The Current Online

by Edith Erickson

“I will still smoke,” said Chris Eschlimau. “There should always be a smoking designated area. I mean, I pay money to come here.”

Not long ago, all students received an e-mail concerning a survey for a smoke-free campus. While students have not filed formal complaints about this hotly debated issue, students have a lot to say about it.

Jack Keeley said, “I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with smoking outside.”

Ashley Sudduth said, “I was surprised when I saw the survey in the e-mail. It’s a relaxation between classes.”

This student strongly discussed that smokers are already courteous by smoking in designated areas.

“They should relocate smoking areas away from the door. That’s probably why people are complaining. They should do it in an open area,” said Chris Yeager. “Maybe they could even get us a heated area.”

Clearly the possibility of a smoke-free campus is a concern for smoking students. This does not even take into account employees who smoke.

Dec. 1 was the last day for students to submit their opinion concerning this issue online.

by Edith Erickson

Men are less likely to consider flirting as cheating than are women.

Recently at Longview, students Heather Wilber, Kimberly Finley, and Shaunita Charles did research on relationship cheating for their General Psychology class. They surveyed 50 men and 50 women on campus.

The students’ hypothesis was as follows: If men ages 18-25 are asked if flirting with someone other than the person you are dating exclusively is cheating, more men than women will say that this is not cheating. In the research, their definition of flirting is defined as “holding hands, looking at someone affectionately, and being ‘touchy feely.’”

With this hypothesis in mind, they set out to research what professionals are saying about the cheating topic.

According to the website http://brainblogger.com, “Cheating implies some sort of deviation from the norm — staying faithful.”

But as new research suggested, the chances of infidelity in a relationship now varies between 40 and 76 percent; and this implies that infidelity itself could be the new norm. In adult life, in order to prevent commitment-phobia, many of these individuals in relationships cheat to reassure themselves of their own space and freedom.

As a follow up to the previous studies, two further studies revealed that the number one motive quoted as a reason for infidelity was a conscious will to distance oneself from commitment and one’s partner.

“In general, men are more likely to cheat for more superficial reasons, like the need for excitement, while women are more likely to stray if there is serious trouble in the marriage,” stated the website, http://www.menstuff.org.

“But those lines are blurring,” said Nancy Glass, PhD, author of “Not ‘Just Friends’: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal.”

“In the past, there were significant gender differences,” said Glass. “The traditional male affair that was primarily sexual is changing because more men are having more emotional affairs (meaning their feelings for the “other woman” go beyond just sexual) with coworkers.
Meanwhile, women are having more sexual affairs.”

One reason: Women now feel more entitled to enjoy their sexuality, so if sex with their husband is not satisfying, they are more likely to look elsewhere than their mothers and grandmothers would have been. Another trend: With more men and women working together side-by-side, as peers, there is an opportunity for deep emotional connections that did not exist in previous generations.

“You always had the boss who ran off with his secretary, but now I see many men who are in good marriages and are not traditional philanderers who form these deep friendships,” Glass said. “They cross these lines and become more emotionally intimate than they are in their marriage. If there’s some sexual attraction and chemistry, that’s all you need for an affair.”

Although affairs can and do happen to “good” marriages, in general an affair is a signal that something is awry in the relationship.

“There are some cases when someone is just having sex with different people out of a need for variety, but most people really think before they go off in that direction. If you have a good relationship, you’re less likely to jeopardize it,” said Lonnie Barbach, PhD, co-author with David Geisinger of “Going the Distance: Finding and Keeping Lifelong Love.”

“Recent studies reveal that 45-55 percent of married women and 50-60 percent of married men engage in extramarital sex at some time or another during their relationship,” stated the website, http://www.menstuff.org.

Finally, the Longview students decided to prove their hypothesis and their research by conducting a survey at Longview campus of 50 men and 50 women. The survey confirmed that women ages 18 to 25 think flirting with someone other than the person you are dating exclusively is cheating, while men ages 18 to 25 are more likely to say that this is not cheating.

by Edith Erickson

While Longview has a variety of excellent teachers, it is common for all universities to have teachers that are hard to deal with. It is true that a lot of hard teachers are excellent teachers. However, some teachers are beyond just having difficult classes and expectations. Their conduct toward students is not acceptable.

One anonymous student shared about an experience last semester with one of her teachers. She had gotten A’s on all of her homework and at the end of the semester she was given a B. When she brought this up to the chairman, she was told that the teacher could grade however she wanted to. This student even had all of her homework to prove that she had earned an A. One might speculate that perhaps the final test grade counted as the course final grade, but that should have been in the teacher’s syllabus.

The teachers tend to have a good relationship with their superiors. Therefore, when students have valid complaints about a particular teacher, students tend to find that those superiors may not do anything about the problem.

On another occasion, a different student complained about teachers testing large sections of material not covered in class. This student brought this complaint to the chairman of that department. The student also described a teacher’s unprofessional behavior. This teacher often told students to “shut up,” made degrading comments toward some

people, and made sexual jokes which did not relate to the class content.

The chairman responded to this student by saying that she was overreacting. He said that he would mention something to the teacher after the semester, and that students normally waited until after the semester because there was a possibility a teacher may give a student worse grades because the student had complained about his or her teaching. Does this not sound unprofessional? What is the point of going to a superior, if the student’s concern is not considered important to the superior? One can speculate that perhaps it would be too inconvenient to have to fire a teacher or lose a teacher and then have to go find a replacement.

I readily admit that I have not done extensive research on this topic. That this would happen even on a small scale however is repulsive to me as a student. I would hope that in most cases students are taken seriously when concerns about teachers are expressed. It is only professional for the chairmen and the dean’s department to look after students enough to confront teachers and challenge their behavior without any fear of being degraded.

This does not mean that students should not bring unprofessional conduct or unfair practices to the attention of the appropriate leadership, but they should know that this may not lead to the answer they are looking for.

I hope and expect the departments here at Longview to hold their teachers accountable to a high level of professional behavior and grading as they are also holding students accountable to a high level of behavior and class work.

by EDITH ERICKSON