Selena Hunter Source 5

Racial Tension In A "Postracial" Age. n.p.: Amenia, New York : Grey House Publishing, 2016., 2016. MERLIN. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

For my last journal entry, I decided to look at how living in a post-racial society can affect student activism on a college campus. Before reading I was unsure of the meaning of postracial and was interested to see what this source had to say about it. I used parts of chapter 4 of this book to further my research.

It points out that dating back to the civil rights movement the university had been a haven for activism. I wondered how might activism today differ from the activism our elders practiced back when they were in college. I read on to see if they would mention anything about it and luckily for me they did. Social media and the use of hashtags is a big difference in our society today allowing protests to be more known everywhere and not so isolated to that one campus. It's powerful because it allows the protest to go viral. The book actually mentions the resignation of Tim Wolfe which is a part of my case study so I found that to be helpful. The source also went on to talk about microaggressions. I found it familiar to the things I read in my first journal. 

This source spoke to my first source when talking about microaggressions. They both agreed that these are subtle things that bring offense to African American and other races but allowed by the university because of their social status. 

This source helped me to realize that a lot of research needs to be done on my overall issue in order to find what your arguement is. There is just so many different factors that could go into internal racial division that it takes more than just five sources to figure out. 

Will Flaugher Source 5

Price, Derek V. Borrowing Inequality : Race, Class, And Student Loans. n.p.: Boulder, Colo. : Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004., 2004. MERLIN. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

For high-risk students who are more likely to be negatively impacted and more stressed over student loans, are student loans implemented unfairly?

For me personally, based on the research I have already done, it seems apparent that student loans are not really the most beneficial for high-risk students. Simply seeing as how high-risk students are the most negatively impact by the debt, I think that it would be difficult to justify that student loans work equally for all students.
While reading this book, one thing I noted is that student loans are not available to many students who are college qualified but lack the right financial sources. This seems to make no sense to me, because these students are just as capable as others based on their academic records, and student loans should benefit students who do well academically. The book also focuses on inequality in college universities and the workforce.
After reading, my immediate thoughts are just that there is a lot of information in the book, and it will be difficult to only take some information out of it. However, I know I want to look at how student loans are less beneficial for high-risk students, so I will probably focus on the concepts of student loans being unfair for the college qualified students, and how despite being college educated many students who are not white males are still paid less, meaning they will have more trouble paying off their student loans.

For this book, the main argument is that student debt and student loans are promoting inequality due to many factors. However, the ones I will focus on are: the difficult for low-income families to send college qualified students to college, the income differential between college graduates who are white males and college graduates who are minorities or women, and the fact that lower-income and african-american families are paying more for higher education.
This source was honestly the most eye-opening to me just because of the detail it went into to prove its arguments. The source definitely proves to me that student debt is not the same for everyone, and that the lower-class is more likely to be negatively affected by it. This post has helped me answer the question I have for this post, but it opens up so many more thought I have about student debt that I will have trouble trying to focus on just one thing.
To synthesize this source, I can put it in comparison with another article I had, by Webber, where he states that for more students it is worth taking out student loans because they are likely to be able to repay the debt after graduating. This book would argue the opposite, and point out that while that may be true for white males who graduate, everyone else makes less income on average and therefore would have a more difficult time repaying their student debt despite their degree.
I think with the info I have received in this source, I am more confident in how I am going to finish my paper. I have laid out my entire essay essentially in a way that makes sense, and this source fits snuggly right into my second to last topic that I want to talk about. The new question that this source has led me to ask is how can student loans be changed so that they are more beneficial to the lower-class?

Selena Hunter Source 4

Diggles, Kimberly. "Addressing Racial Awareness And Color-Blindness In Higher Education." New Directions For Teaching & Learning 2014.140 (2014): 31-44. Professional Development Collection. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.

For my next journal entry, I decided to pose the question "What could the way we discuss race and our awareness of racial issues tell us about student activism and how it might affect student activist activities?" I know that there is an effect on the way we speak about race in social situations and the interactions we have on campus. But I want to understand how great the effect is and how the protests made a difference in the way we talk about race on campus. 

