Time. There is so much to do, so little time to go around. In other cases, time is all you have, and the work will be finished when it is (or ever is to be) finished. The clocks of our youth rush ahead faster on some of life’s moments, and drag on for others. It is easy to lose a bit of perspective along the way, fighting with the shadows that never leave us, groping about into great unknown. It has been almost three short/long years since Martin, but I can vividly recall much of that time and place better than I can remember what happened last week.

Spring has brought with it a warm sense of new beginnings. There have already been a number of new births in our social circles, a phenomenon that really amplifies that feeling of the new and unlimited potential that it represents. Whether it is the young couple in East Nashville welcoming their first or another welcoming their third, the love they all share is really powerful stuff. Those kinds of moments in life never escape our memory, no matter how many years we put between them and the present.

I have to stop every now and then to really soak in the things around me; my wife’s loving smile, the company of friends, a beautiful day. I even look forward to the seven hours we will on the road tomorrow, assuming I do not nap through most of it.

Fall weekends are notoriously busy. I had been looking forward to heading back to Martin for homecoming for about a month or two. I serve on my college fraternity‘s Alumni & Volunteer Corporation, so the focus of the day trip was to make it for our annual meeting. We also met with the Communications Department faculty as they celebrate 30 years. The football game went into overtime, ending when TSU answered the Skyhawk’s field goal with an 11-yard touchdown run. Aside from the scheduled events, I was also able to see a number of friends who made the trip back (and some who are yet to leave).

Dear UTM Communications alumni,

I would like to invite you to be a part of our 30th anniversary tent at Quad City during Homecoming 2008 on Saturday, October 4th from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. If you have not experienced Quad City, you are in for a real treat! Along with our department’s birthday, WUTM is turning 35 years old this year and we’ll have an open house in the WUTM studios in Gooch Hall at that same time. Visit www.utmforever.com for a complete listing of events during the weekend of homecoming.

Also, the Communications Department has set up its own Facebook group, and I urge you to join it! If you are already a Facebook member, it’s easy to click on the “groups” link and search for “UT Martin Department of Communications.” You can join from there. It’s an open group. If you aren’t in Facebook, please email me at: RNanney@utm.edu, and I’ll pass along the same info.

I look forward to seeing you!

Robert Nanney, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chairman
Communications Department

I have paid for my football game tickets and lunch pass for Quad City, although I must admit I am not sure where to pick up either.

For the last couple of nights, our DSL connection from AT&T has been less than reliable. At one point, we had less than three minutes of connectivity before having to re-reset the modem and the attached wireless router. Mostly out of frustration, I ordered one of their combined Router/Modem gateways. I wagered that at least if the connection was going to be flaky, I would only have to reset one device instead of two. I am starting to wish I had done that to begin with.

I still have a bit of trouble compartmentalizing the last couple of months so that I can get back my usual pattern of stumbling aimlessly forward. The truth about change, for better or worse, is that it eventually becomes the status quo. No matter how much turmoil and upheaval one experiences, over time it just becomes a way of life and is seldom given a second thought. If those are to be my circumstances, I wish that I were already a bit more accustomed to it.

Perhaps “aimless” is not quite the correct word. I generally end up with far more specific goals than most, but my timeframes are almost always open-ended. The marching orders typically go along the lines of “give it everything you got and hope to accomplish a few of those goals along the way.”

Maybe I should take my wife up on the offer of a walk around the park if the weather cooperates.

Editor’s note:* As a rule, I still try not to write too much about work. It is a leftover personal decision from the campus newspaper days. My inner-public relations practitioner is very insistent on staying “on message.”

What I really need right now are mental brake pads, the kind of restraints that can keep your mind from racing off in one direction. Mine are quite worn down from constantly stopping short of jumping to conclusions and trying to slow down long enough to enjoy the experience. Having a new set might also help me sleep a bit better at night.

I turn 25 this week, so much of my downtime is spent looking for things that I would like to change. There are certainly some obvious things (I no longer look as under-fed as I did in college) and a few related to social circles and professional development. Why, here comes one now.

