Browsing: Editorials

Most people don’t mean it when they say, “You don’t like it? So sue me.” But one graduate student who didn’t like her grade did just that.

A judge recently ruled against former graduate student Megan Thode, who was suing Lehigh University for $1.3 million in damages as well as to raise a C-plus grade she earned in a class that was mandatory to earn her master’s degree in counseling and human services. Thode claimed the professor of the fieldwork class discriminated against her because she agrees with same-sex marriage and the professor does not.

Attendance.

There have countless debates on this topic before, and that’s to be expected from a large student body composed of people who pay thousands of dollars to be here while pursuing a degree. From how strict policies are from one college to another, to how hard it is to keep track of several different policies a student may have for each class, attendance will always be a hot-button issue on campus.

And don’t even get us started on the seemingly pointless regulations on what is considered an excused absence and what’s not.

Grades are important to everyone. Whether they’re worried about getting into graduate school, law school or even into the work force, grades are important. The academic scholarships most students have are also contingent upon maintaining a certain grade point average.

Academic distinctions, honors and societies are all dependent on maintaining a certain GPA, a certain ratio of A’s to B’s to everything else. It’s hard enough to maintain our GPA’s without having to worry about each professor trying to redefine the grading scale.

Thanks to Facebook’s new Graph Search feature, you can run, but you can’t hide your pictures.

Graph Search, which is currently being tested, is a Facebook search engine that allows you to find information based on specific search word combinations, for example, “people who like dogs and live in Waco.”

If you go to college, you most likely have loans. It’s a glaringly obvious fact, but it bears stating.

Another glaringly obvious fact is that the cost of higher education is rising. According to CNN Money, the cost of private education has increased by 60 percent from the mid-80s and the cost of public education has doubled in that time.

Baylor makes sure to equip the football team with the best gear. The Baylor Science Building has state-of-the-art science equipment. Armstrong Browning Library has beautiful art throughout its halls.

But no bathroom on campus has quality toilet paper.

Required Human Performance classes are Baylor’s way of encouraging students to work out more, and it works.

For a very small percentage of students.

There is no one-size-fits all solutions for the way students choose majors or learn material, so why assume their is for the physical stuff? A set number of required Human Performance classes is not going to work well for most Baylor students.

A specter is haunting Baylor — the specter of unemployment.

It looms like a great shadow on the edge of every Baylor student’s thoughts.

What happens if I can’t find a job after graduation?

How will I pay my student loans off?

We understand the idea behind five-day language classes: more time in class offers more time to learn and should help students.

However, that is not the reality. Ranging from Arabic to Spanish, some low-level language classes, which are required in some cases, are offered from Monday through Friday.

There were 2,892 science majors in 2011 according to Baylor Institutional Research and Testing.

That’s about a fourth of Baylor’s 2011 total undergraduate enrollment of 12,754. That number does not include graduate students and faculty members with offices in the Baylor Sciences Building who might spend more time there than undergraduate students with classes there. That number also doesn’t include students from other majors that take classes in the BSB.

Brittney Griner might go down as the best women’s basketball player of all time.

Her incredible combination of size and skill have made her the most recognizable face in women’s college basketball. This will soon be the case when she enters the WNBA Draft. She will probably be the WNBA’s Michael Jordan. Or, rather, its Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has been a disturbing rumor flying around Baylor.

The rumor often crops up as a justification for a nonsensical or incongruous building project. The question “Why did Baylor do that again?” is raised and an inevitable but uninformed answer is, “Oh, we’re trying to get into the Ivy League.”

We’re going to ignore the abject ridiculousness of this statement for a minute to provide some context.

You get accepted to Baylor.

You move in during Welcome Week.

You’re away from home for the first time, alone in a new environment without your parents and no idea what do to about your laundry. Who do you call?

Your Community Leader, (CL) is there to welcome you and provide guidance.

PubFigcomicHaving a personal opinion is okay.

Having a personal opinion about the policy of a president —agree or disagree— is also okay.

Having a personal opinion that prays for the death of President Obama, as appalling as it may be, is also protected under the First Amendment.

However, Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal (R-Hutchinson) recently circulated an email saying “Pray for Obama,” to all of his republican colleagues that cites Psalm 109:8.

Psalm 109:8 begins: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Chapel: As undergraduates, we’ve all been through it.