The article starts out by stating "Institutions of higher education that pride themselves on training professionals prepared to work and successful in an increasingly diverse society should make a purposeful effort to teach students how to address issues related to race and racism." I think this is an important statement because I believe we come to college for more than education. We are supposed to be preparing to be some of the best world leaders, but can someone truly be a good leader if you can't deal with issues of race and racism? We come to college to get our degrees to better our chances at better careers, but what good is that degree if we don't know how to properly interact the with people around us in a diverse environment where "modern-day racial realities" can occur. The author speaks about the idea of color blindness. Color blindness is when people don't acknowledge that life is not always fair, right, or just and that society isn't meant to help advance people of all races. They "look past" the color of a person's skin and see them just as human. Even with good intention, this is problematic because people ignore white supremacy over minority races, white privilege, and the everyday racism we see in our society. White people sometimes "double talk" and speak cautiously so they don't come off as racist when speaking about issues of racism. I agree that some white people do this but also I have come across some that don't. I believe that it depends on the environment they are in, who they are surrounded by, but also in the way they were raised and taught to talk about race. Before moving on and reading about the negative effects of color blindness, I thought of the idea of how color blindness tries to eliminate and dismiss the issue of racism. If people don't "see the color of people's skin" then how can they be racist? How would a "colorblind" person react to the protest? Would they be active in trying to push their idea of colorblindness on people as a solution to the problem they are protesting? And how would protesters react to this idea? As I read on, the journal confirmed my idea when it talks about how colorblind people are less likely to take action against the modern-day systemic oppression of racial minorities because they don't acknowledge and they can't recognize that even if it exists. Therefore they are supporting the "status quo." It also supports racist ideologies by "denying the system of privilege and oppression that exists on the basis of race." This also goes in with racial awareness. White privilege is a huge topic when talking about racial awareness. When white people don't acknowledge white privilege being a problem, or to relate it back to Mizzou protest, complain about the things they are fighting for because "racism no longer exists." Some African Americans are also less racially aware. "When racial minorities are unaware of the racial realities around them, they risk violating implicit social codes regarding acceptable cross-race interactions, the results of which can potentially be severe." This made me think about moderate blackness and the idea of keeping good relations with the majority for the minorities benefit and chance of social advancement. How might this impact the relationship the minority has with their fellow race group? The author brought up an interesting point about how white parents discuss racial awareness with their children but is actually making them racially unaware. They tell their young children to not pay attention to the fact their peers are Black, Asian, orHispanicc because they should not "see color. The author also introduced me to a new term "vicarious racism: witnessing or hearing about another person's or group's experience with racial discrimination." 

This article speaks to the other to I believe my 2nd article because it reiterates the Critical Race theory. They agree about the effects the critical race theory has on society. 

For my final journal entry, I will look at how living in a postracial society can affect student activism.

Dex Busken Source 5

Citation of Source 5: Fox, Robert, Reggie Kwan, and Philip Tsang. Enhancing Learning through Technology. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2007. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 18 Oct. 2016.

Question: Does cooperative learning benefit students or inhibit their learning ability when used with the integration of technology?

My Initial Thoughts: I feel that this book will overall tie all the information I have collected together by allowing me to visualize what is proven to be successful and what doesn't work. Being my last source, I felt that I had encountered all the disadvantages already but the book brought up new ideas that I had not considered. Thinking that, I had also not considered that there could be more benefits as well.

Step 2: Students academic success is measured through multiple standards including advancement in students communication skills and examination scores. It goes to evaluate the ideas, issues, trends and possibilities for linking cooperative learning to technology used for educational purposes. Different technologies privilege certain practices and exclude other practices. The argument made is seen within the construction of the type of technology being incorporated with group learning and how the instructor uses this to benefit learning. The book focuses on communication within a classroom with the use of e-learning and online programs.