I have started researching graduate programs in Communications. This has been one of the projects on the back-burner for a while, but the longer I wait the more it makes sense to go ahead and get started. My wife earned an MBA in under two years from our undergraduate alma mater, so I have been informed that it is my turn. In light of the events of the last month, it sounds like an online or very local program makes the most sense. The real reason: a ridiculous number of my friends have graduate degrees in business, law, medicine, fine arts and education. I am starting to feel a bit left out.

* I do not get to say that anymore, do I?

I prefer the fall. The weather in Tennessee generally holds steady in the mid-70s, with only the occasional evening thunderstorm. My two preferred sports of hockey and football shift into full gear in September and October. I am generally in a better mood during hockey season, even if that means dragging a bit the next morning at work because the game in Vancouver or Calgary went to a shoot-out. I have fond memories of cold nights at football games.

With every season, life seems to pause and give us an opportunity to reflect a bit about where we have gone and how we have grown. I must confess that I cannot give a sufficient answer to that question; I am as much in awe of the world around me as I am befuddled by it. My resolve is as strong as ever, but I cannot shake this feeling of confusion and uncertainty. Most people say it is called “being in your twenties.” What kind of answer is that?

This month I am trying my best to take up reading books again. I have never been much of one for pleasure reading, although I can say that I make a point to read several of the articles from our subscriptions to Wired and Rolling Stone. I would much rather read a concise article than a 300 page book on the same subject. My technical books notwithstanding, my most recent purchases have been books on business and self-improvement. That just about sums up my areas of personal focus.

The apartment is quiet except for the din of an air conditioner units downstairs. I should probably make a point of wrapping up my writing at a decent hour.

I have lived at two apartments since moving back to Nashville with swimming pools. The majority of the time at the previous was during the winter months, and the property’s insurance policy probably did not cover hypothermia for residents. We have been at our current residence for over a year and have only ventured into the pool area to use the community vending machine. Today we decided to change that.

I can fondly remember the first (and last) pool party I attended at Martin, where a group of newspaper staff and roommates hung out after-hours at the Martin Place pool. It was the first time I had spent a significant amount of time with Samantha, culminated with a ride to McDonald’s (at sunrise) after a few hours searching for a set of keys. We spent a bit of time dissecting the wit/absurdity of the old saying that one always finds what they are looking for in the last place he or she looks. That was five years ago, so I owe a bit to the idea of chilling at the pool.

Today was the first time since then I have been swimming, if only for a few minutes between naps poolside. The weather this weekend is fantastic and our spot in the shade only made it better. While it did not succeed in completely erasing the slow but steady build-up of anxiousness of the last few weeks, getting outside did recharge my mental batteries.

I need to find more outlets for escapism.

I believe that in some cases, parental involvement may prove to be the kind of remedial force necessary to accomplish that goal. What perplexes me is the requirement being in force until age of 21, three years past all statutes that a person becomes a legal adult at 18 years of age. It would appear to me that this law creates more of a burden for campus administrators who should be spending resources on educating to prevent such offenses rather than notifying parents. If the university system wished to have such a policy, it would have implemented it years ago. My alternate plan for curbing the number of drug and alcohol offenses involves putting them into the same justice system their peers who do not attend the university enter for the same offense. “We will call your parents if you misbehave,” works on kids at a summer camp, not the liberal arts major who opted to sit around and drink a few beers with friends.

The primary argument for this law could be summed up in “if they are paying for your education, they should know when you misbehave.” I could not agree more, as long we clarify who “they” are. If the majority of a student’s tuition is paid by the HOPE lottery scholarship, the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation should be informed of any diversion of those funds to other purposes, i.e. beer money. If a community group, church or other civic organization is footing the bill, they should be informed if a student partakes of illegal substances. In a majority of cases, the parents are at most paying for incidental expenses through the first few years of college (until the 21 years of age benchmark is met). At which point, either personal loans underwritten by the parents or education loans taken out by the students are used to finish the degree. If this law must exist, then it should be for the purpose of updating the true stakeholders in the student’s higher education, not simply default to the parents.

There is also the matter of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but I am not of sufficient legal background to summarily dismiss this new statute as unconstitutional on those grounds alone.

