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Show THE UNIVERSITY JOURN AL· SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY · MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~---c--~~~~1ITBIJECCAOOJPID§ o~ College of Education's grading questioned By MELISSA RUGG JOURNAL STAFF WRlTER Some say they feel that the College of Education is receiving more funding from scholarships because it gives out a higher ratio of " A "s than other colleges. Seventy-four percent of those in the College of Education received "A "s as opposed to the next highest percentage of 42 from the former College of Arts and Letters and Humanities , according to the SUU Fact Book 1997-1 998. John Groesheck , business department chair, said that one w ay to give equal distribution of f unds hetween the colleges would he to allocate these funds hased on t he students· class ranking in their college. Some of the!>e <.h!>cr epancic:. in g rad ing have alread y heen h ro ughl up in Deans' Council, but no changes have hcen made. Scho larsh ips for the College of Education come in two forms. The fir st and m ost common scholarship is an incentive loan offered hy the state. With an incentive loan students are no t r equired co pay hack the loan if they system rather than norm grading teach in a Utah public school for the system . Criterion grading, which is also number of years they had the loan . rf utilized in courses outside of the students do not fulfill these College of Education, is based on work requirements, however , they are competed by the student. Every r equired to pay back the loan. student is given the chance to earn an Incentive l oans are offer ed in an effort " A. " In contrast , norm to increase the number of grading is based on a public school teachers in Seventy-four hell-shaped curve. Thus, Utah. a certain per centage of The second type of percent of those students w ill receive scholarship is distributed in the College of each grade. by the university. It is "Our focus is not to hased on GPA, and does Education fail students,~ he said. not take into received "A "s as "We teach for success, consideratio n which w e don 't teach for college a student is in . To opposed to the failure." r cceivc a full-tuitio n next highest Both Darker and Kevi n sch olarship a studem must percentage of 42 L. Rohinson, department have and maintain a 3.9 chair for educacion, said GPA . for hal f tui tion , a 3.7 from the former that the college gives a is r equir ed. T here has not high amount of " A "s been resea rch done on the College of Arts hccausc chc college only dist ribut ion of these and Letters and teaches to more scho larshi ps to sec if ther e Humanities. dedicated upper-division is mor e monc.:y going into swdcnts. He also said that any particular college. studenL'\ will self-select themselves out of Bruce 0 . 13arkcr , dean of the College the program early hecausc they decide of Education , attributed the difference teaching is something that they would in grades to the fact that the College of rather not do or because there is little Education grades on a criteri on grading money for those who teach. Robinson said that if one were to compare students in their majors there would be less discrepancy in the numbers of each grade awarded. The required GPA for admittance into the education progr am is a 2.75 , and after that the students are expected to maintain a 3.0, w hich Barker explained was high standard. "Some of the best and brightest students arc in this program, and we welcome all those who want to succeed into our program ," said Barker. He also said that college officials want and expect all the students to do well. Robinson said that as long as Sllll gr.iduate.s arc in demand , and there is no negative fcc:dhack ahoul graduates. there is no ntTd for the college to change thc w ay they grade. Many new entering sllldcnts will he going into the College of Ed ucation !>aid D. Mark llarton , assistant vice prc.sidcnt for student service!>. The Collcgc of Education and the College of llusincss arc the largest co lleges al Sllll. The College of Education has "earned a very excellent reputation and docs a great joh," said Birton . Utah Summer Games Credits to no longer names new director be rounded upward The Utah Summer Games has named a new executive director to coincide w ith preparations for the 14th ann ual presentation of the Games, set for June I 999 in Cedar City . Bryan Dangerfield, a man with extensive expcricn.cc in sports informati on , m edia relations and event management at the collegiate, professional and Ol ymp ic l evel, was selected r ecently to take the Utah Summer Games helm. He rep laces David Slack, who resigned from the position in September to seek other employment opportunities. " It's a pleasure to welcome Bryan to the Utah Summer Games family," said · SUlJ President Steven n. Bennion . "While we had many impressive and highly-qualified individuals apply for the p osition , we w ere particularl y impr essed with the ran ge of Bryan's experi ence in athletics. We' re confident that he w ill bring a grea t deal o f enthusiasm and ability to the dir ectorship of the Games. " A 1985 graduate of Brigham Young Univer sity with a bachel or's degr ee in communication , Dangerfield served most r ecently as that institution 's sports information dir ector for football, where he was r esp onsible for coordinating game day managem ent for one of the top collegiate press boxes in the country as well as placing lead sports stories o n network television and in numerous national publications. He has also work ed for a numhcr of years as a consultant and sole propri etor of Media Relations Consulting, a Green Valley , Nevada-based firm. In this capacity, he served for two years as Las Vegas media director for the Western Athl etic Conference Baskethall T o urnament and the WAC football championship game . Additiona l work experience for Dangerfield at the collegiate level has included service as senior public affairs officer and spo rts information director at the University of California-Davis; as public affairs associate and director of sports information at Humboldt State University; and as public affairs spec ialist and assistant direc tor of sp orts information at the U.S. Air For ce Academy at Colorado Springs, Colo . As part of his duties wich the Air Force Academy, he worked with the U.S . Olympic ,-fiel'1 Committee in p~,,ge coordinating a number of national Olympic events, including the 1983 U.S. National Sporis Festival, the 1984 U.S. Olympic Cycling T rials, and the 1987 and 1988 U.S. O lympic Festivals. The new USG executive director has also served as the communications director for both the Las Vegas Thunder of the Internati onal Hockey League and the Las Vegas Stars of the Pacific Coast ( continued o n page 4) Students are encouraged to have quarter credits properly converted to semester system by August contained a decim al after it was converted, the number was al ways r ounded up to the nearest whole credit. W ith the quarters to semesters l11at w ill he the case until August o f changeover this school year, many 1999 when a legal statement w ill he students have feared that the issued which w ill forbid num bers to conversi on woul d ca use a myriad of he rounded up any longer. problems . All students affected by the According to Mark Barton , assistant conver sion need to make sure thdr vice president for student services, credits arc properly " [The] conversion has modified heforc that been very smooth . There have hcen few In August of 1999 t im e, Barton said. Ad visers in the problems and each of a legal statement Student Devel opment them have been & Testing Center arc solved ." One such will be issued available for that probl em that Barton purpose. said has been addressed which will forbid " Students nced to and subsequentl y credits being gel pro fessio nal remedied is the issue of advisement to he "credit rounding." converted from assur ed of graduation Most credit r equirements and so quarters to conversi on problems they don't take stem fro m the semesters to be courses that arcn 't diffcrcncc of quar ters necessary," Barton from semesters. A rounded up any said. q uar tcr is IO weeks longer. According to long; the semester Barton, cr edit system lasts 16 weeks. conversio n reall y isn ·c W hile the credits an issue because so few people given for a semester course arc the actually graduate w ith the exact same as those awarded for a quarter numher of cr edit hours r equired. course , the value of semester credits Ho'o/cver , if any students have i s greater. questions concerning the cr edit The semester ratio of credit hou rs is two-thirds that of quarters. This might conversion , they can speak to an adviser, Barton or Georgia Beth he a prohl_em for students preparing Thompson , associate vice president to graduate. for student servi ces. Barton explained that if a number By RHIANNON BENT JOURNAL STAFF WRITER . I' |