Opinion

Attendance policies are pointless
My Turn
by Ric Beard
Columnist

Attendance policies are a big part of scholastic tradition on the college level. They also aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

People who pay money to attend college should do just that, attend college. If they choose to skip classes, let them do it until the cows come home.

No one is suffering if a student fails to attend class regularly, except for the student. An instructor only needs to concern him or herself with whether they believe a student was ill, lost a grandparent, or whatever the excuse. They don’t need to police a student’s attendance.

A student who doesn’t go to class is bound to receive a less than wonderful grade at the end of the semester. Whose problem is that? It is the student’s problem.

I have heard that attendance policies get students ready for the real world. If a university’s academic policy is to get a student ready for the real world (as it well should be), then it should do so academically. Do it with the books.

If a student has more to learn about the real world, then Mom and/or Dad, Grandma and/or Grandpa, or whoever taught the student values did not get the job done. Don’t make the professors pay for it.

College professors have already received an education. They are usually caring individuals who could probably be making more money somewhere else. But something drew them toward lives dedicated to education.

They don’t get paid to baby-sit.

I have often missed classes since I started at Appalachian. I wasn’t blatantly blowing off class, but my grades suffered. So, if my grades suffer under legitimate circumstances, imagine what would happen to someone who just blows off class.

Professors know when someone just doesn’t care about class. If they’d rather be hungover than go to class, they will have to pay for it. But, an attendance policy is just another pain for professors to keep up with. Rest assured they have plenty to do.

To professors who like attendance policies because it helps them to keep up with who comes to class and who doesn’t, I say get a life.

If someone is absent often enough, you’ll know. If you don’t notice it during the semester, you’ll certainly know it when it comes time to hand out grades and you are wondering who this John or Jane Doe is in your grade book. If that situation does arise, let the student’s grades do the talking. Give them what they earn. That will teach them "real world" policies. Don’t just drop or fail them if they don’t come to class.

If they can make the grade without being there, it is a reflection on their scholastic abilities (or the boring attributes of your class).

To make it simple: if a student passes a class, who cares if he or she attends regularly?

[back]

Mutual funds are your friend
Personal Finance
by Matt Jones
Business Manager

You’re a college student, and you’ve got excess cash. Yeah right!! O.K., I’m dreaming. No college student has money, but let’s say for the article that you do have a little extra money to invest. Here’s some good ideas on where to put it.

Let’s suppose you were alive in 1956 and had $10,000 to invest. If you had invested it in the Buffet Partnership at its inception and reinvested the cash distribution at its termination in 1969 into shares of Berkshire Hathaway, supposing nothing else was done, today your investment would be worth a hard-to-believe $125 million after all fees and expenses (Outstanding Investor Digest, August 8, 1996).

This shows you the value of long-term investing. Warren Buffet has a saying: "Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for ten years."

The question you need to ask yourself is where to put your money: stocks, bonds, a money market or savings account, or, should you just put it in a big mattress? My advice for most people is to pick a good stock mutual fund and invest long-term.

A mutual fund is "a company that invests its shareholders’ money by buying and selling securities on their behalf" (Mutual Funds, 5). By buying into a fund, you are buying a piece of the fund’s portfolio of securities. A small investor is transformed into a part owner of a multimillion dollar portfolio.

I want to give everyone some tips on why it is good to invest in stock mutual funds. Stocks have a proven track record over the long-term. From 1984 to 1995 the average stock mutual fund’s real return was 13.9% and the CD was only 6.7% according to Wellington Management Co. and Lipper Analytical Service.

For all you market timers that want to try to jump in and out of the market, it is better to simply stay invested. During the period of 1986 to 1995 if you were fully invested in the S&P 500 index (2528 trading days) your average real return was 14.85%, but minus the best 20 days it was 7.35%, and minus the best 40 days it was only 2.57%, according to Wellington Management.

As I stated in a previous column, from 1926 to 1995 stocks held 20 years or more outperformed bonds, inflation, and cash 100% of the time according to Ibbotson Associates, Inc.

As for the amount of risk involved, a mutual fund is safer than picking individual stocks. A mutual fund is professionally managed and diversified for safety. That means you have a professional money manager working for you, and if a particular stock or industry declines, your entire investment will not be at risk.

For example, if investor A owns two different stocks in the same industry, and the industry declines, the investor’s overall value will substantially decline. Investor B has the same amount of money but owns 10-12 different stocks in different industries. If one of those industries declines, the investor’s portfolio will not be substantially affected. This is how diversification reduces your risk.

Hopefully this article has won you over to stock mutual funds. And, if you have $10, 000 to invest today and would like to see $125 million dollars in 40 years, your annual return would need to be 26.6 %. But, if you still feel unsure about investing on your own, you may want to do some research yourself or look for some of my future columns on how to pick mutual funds.

If you have any further questions or comments, you can call my office at 262-2157, or I can strongly recommend a financial consultant at Interstate Johnson Lane (1-800-929-1110).

[back]

Safety standards take the fun out of things
Down Home
with Bob Hutton
Columnist

If you’re like me (and that’s enough to earn you a harsh spanking) the one underlying theme of everything your mother, father, or legal guardian ever told you was safety.

Talking to strangers was discouraged. Running with a pair of scissors was absolutely forbidden. And no matter how much I begged I was never allowed to stick metal objects in electrical outlets (later, when I was much older, I learned why this was dangerous and how it can leave your hair permanently frizzy). Aside from all this, I was always admonished to "be careful" in everything I did.

Even today my folks are constantly telling me to be careful. Whether I’m just driving back to Boone from my house or standing in as a substitute rodeo clown, my folks always warn me and caution me like I’m going to Neptune.

According to my Dad, road trips are especially dangerous on holidays ("Don’t forget, Bob, it’s Arbor Day, there’ll be drunks on the road").