I had a front row seat to the weekly report from Public Safety during my three years as editor of the school newspaper. Most of the violations were either simple possession of drug paraphernalia or, more frequently, public intoxication. Part of my conditions of employment mandated that I was to never appear in that report under any circumstances (my truck was once vandalized, but that was par for the course I suppose). So what does the justice system look like at my alma mater?

If you were in the dorm suite away from the festivities but all your roommates were caught with beer, the arresting officer at his or her discretion could charge everyone in the suite with a violation of the law pertaining to alcohol on university property. The report would be filed, you would be informed that your name was being handed over to Student Affairs and you were to schedule a meeting with the Student Conduct Officer. What happens from here is based on what we were told on no less than five occasions over three years by students going through Student Affairs.

The university handled so many cases that there was no wiggle room in the rules: you were issued a citation and placed on the first time offenders list with Student Affairs. There was no right for a student to challenge the charge, and I have it from numerous sources that harsher reprimand awaited for anyone who tried. Even talking about your punishment or circumstances had words like “suspension” and “expulsion” being tossed around. Whether this was an empty threat or is based on fact is something that I cannot personally vouch for.

Regardless of how it all turned out, the student’s name would be included in the summary given to a newspaper reporter every week, and in turn would be printed in the following week’s issue. That is really what spurred most of our intel: people feeling wrongly accused in print and wanting to clear their name. Most, however, really wanted to share their experiences of what they felt to be a gross injustice. In February of 2006, we took a closer look at the system and found that there was another avenue for justice that had been dormant for at least five years prior to the publication of the story. I doubt that it has ever been used since.

I am curious as to how this law will be implemented at UT Martin, or how it will be received among the campus community.

Update: I finally tracked down actual piece of legislation (never mentioned in any of the news reports).

SB4108 by *Herron, *Burks, *Burchett, *Williams, *Kurita, *Ford, O., *Finney R.. (*HB4088 by *Maddox, *Cooper B, *Hardaway.)

Education, Higher – Requires public institutions of higher education to notify parents or legal guardians of students under the age of 21 if the student commits a disciplinary violation with respect to use or possession of alcohol or controlled substances that is a violation of law or institutional policy or rule. – Amends TCA Title 49.

An amendment added the line “except as prohibited by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,” so I guess that covers all of the legal bases.

Nothing notable has changed in this small, rural west Tennessee town. The main corridor of the business district is closed to traffic after being green-lighted for renovations, and four-story apartment buildings are on the rise on campus. That leaves only two remaining Y-halls to go before the university completes this stanza of housing upgrades.

Other than the luncheon and a two hour and a half hour Alumni Volunteer Corporation meeting, we have not done much at all on campus. We grabbed dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in town and drove around through a few of the residential areas close to campus. It looks as if some of the houses have been abandoned, an unusual sight for an area with a high demand for low-rent housing.

My NCAA brackets had been performing unusually well this season, but today’s Memphis win closes out any chance of picking the winner. The way Kansas is (at the moment) shellacking North Carolina, I suspect I’ll end the day 0-2. I was last in my workplace pool, but the Louisville win over Tennessee actually helped put in the middle of the ladder. The math does not work out in my favor to be able to win the pool.

We did have a startling moment when an old news clip from the year made mention of my hometown in Greenfield, Tennessee. The soldier’s name was Charles Martin, answering CBS reporter Peter Kalisher.

I’d like to say Hi to Mom back there at home. I know she’s worried about me and [we've] had no mail or resupplies, so to Momma back there in Greenfield, Tennessee, hello Momma.

Dr. Richard Chesteen of UT Martin will retire later this year after 44 years as a college professor. He recently won a statewide podcast competition with a five minute piece titled “Baba O’riley…defining moments”. In it, he takes a look at The Who’s famous song and its topic of a “Teenage Wasteland”. He now firmly believes that the youth of today are in an over-connected world that he calls “Teenage Talk-land.”

One has to wonder when do they ever think, or sit in moments of solitude? What would happen if they were locked in a room with no sound and four blank walls for two hours. Would they be able to mentally deal with such without screaming for release?

