Spring Break
This campus lacks community
Alexia Lang
Issue date: 10/6/08 Section: Forum
Good colleges shouldn't be so hard to come by.
Growing up, I spent many an evening in the professors' lounge of my small, hometown college, while my poppa chatted with his colleagues about topics completely above my comprehension at the time.
He worked there as a teacher, mentor, security guard and whatever else they needed for years.
Needless to say, I learned to love the collegiate environment and have developed many opinions about the way a college should be run.
Those same professors I sat and talked with at night during my childhood were eager for me to grow up, enter college and take their courses. As time passed, I lost interest in the career in law those good men had selected for me. They eventually surrendered to this and accepted my choices would be different.
I began my college life at Johnson County Community College (JCCC) studying journalism. It was quite a change from the college environment I had grown up in.
However, even to this day, I have never met a JCCC student who could honestly say he or she didn't think it was a good school.
JCCC's education standards are set at a university level and the campus has a sense of community that is not often found on commuter campuses. Students get involved, professors care about their students, and just about any event on campus has a good turnout of students, staff, faculty and other community members.
Perhaps I have been transformed into a Johnson County brat, or maybe I was just spoiled during my years of schooling in one of the richest counties in America. But UMKC has been by far the greatest educational disappointment I have ever encountered.
Apparently disillusioned by Johnson County's precedent, I arrived on this campus expecting more student involvement, more campus life and more educational resources - after all, many students actually live on campus so they do not have to make much of a journey to attend events. Right?
It seems the students' sense of community is completely absent. Only a handful of students actually get involved on campus and even fewer show up to the events - events we pay a lot in student fees to host.
Growing up, I spent many an evening in the professors' lounge of my small, hometown college, while my poppa chatted with his colleagues about topics completely above my comprehension at the time.
He worked there as a teacher, mentor, security guard and whatever else they needed for years.
Needless to say, I learned to love the collegiate environment and have developed many opinions about the way a college should be run.
Those same professors I sat and talked with at night during my childhood were eager for me to grow up, enter college and take their courses. As time passed, I lost interest in the career in law those good men had selected for me. They eventually surrendered to this and accepted my choices would be different.
I began my college life at Johnson County Community College (JCCC) studying journalism. It was quite a change from the college environment I had grown up in.
However, even to this day, I have never met a JCCC student who could honestly say he or she didn't think it was a good school.
JCCC's education standards are set at a university level and the campus has a sense of community that is not often found on commuter campuses. Students get involved, professors care about their students, and just about any event on campus has a good turnout of students, staff, faculty and other community members.
Perhaps I have been transformed into a Johnson County brat, or maybe I was just spoiled during my years of schooling in one of the richest counties in America. But UMKC has been by far the greatest educational disappointment I have ever encountered.
Apparently disillusioned by Johnson County's precedent, I arrived on this campus expecting more student involvement, more campus life and more educational resources - after all, many students actually live on campus so they do not have to make much of a journey to attend events. Right?
It seems the students' sense of community is completely absent. Only a handful of students actually get involved on campus and even fewer show up to the events - events we pay a lot in student fees to host.
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