Thursday, November 24, 2011

More Thoughts on "Occupy Cook"

I enjoyed the contrast in behavior between the students, armed only with their thoughts and their rhetoric, and the administration, protected by a police presence and advised by the university counsel. Although several members of the administration tried to convince the students that there were legitimate reasons for their many failures, or alternatively, tried to avoid responsibility by claiming that the student perspective was simply wrong, the students seemed particularly unpersuaded by those shopworn rationalizations and ham-handed attempts at deflection.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, and when confronted with a situation where they could not simply assert their authority as administrators, they became quite upset. One administrator came up to me and said, "Some students (how many?) complained that they were forced to come for extra credit." This is not much of a response to the substance of what was going on--except to say that the power of the students was making her uncomfortable.

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  2. Whether the administrator's comment was true or not --the point of extra credit is just that--it is extra. No one is forced to do "extra credit."

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