The rebels of the 60s and 70s grew up, and lead America to its pinnacle of power in the post cold war era. Today, our younger generation confronts a world just as dangerous. The violence of terrorism on a worldwide scale. Nuclear proliferation. An environmental melt-down. We can only hope that as they mature and reach full adulthood that they will have gotten their heads out of the computers, cell phones and iPods long enough to secure the world for another generation in which their own children can have their own God-knows-what defining moments.

I take a similar view. I believe that in the coming year, exactly four decades after that defining time in American history, a new generation of students and working adults will be given its opportunity to leave a lasting effect on the future of our nation and our world. It is my hope that we will realize that forty years is long long enough to live in fear and doubt of our own national identity. It is much too long a time to go without trusting our elected leaders. Forty years is much too long to believe that we can solve the growing divide between rich and poor by ignoring it. It is also far too long to live with the illusion that our way of life should be the model for all of mankind, by force if necessary.

We must stop putting our faith in money, technology or in charismatic showmen charading for the creator of the universe and start putting it in each other. The series ends with perhaps the only unifying moment in the entire year of 1968: the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the moon on Christmas Eve. Bitter elections, assassinations, non-violent and violent protests, the civil rights and women’s rights movement and the drug counter-culture all seemed to take a back seat to a few days when man accomplished a goal in reaching for the heavens.

So, how are you spending 2008?

News of her death caused quite a bit of concern in Union City, Tenn., where I worked at the local newspaper at the time. Having been to the hospital as a visitor and to bring patients, it comes as no surprise that allegations of negligence by the nursing staff have surfaced.

Update: Family Sues Hospital After Daughter’s Death

This weekend we are heading back to the “scene of the crime”, so to speak. I have an alumni gathering for my college fraternity, and we are hoping to meet up with some mutual friends. Failing that, we are still going to pick up some goods to brag a bit about our alma-mater. Given the size of the university, the campus bookstore is just about the only place to go for such things. While UT Martin would prefer a donation, we are still in the tax bracket that requires something in return for our hard earned in cash.

Ah, summer.

A special panel has recommended dropping the minimum grade-point average college students must maintain to keep their state lottery scholarships, but the idea is drawing mixed reviews from Tennessee lawmakers.

Gov. Phil Bredesen and state lawmakers called for a review of the lottery scholarship program earlier this year after the Tennessee Higher Education Commission issued a report showing three out of four students were losing the scholarship before they graduate because of poor college grades.

The higher education commission is expected to vote on the panel’s report this week.

To qualify for a scholarship, a student must have a high school GPA of 3.0, or score 21 on the ACT college entrance test. To keep it, students must be enrolled full time, have a college GPA of at least 2.75 after their freshman year and a 3.0 GPA for subsequent years.

The panel wants to drop the latter figure to 2.75, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. But some lawmakers feel that could make Tennessee students less competitive.

Lowering the minimum GPA requirements for the Tennessee HOPE lottery scholarship in order to make sure more people retain their benefits is absolutely ridiculous. Show me how lowering the standards improves the overall educational value of the program? By that measure, every difficult college course should be altered to make sure that more students pass. Do away with all of the essays and research papers and just go to 25 question multiple choice every so often, with a curve. I cannot see how this benefits anyone involved, other than the lottery program avoiding all of the stories that students are not retaining the scholarships year over year.

Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis, had this to say that prompted this writing:

“The main point is to get students to graduate,” Cohen said.

I have a resounding “hell no” in response to that point. If we wanted to hand out diplomas, it would be a lot cheaper to run our state’s institutions of higher education. In fact, all we would really need is a copy machine and somebody to sit at a table and write a name in. Our graduation rates are in the tank, but lets not lower the bar just to make it look better on paper. Tennessee would not serve its students or its future to produce college graduates in name only. If a student is not prepared to handle college level work, pay for them to attend community college instead until they are ready.

I believe in offering an equal playing field for any student that wants to attend college after high school, regardless of financial situation. But I also believe the responsibility to continue on requires diligence and a bit of effort. If a student cannot make the required GPA, then they simply must find another way to finance their education. I speak as someone who voted for but never received the lottery scholarship benefits.

