanksgiving in Iraq

1. Well the troops do a few things differently for Thanksgiving that what i do. They played flag football and that is something that we dont do, they also had egg nog and sweet potatoes with their meal.

2. Some similarities are that they eat turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie, which is what my family does, and they also just hang out with each other for awhile which is what we do as well.

3. The soldiers sounded like they would have rather been home with family for the holidays, but they seemed happy to be able to celebrate a holiday out of the year and eat great food.

4. Some of their biggests concerns were if some of their friends would make it back from a call alive, so that they could join them for their meal. Another concern was about a young man wanting to be able to turn 21 before he is killed.

5. What stood out the most to me was that 20,000 men all joined each other for Thanksgiving dinner for just a short time and had to immediately get back to work after they were finished eating.

6. I think most of them would try to take a vacation with their family, to get away and get their minds on something different other than war. Some may just want to stay home with their family and catch up on many things and rest for as long as they can.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Favorite Holiday Memory

Everybody has a great holiday memory, whether it is during Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other holiday. I have a memory from Christmas that is in a way great and not so great. This memory happened close to 10 years ago. It is definitely one that i will never forget and i dont believe my family will forget either.

It was Christmas day in 2000 i believe, the weather was actually very nice for a Christmas day, and i wanted to open presents then got out and play at the park. We had a park across the street from out house. Well we got done opening presents and my dad was like, go out in the garage and get a big trash bag to put the ripped present paper in. So i did and when i got out there, there was a sweet two seater go-cart. I couldnt believe it, the first thing i did was run inside to get my jacket, then i was outside riding the thing. Eventually it turned to disaster.

My younger sister and I, were riding that go-cart all day long, she was getting tired so i let her off and i decided to go for one more quick ride before i shut 'er down for the day. Back then i really wished that i would have just gone inside but now that i think about i think it was a funny thing. Well i came cruising around a corner and i thought i heard a car coming so i turned around to see if there was one, which there wasnt, and slammed into about 6 mailboxes. Now the good thing was was that my sister wasnt with me because she would have had a 4x4 post in her lap but the bad thing was, was that i was embarrassed and crying.

The thing was, was that my dads uncle from Alaska was at our house and he loves giving people crap about anything. To this day he still makes fun of me for it, so that is why i cant ever forget that day because of him. That was my favorite Christmas memory and it is something that i will never forget, not only because my uncle makes fun of me for it, but its also because it is a very unusual accident for me.