With the growing trend of traditional forms of education being transformed towards online and elearning experiences, I was able to clearly visualize the examples of these changes. The use of computer labs and laptop sets are thoroughly analyzed. I was able to take these ideas represented by the book and reinforce my opinion.

After reading this book, I can see how the educational advantages and disadvantages come together to create the argument of just how successful technology in education today can be positive or negative. It really helped to tie all my thoughts together with this being the last source I researched. How does this benefit students? What are the educational disadvantages the integration of technology has on cooperative learning? What role does it play in modern day education?

Selena Hunter Source 3

Miller, David B. "Racial Socialization And Racial Identity: Can They Promote Resiliency For African American Adolescents?." Adolescence 135 (1999): Science In Context. Web. 15 Oct. 2016.

For this journal entry, I researched the question "What can the division within a racial group tell us about the way a race goes about student activist activities and the tensions it may cause?" I came across this article about racial socialization and racial identity to see if it would mention ideas that could be related back to the concept of moderate blackness. Before reading this article I was interested in the fact that the author chose to focus on African American adolescents because I am relating all of my research back to Concerned Student 1950, a group that is made of adolescents and young adults. 

The article focuses on the ways racial socialization and racial identity can promote resiliency for African American adolescents. Resiliency is defined many ways, but the one definition that sums them all up is "the ability to bounce back, recover, or form a successful adaptation in the face of obstacles and adversity." The author points out that it is hard to limit the amount of stress that individuals experience, especially those from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds. I was able to relate this back to African American students at Mizzou. Some but not all may face financially struggling times because of tuition and other college expenses and then are socially disadvantaged because of the lack of diversity on campus. Racial socialization is defined as the "tasks Black parents share with all parents - providing for and raising children... but they include the responsibility of raising physically and emotionally healthy children who are black in a society in which being black has negative connotations." It is also described in "terms of personal and group identity, intergroup and interindividual relationships, and position in the social hierarchy." I would like to go back a minute to the definition that talks about black parents responsibility of raising children to know that it's okay to be black in a society that sees otherwise. The author addresses the responsibility of the parents, but what about the role schools play in their development of racial socialization and racial identity. As children grow up, they spend just as much time with teachers and faculty at their school as with their parents. I believe that teachers and faculty play an important role in a child's development and knowledge about racial issues and that should not go unaddressed. The idea of how a strong racial identity can make dealing with stress easier and overcoming negative social stereotypes. I personally don't agree with this idea because I feel that no matter how comfortable you are in your skin and with your racial identity, it's still going to put a burden in your life. Relating it back to the Mizzou protests, it could cause even more stress because their way of overcoming the negative stereotypes was to protest about it and stage all of these presentations and hunger strikes. With this, it takes away from their study time and time to do homework, therefore the stress of school is added on to the stress to fit into their environment. The author introduces a theoretical perspective that brings up the development of a couple character traits. Depreciated and transcendent character. Depreciated character is when a "sense of worthlessness, inadequacy, and impotence is incorporated into the extrinsically imposed devaluation of self. This type of individual is likely to turn away from or against social institutions." The transcendent character is when there is more optimism. The individual seeks to overcome environmental adversity, nevertheless, this individual may experience alienation from other group members fostering depreciated character." I thought I may be able to relate this back to the concept of moderate blackness. What can these different character traits tell us about the way some students choose to protest.

This source made me think about how talking about race in social situations can affect resiliency and racial identity and socialization among the African American community. 

This source speaks to my other sources because it talks about how racial identity and racial socialization can take away the stress of the negative stereotypes. This can be related back to structural violence. Having a stronger sense of racial identity can take away from the stresses felt through structural violence.

For my next journal entry i will research how discussions about race can affect student activism in higher education.

Natalie Ismert Journal Entry 5

Natalie Ismert

English 1000

13 October, 2016

Journal Entry 5

While thinking of all the different sides and perspectives to take from my exploratory question I’ve also found that their are the many people who just don’t care about their health at all. People could put on a few pounds and continue to eat whatever they want to and are still confident about themselves. These are the people that I think my question would help the most. It’s a different view from the people who want to have the healthy lifestyle, but can’t. Mizzou should make health something that comes with their education here at the university. The people who don’t care should start to care because this isn’t only a college problem, but a life problem.