Furthermore, I believe that the amount of money a student comes to college with is inversely proportional to their overall contribution to the campus community. Some examples that I encountered while at the University of Tennessee at Martin were students that had everything paid for by the state, yet made no effort in class and lived “the good life” until finally failing out after second chance after second chance. I think had these students came with less money to spend on beer runs and other comparatively lavish expenses, they would have spent more time studying and contributing back to the campus community.

The idea of “giving back” is fairly simple. Stay out of the police report. Go to class at least often enough that the professor notices when you are not in attendance. Make an effort to meet a GPA goal somewhere north of a 3.0. Join a student organization or some other outlet that requires responsibility or builds character. That is why you are in college to begin with, right? Be assured that I was never a model student, but at the very least I knew why I came to college and did not lose sight of it from the bottom of a Natty Light can.

Lowering the standard for retaining a lottery scholarship sends the wrong message to those who are skating by just hard enough to keep it now. I strongly believe that as Tennessee lowers its standards, the expectations of students will follow.

Samantha and I have moved over to Ridgeview Apartments. It, like Grove, is a one bedroom, single bath. As of a recent rent hike, it is five bucks cheaper than its university counterpart. We did lose phone, cable and Internet in the transaction, but the benefits have far outweighed the losses. There is one item that made the difference to me when we saw it: It has a dishwasher.

I recently took a job with The Union City Messenger, the weekday newspaper one town over from Martin, as a Prepress Technician. My first day began 25 minutes after my last fall final. In some respects, the position is similar to what I was doing my first year with The Pacer. Our department takes internal (three newspaper properties and related publications) and commercial clients files and prepares them for the offset press. It differs in that I have learned more of the technical side of things as opposed to concerning myself with design.

I did, however have a design project fall into my lap. The Union City Greyhounds, a wooden bat league for college baseball players in the off-season, opened their season this week. My task was to put together a package for season preview features, complete with rosters, schedules, park information, etc. It ran Wednesday, and much to my amusement the next day’s paper featured a picture of six or so members of the team reading the paper with my page on the back. Talk about marketing.

There is a bit of comfort to be had with a “real” full-time job. I go in every morning at around 6:45 a.m., and leave as soon as the slate is cleared for the afternoon. Depending on the day, it could be anywhere from noon to 9 p.m. or later. We’re working into a sense of normalcy, as I grow more accustomed to the quirks of the equipment and schedules. I have a hard time just pushing “Print” on any application now without checking every last setting. Every checkbox, form field and drop-down matters. Film and plates are not cheap.

Then there’s that class. It sits right in the middle of my day, so there I have had a bit of an interruption from my regular routine. Summer classes are especially challenging because a 15 plus weeks of material are crammed into five. Going to class for five days solid should help the end result, however. If I can pull a B or higher, I solidify something I thought I would never achieve in college: a 3.0 cumulative GPA.

Long hours and classes. That’s about the extent of the month so far. And as of this writing, Revelations hasn’t rolled through Martin.

Finding some wisdom from ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’

Let’s begin with a piece of pop culture trivia.

A song, titled “Comme d’habitude,” was penned by French songwriters Claude François and Jacques Revaux. You may know it by its more popular title “My Way” as sung by Frank Sinatra. Even Elvis Presley gave it a go much later in his career.

Then again, given that the song was first produced in 1969, I probably lost the better part of our readers by the second paragraph.

Sinatra didn’t like the song much even though many considered it his signature. Even so, it really speaks a lot for the way most of us are feeling right now as we part ways with the university and this office.

While none of us are dying, we’ve got a lot of memories behind us that we’ll never again be able to recapture.

The three other faces on this page each played an integral part in our success over the last four years. It would be an entirely different newspaper without them.

College is a time of constant flux. Just ask any of your professors. As people disappear, new faces are right there to pick up right where we left off. I am ultimately confident that the same can be said for the future of this newspaper.

It has not always been easy, but little in life ever is easy. I am proud of what we were able to do here, and look forward to what comes next both for each of the graduates as well as the “Best College Newspaper in the South.”

So raise a glass tonight, whether it is in celebration of our accomplishments, or to cheer our long-awaited departure. We’ll be right there with you.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few / But then again, too few to mention / I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption / I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway / And more, much more than this, I did it my way”

I’ve taken up chess. Not as a competitive hobby, but as a game on my Mac mini. I suppose it is a bit more wholesome than Quake 4, but I only find it enjoyable when I can win. That is something I can never seem to do at the high-intensity shooters, and I experience only a moderate amount of success at sport sims.