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t bother me for my folks to be worried about me. Worrying is actually their favorite pastime and its important that married couples have at least one common interest.. What bothers me is the general trend toward making everything absolutely safe.

I don’t know if its because of the proliferation of lawsuits in the last few decades or the sinister machinations of Ralph Nader, but it seems as if the government and/or the industrial establishment is trying to make everything utterly foolproof. I know this may sound good to some shameless pragmatists but it seems pretty lousy to me.

I mean, what’s the point of doing anything if there’s no danger involved? Why do you think people cross Rivers St. everyday? Why do you think some people like to rappel down the side of the library? Why do you think that they’re having the first ever Sigma Nu/B-GLAD mixer (okay, I’ll admit that I made that one up, but doesn’t it sound dangerous)?

Danger is America’s favorite drug and you don’t have to worry about it showing up in urine samples.

I guess what really bothers me about safety is the government imposed safety standards that infringe on your personal choice making. Did you know that all but five states require wearing helmets when you ride a motorcycle? In fact, Boone has a town ordinance requiring you to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle.

Don’t get me wrong, its probably a good idea to wear a helmet when you ride a bike. A friend of mine probably saved his own life in a bike accident because he was wearing a helmet. That’s just it though, he saved his own life. He wasn’t wearing a helmet because the law said he had to, he was wearing it to protect his head. Helmets are good but I just don’t like being told what to do by a party that has no genuine interest in my well-being. .

Not to mention the fact that if I want to splatter my brains all over the pavement, the price of cleaning it up is not high enough to warrant any legislation saying that I can’t do it.

But bike helmets aren’t the half of it. Have you noticed these new cars where the headlights stay on even in the daytime? What about those Volvo commercials that moan about how you should never let a small child ride in the front of a car? And don’t get me started on seat belts.

The one safety feature on cars that really bugs me the most are those back windows that only go down halfway so that kids won’t be able to jump out of the window. This is a silly regulation.

If a kid is stupid enough to jump out of a moving vehicle let him do it. If we can weed enough stupid kids out of the American gene pool this way, not only will average SAT scores go up but the general intelligence of the American populace will be substantially improved.

Think of it, just by removing one paltry regulation we could better our society as a whole.

The same goes for those "Mister Yuck" stickers that parents are suppose to put on all of their household toxins. If the kid wants to sample some of that rat poison that he found under the kitchen sink, then let him. Experience is the best teacher.

Probably the piece de resistance in this national tendency toward timidity is the Guiness Book of World Records announcement that they would no longer record dangerous stunts. This is truly a shame because it signals the demise of the American Daredevil Spirit.

Do you think Charles Lindbergh or Commander Perry or Neil Armstrong was much of a safety fanatic? I’m worried that a new underlying society-wide emphasis on safety may discourage Americans in general from taking chances. If you think about it, there haven’t been that many moon landings lately.

The important thing to remember is, safety is fine as long as it doesn’t hinder you from doing the things that are important to you. It’s a dangerous world and you can’t hide from it forever. Don’t let saving your life overshadow living it.

And remember kids, if you’re under twenty one, don’t drink and drive.

[back]

Our Opinion...

More scapegoat nonsense..

If you have been paying attention you know there has been a recent rash of crimes perpetrated on–campus and/or against ASU students. In reaction to these events, there have been rallies, forums and an official letter from Chancellor Borkowski which addressed the incidents of violence. We think such response to crime is helpful and educational, but the latest call to arms is ridiculous.

The most recent action is the distribution of fliers all over campus which bear the title, "DON'T LET HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF."

This flyer is being distributed around campus with Chancellor Borkowski's picture surrounded by excerpts from Link magazine, The Appalachian, the St. Petersburg Times and The Watauga Democrat. It advertises a so–called "public demonstration" to be held on Sanford Mall on Thursday at 1 p.m. The event is evidently not sponsored by anyone since there are no campus–affiliated names attached to the flyer.

The same type of distribution of propaganda happened last semester when a female freshmen alleged she was attacked by a well–known football player. The player was cleared of all charges in a court of law. Yet, a group calling themselves "The Guerilla Grrrls," circulated flyers accusing the Chancellor of wrongdoing concerning this case.

Groups that distribute these types of propaganda rely on distortion and rumors. First, they state rumors as facts and then they find a scapegoat to blame all the ills of the world on instead of going after the real criminals.

We believe the attention should go toward educating students about safety and protection. These type of protests just make people angry. Anger is not going to make the police find the suspects that raped a student at a party or the suspect in the stabbing of a student on Halloween.

This type of action will only incite students and teach them not to trust officials. Maybe these anonymous groups think they can change the world this way but it is obvious they have a lot to learn about people. Intelligent people don't react simply upon their gut, they use their heads.

Now it's your turn...

At the start of the year The Appalachian and 90.5 The App tried to have an open forum to get student response to campus media.

We wanted to hear your concerns or just answer your questions about the paper or the radio station.

It was your time to put us on the spot, but alas no one showed up. Maybe it was because rush was happening or maybe you were all sleeping. We don't know.

But being the nice, compassionate staff that we are, you get another chance. Tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the New River room in the student union we will again host another forum.

The forum is sponsored by The Society of Professional Journalists. The Appalachian and 90.5 The App really want to hear first hand from you.

The only time we get feedback about our work is second hand. We hear people complain about the content of the newspaper and the format of the radio station on the AppalCART, to their roommates and in their classes.

Unless you write to us or show up at the forum, we have no way to know what you think. So, come by and make your voice heard. The campus media is here to serve you. Come let us know how we're doing.

[back]

[News] [Opinion] [Sports] [Etc...] [Announcements] [Online Extras]

E-mail The Appalachian Online at theapp@conrad.appstate.edu