What does it mean to be a Transylvania Pioneer? This is a question that The Rambler is going to explore and attempt to answer through looking at specific and unique aspects of Transylvania life and explain what they are and what they mean to the campus. This will not only explain the campus culture for audiences outside of Transy, but also capture campus life in this specific moment in Transy history.
As the semester winds down and first-year students are wrapping up their third writing assignments for FYS and FYSE, many may be wondering why they have to do so in the first place.
Currently, every Transylvania student goes through a first year experience of First Engagements in August Term, First-Year Seminar (FYS), and First-Year Research Seminar (FYRS). Some students also take part in Expository Writing (FYSE).
These courses are all part of the first year experience and are meant to prepare students for their future career at Transy and what will be expected of them.
First-year Christine Lee explains FYS specifically as “like an introductory course to college” that helps students “transition into college.”
First-Year Seminar, or FYS, is approaching an end for many students as they work to complete their third formal writing assignment.
Writing, Rhetoric, and Communication professor Scott Whiddon describes FYS as “an introduction to the types of rhetorical moves that college writers make.”
The goal of FYS is “honing the kind of liberal education approach to knowledge,” said English professor and FYS coordinator Martha Billips.
“Not just memorizing information and repeating it, but really synthesizing it and entering the conversation with other thinkers,” she said.
The core [of FYS], the values—close reading, argument building, understanding other people’s arguments—it’s the foundation of democracy.
Although many other colleges have similar first year experiences, and specifically an FYS-like course, Transylvania’s stands apart as unique for many reasons.
One of the most prominent reasons is, as Billips describes, the balance of “an individual and a common experience.”
FYS, however, provides a lot of choice for the students. Although each section of FYS has the same assignments, the sections vary in the readings (both long and short) and the overall theme of the course. Students are given descriptions of the long texts from each course prior to registration so they can make their choice based on interest.
As Lee points out, this is an important aspect of FYS because it allows students to have a say in what they are taught.
“You get to pick what book you want to read so you have somewhat of a choice in what you get to learn,” said Lee.
The level of individual choice is not only present for students, but for faculty as well. Although the faculty have to accomplish certain goals and assign certain types of writing assignments, each faculty member has a lot of autonomy in regards to their specific section. Each faculty member chooses their own long text and short texts that will be discussed within the class as well as the theme that discussion and student writings will focus on.
Billips enjoys this aspect of FYS because it means faculty are “not bound to teach or learn a body of information.” She explains that when she teaches her course on nineteenth-century American literature, she has to teach about Hawthorne and to not would be a disservice, but when teaching FYS there is not a specific author or literary work that she must cover.
Another unique benefit of Transy’s FYS, in terms of faculty, is the camaraderie it builds between faculty members of different divisions. The professors that teach FYS have an initial meeting together during August Term and meet every two weeks throughout the semester.
“It’s one of the best sites on campus of bringing varied faculty together to talk about teaching, and pretty much solely about teaching,” said Billips.
Billips continued on to credit FYS with giving opportunities for faculty to interact with other members they may not see on a daily basis.
“It helps us come together to learn from each other,” said Billips. “We get to share disciplinary knowledge. So if I’m going to teach the Allegory of the Cave and feel way out of my field, I can talk to a philosopher.”
Similarly, Whiddon believes the program to be particularly beneficial for first-time professors who are adjusting to Transy.
“You want a snapshot of what students are like. You want a snapshot of what students are interested in, of how students value literacy and literacies,” said Whiddon.
Although the program has its benefits, it is at time met with great criticism, especially from students. FYS can at times be seen as unnecessary and unimportant. Some students may even see FYS as nothing new.
Whiddon says that’s a problem.
“Now, a student may come in and think that they have a really good background in argumentative writing, and that may be true,” said Whiddon. “But they haven’t had to sit around a room and talk about a text at the level of engagement that we’re asking for. They haven’t had to speak everyday about a series of arguments, they haven’t had to listen to someone else who’s radically different from them in terms of their religion or in terms of their ethnicity or their background or their economic class. FYS does that incredibly well.”
The benefits it gives students in relation to their career at Transylvania is apparent in the correlation between FYS success and retention. Rhyan Conyers, Director of Strategic Planning and Institutional Effectiveness summarized the data in an email:
“For students who earn an A (that is, A+, A, or A-) in FYS, 94.2% of them return for the sophomore year. 87.5% of students who earn Bs return for the sophomore year. 83.1% of students who earn Cs, 66.7% of students who earn Ds, and 27.3% of students who earn Fs return as sophomores.”
“It’s one of the best sites on campus of bringing varied faculty together to talk about teaching, and pretty much solely about teaching,” said Billips.
Although FYS provides students and faculty with numerous advantages, it can and hopefully will continue to change in the future.