Every undergraduate at Baylor is required to attend Chapel in some form, although the requirements vary. Chapel, a time of worship every Monday and Wednesday, is one of the oldest and most valued Baylor traditions. It has been a part of student life for more than 160 years.

Although Chapel is a valued tradition, it is taking up time that many students can’t easily sacrifice. It’s also taking money. There is a class fee of $65 for attending Chapel.

Trying to swipe a friend through in the dining halls is a fairly common experience. Perhaps, if you are a student who has a meal plan, you’ve tried it yourself.

Perhaps you’ve been told no.

What’s in a name? Does defining a concept or person with a single word really capture its essence?

Until recently, no, especially words like “outrage,” “victim” and, until recently, “rape.”

However, on Jan. 6, the Federal Bureau of Investigation made a historic change in the national definition of rape that expands recognition to victims of a horrible crime that had previously been ignored.

It is shocking how many mass shootings have occurred in the past year. The shootings listed below caught the attention of the media and the nation, inspiring discussion on regulating the sale of firearms in America:

There’s an old saw that gets repeated with some frequency around Baylor.

It goes, “There’s nothing to do that’s fun around Waco.”

Well, to some extent that’s true. Encouraging growth downtown has been the goal of various organizations in Waco for nearly 50 years.

As a society, we are moving more toward universal acceptance, but a new trend might come as a shock to some people. The fact of the matter is that fewer and fewer guys want to get married.

It used to be that men would grow up, go to school, get a job, get married and have kids.

The family would raise their boys, if they had any, to do the same, and the cycle would continue.

We see them everywhere.

Calling to us from coffee shops and convenient stores, the platform of beverages, powders and pills entice us to “go faster,” “be stronger” and “last longer.”

To students — all, for the most part legally adults and able to make their own decisions — buckling under the weight of full-time classes and jobs they seem like a godsend. And as our country gets busier and busier, we are constantly surprised when the long-term affects of these “godsends” finally surface.

Growing up, we would be lying if we said we never thought about dribbling down the court, counting down from 10 and shooting as we made a buzzer sound.

After the ball would go through the net, the “and the crowd goes wild” was inevitable.

If basketball wasn’t it, then it was scoring the game-winning touchdown or hitting a walk-off grand slam or something else.

As Thanksgiving season ends abruptly like it does every year, we are all reminded of the harsh consumerism that inevitably surrounds the Christmas season. But Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, right?

Wrong.

Thanksgiving is the best time of the year. The meaning of Thanksgiving has not changed. Being thankful is in the forefront of people’s minds as they joyfully join their family for a feast. Every American can celebrate because we all have things we’re thankful for.

For Christians, Christmas is supposed to be about remembering and celebrating the birth of Christ. Unfortunately, Christmas is now about spending money. The meaning has been bastardized, and few think about the birth of Christ as they marvel at their new video games.

In the aftermath of the election a lot of speculation has come from all sides as to exactly why the election wasn’t as close as it could have been.

And it wasn’t.

All the polls had Romney and Obama in a dead heat. Many politicos and analysts were predicting the various ways that they would tie.

And then they didn’t.

You know, December 21, 2012 (as predicted by the Mayan calendar)?

Only a few weeks from now?

It’s fast approaching.

To smoke it or eat it?

This is the question that law -abiding citizens of Washington and Colorado face now that both states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana for people over the age of 21.

The laws passed by voters last week allow of-age citizens to possess or buy up to one ounce of marijuana at any given time.

The Breast Milk Baby has hit U.S. shelves.

One of the newest innovations in the baby-doll world, the Breast Milk Baby was released Friday by the Spanish toy company Berjuan Toys.

The doll cries and burps like any other doll, but there’s one feature that sets it apart.

If someone doesn’t like a particular circumstance, he is told, “It is what it is,” and that’s the end of it.

In sports, “it is what it is” describes the numbers on the scoreboard after the game. You win or you lose and afterward. It is what it is.

In the world of journalism, that black and white statement begins to gray beyond wins and losses.

The night of Oct. 29, students received a text from the university.

It said that an armed man was being sought by police near campus. Later reports from the police said that shots were fired in the incident.

On Nov. 4, 2008, the United States elected its first African -American president, Barack Obama.

Tuesday, after a tight race against Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, Obama was reelected to a second term as commander in chief.