If Mizzou could provide it’s students with a new perspective and outlook on health and wellness for each person at the university then that’s just as important as taking a degree with you when you graduate. It stays with you forever and is something you need in order to live. After thinking and reading the many sources, I have found that health is something you have to want. If you don’t then it’ll never be accomplished. Everyone knows they’re supposed to do it and how to eat a vegetable instead of a potato chip, but what’s the key to wanting that. It’s the same as telling a smoker they should stop smoking because it’s bad for them. They know it’s bad for them, but they continue to do it. If the influences around you are supporting you then that’s what makes these things possible.

When people are given health advice and are educated on it, they’ll want to start living a healthier lifestyle. People should be educated on the risks of not getting the nutrition that is needed and the benefits of taking action and trying to make a change with their life. We know why many do it and we also know why others can’t or don’t care to. We need to make it known here at at our school that this is something that’s not only going to make you feel like a better you, but will also change the rest of your life.

The question I’m posing now, from that thought is “What can Mizzou do to make you want health?”. I would love to know what others think of this question, but for me I would say by making it a part of our education and maybe even a mandatory course to take here. There should be people trying to make others aware of this issue. The promotion of nutrition should be seen and heard across campus. I think that motivating each other will help us to become a healthier whole as students and as citizens.

Natalie Ismert Journal Entry 4

Natalie Ismert

English 1000

12 October, 2016

Journal Entry 4

What you put in your body is what you get out. A saying that many may neglect and forget about. Most of the time neglecting this saying is not an option, you just don’t see a way to fulfill it. We’ve all had those days when we say we’re going to start eating right, but going to the store and looking at the prices of the food that is good for you and not filling versus the bad food that is makes you want to choose the wrong route. The money problem is another big one that many actually can’t get around. You have to do what you have to do with the money you have and that usually results in buying a bag a Lays over a bag of carrots.

On a regular day for me I’ll force myself to finally get out of my bed being so tired I can barely open my eyes, make coffee while half asleep still and rush to class. I then think of all I need to do in the week and the tests I’ll need to study for and shortly make a list in my head of what to do, but I never end up following it. I rush to eat lunch before my next class, which varies from nuggets, to greasy chinese, to cheeseburgers, etc.. It’s either that or I could get a salad and be hungry in an hour I tell myself. I shove the food in my mouth and then hurry to class and then the library, but stop by the student center where I could get pizza or any other unhealthy food in the mizzou market. I push the thought of working out until late at night which usually backfires because I can never go to sleep when I work out late. Trying the have a healthy lifestyle with a busy schedule is a very difficult task.

I found a source online that gives a list of ways to eat healthy in college while on a budget. Realistically for me not many of those ideas were helpful. I don’t have a kitchen, I can’t make my own food which is the main reason I get the prepackaged junk food. The parts of this list that could be helpful were the ones that said always go for the fruits and the vegetables. I thought that was an obvious one, but it is true. It’s better to eat a whole bag of carrots than a whole bag of chips. One thing I find helpful is soups. It’s a good meal that fills me up and doesn’t contain all the bad things I could be putting in my body. Another tip would be to avoid too much dressing or sauces. This is where people go wrong when they think they’re eating a healthy salad except that every piece of it is drenched in ranch. At that point you might as well have chosen the macaroni. Finding a plan and sticking with it is the way to go. Stick with the basics and go from there.

Some new questions to ask would be “what are the ways I can stick to health and a budget at the same time?”. A way Mizzou could make this easier would be by incorporating healthier foods into the dining plans and maybe making certain foods off limits in the foods systems here. People may choose the pizza over the turkey wrap, but would they be able to if pizza wasn’t served at every meal. Creating additions to the meal plan would benefit the students at Mizzou and help us to substitute bad for good.