Billips believes that “we should always be thinking about change” and would like to see more varied faculty from more divisions in future years since there usually tends to be a higher concentration of English and WRC professors than any other division.
Whiddon would also like to eventually see some changes implemented such as incorporating more digital media and perhaps even showcasing student work and using it as a recruiting tool. However, he also hopes that no matter the changes, that FYS sustains its core values and goals.
“The program has to continue, and it can change, it should change overtime. I don’t like static things,” said Whiddon. “But the core, the values—close reading, argument building, understanding other people’s arguments—it’s the foundation of democracy.”
We have an obligation to raise the minimum wage. Here’s why.
Each day, people around the nation will go to work. They will worry about how to pay their rent, where to find their next meal, how to make their next car payment, how to afford needed medical prescriptions, or how to pay for their child’s daycare. Their small, bi-weekly paycheck will be their sole source of survival; their lives are in jeopardy of one late payday. They will work this job for dozens of hours a week, only to hear from the television news, and from the government itself, that they are lazy, entitled leeches. They could live like this for years, until eventually, they might luckily break out of the system of which they have been a victim for so long. Ranging from all ages, races, and genders, this is the story of millions Americans around the country.
These Americans work for the minimum wage, and this is the truth of their existence. The truth is that the minimum wage is a starving wage. What society must understand is that the majority of these people are not your stereotypical teenage workers working a job on the side – they are single mothers, middle-aged workers, and ordinary people struggling to live day to day. The reality is that we have a responsibility as a society to protect these citizens, and the simplest method is to require a basic standard for their hourly wage.
Many large corporations and companies, such as Wal-Mart, receive millions of dollars in government subsidies each and every year, aside from their massive profits. In addition to that, Wal-Mart and fast food companies notoriously pay their workers brutally meager wages. But it hasn’t always been this way. From the 1950’s until the early 70’s, productivity and wages grew at similar rates: where workers became more efficient, they received higher salaries. But today, workers are becoming increasingly more efficient while experiencing no growth in real income. Thus, many companies are making larger profits and giving less to their workers, leading to the large number of impoverished workers we see today. Is it that much to ask that these enormous companies increase the incomes of their workers?
There are those who argue that minimum wage increases force employers to lay off more workers, but there has been little to no evidence to suggest this. When considering the minimum wage’s effect on unemployment, there are many factors to take into account. John Schmitt, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, points out that we must account for increases in worker productivity and economic stimulation. Putting more money into the hands of low-income workers is beneficial for the economy, since these consumers will boost economic activity in their local communities. More consumption means more opportunities, allowing for small businesses to grow and expand within their locale. The Economic Policy Institute claims that phasing in a $10.10 minimum wage would lead to a net growth of 85,000 jobs.
Currently, the United States government protects these low-earning citizens by providing entitlement and welfare programs. We use well-known government programs to subsidize these workers in an attempt to defend them from falling into homelessness, malnutrition, and in general, prevent the standard of living from falling too low for too many Americans. The current minimum wage, however, miserably fails to provide for the many workers who receive it, and because of that, these supplemental programs could be the only barrier between having shelter and being on the street. Increasing the minimum wage would allow these workers to live a life of basic dignity, and moreover reduce the strain of government funding needed to support them.
Some argue that increasing the minimum wage will cause inflation in prices, creating a net zero effect in improving the standard of living for minimum wage workers. The University of Washington conducted a study a year after the implementation of the $15 dollar minimum wage in Seattle, and found that there was only a minimal increase in prices. Even despite these slight increases, price increases did not wipe out the gains in real income that the minimum wage conferred, meaning that there is an overall net benefit for these workers. Of course, this can only be taken so far until it is no longer favorable, which is why the minimum must be carefully manipulated to find the maximum benefit.
Increasing the minimum wage by just a few dollars would lift millions of workers above the poverty line, and in doing so, reduce the amount of public funding needed to subsidize these workers. Raising wages for the lowest earners creates a system where they no longer need to rely on government supplemental programs to survive. Of course, the government should always have a place in helping those at the bottom, but we can greatly reduce the strain placed both on the state and the individual. The largest companies in the country have profited off the backs of these incredibly underpaid workers, and asking them to slightly raise their standard is not overbearing in the slightest. The millions of minimum wage (or close to that) workers who have built these companies to what they are today not only deserve a raise, but desperately need it.
What exactly should the minimum wage be? I’m not certain. But the fact of the matter is that the $7.25 federal minimum wage is too low, and we have much room to raise it without crossing the line. The beauty of policy is that it can be reformed and fine-tuned in order to find the most appropriate standard, and we shouldn’t be afraid to incrementally increase it over a period of years.
Finally, when you think about the minimum wage, understand that we are talking about more than numbers or statistics, we are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in the country. The minimum wage is just as much of an ethical issue as it is an economic one, and the wage we set is more than just a number, it will be a lifestyle. It will decide what type of society we want to live in.