I’ve discovered that the iMac G5s in the foreign language lab are still impossible to beat even if set to the lowest level of difficulty. Perhaps I lack the mental capacity to reason against a computer. Go figure.

The title comes from Dave Matthews Band‘s “Listener Supported” album, as well as the namesake for a subsequent solo album by lead-vocal Boyd Tinsley. I recently purchased tickets to the August 16 show at Starwood Amphitheatre. I’m fairly psyched about it, although most people I talk tend to play it down as a “great show, but nothing compared to the one I saw in X city on his north American tour.” This would be my first.

Thanks to iTunes, I now own every studio album. Sweet.

I had never attended a live music event (outside of a church service) until moving to Nashville. We went to River Stages for a couple of years before it was cancelled. Now that Dancin’ in the District has been dropped as well, one has to wonder if the era of the outdoor music festival has come to an end.

Then again, Bonnaroo grows every year. The folks in Manchester have to love that (well, at least if they work in hotels, Wal-Mart or gas stations). I’m quickly leaving the time in my life when walking around with sweaty, buzzed college kids is socially acceptable. I can find a bit of comfort in knowing that it becomes accepted again when I get into my late fifties. Who knows if the music, much less the outdoors, will be the same by the time that happens?

Two issues of the newspaper remain between “Editor Emeritus” and I. I have shifted focus to planning for these final two issues as a batch, much like we did to close out the fall semester. I’ve found that if you can get a group to think ahead a bit, the intermediate and final products improve. My other reason is a bit more selfish. I just want the process to end on a high note.

The questions of “What’s next for you?” have risen from a murmur to a rock concert. I never really mind the question; it’s the answer I struggle with. I’ve lined up every Internet job search and placement service I can muster. All that is left is to write that awe-inspiring cover letter and broadcast the resumes out to prospective employers. The sense of urgency has grown of late, as I (meaning Samantha) signed up for my final class of my undergraduate career.

Career. There’s a loaded word. Speaking of reflections, I have to somehow hammer out a senior column long enough to be the “final word” on my college career. The fun part likely will not be finding the words to say, but figuring out how to put them in under a 700-800 word limit. Otherwise, I will be jockeying for position with two, perhaps three other graduating seniors. Who am I to cut short their final words?

My approach to the column will not be typical. I never liked the “shout out” column that has filled our final edition over the years. Why bother? Chances are, you will lose touch with the people you raise up in print within a year of putting it on paper. At the same time, there’s a fair bit I have left to say about what I’ve seen and heard. My goal is to strike a balance between the sarcasm that inevitably will find its way into it, while still keeping a positive connotation to this “career” I am leaving behind.

We can’t do this forever. In a perfect world, I could keep all the good times and all the praises and ditch all of the struggles. I am moving through the varying stages of grief for my dying college experience with lightning speed. At this rate, I’ll be at “acceptance” by the end of the week. It is time to move above and beyond.

Unless something drastic changes, I will be working this summer in Martin. I have not received my official notice from said employer, but I have been assured that it is all taken care of. Another summer in Martin means I will have to find something to occupy my mind. I’m hoping it means taking up a hobby rather than getting mileage out of my recently purchased Pub card.

My social landscape is narrowing before the end of this year, and I am content with that. Samantha and I both need a vacation; I’m suggesting somewhere with roller coasters.

My thoughts are frequently going back to the summer of 2004, and not because of anything in particular that happened while down in Georgia. It was an office job. For some, that describes the kind of soul-draining, monotonous routine that is best avoided for your own mental health. As for me, I yearn for the feeling of going to work every day and having a new and different challenge. I get that with my job at the newspaper, but my time in Martin is drawing to a close.

I’ve been on several job listings for a while now. I felt very accomplished to throw together five or so versions of my resume for prospective employers to see. (I can also, as of Sunday, add another line to it.) I was even flooded with “offers,” although most were merely ads for other job searches creatively written to look like a rejection letter. I did not give them a second thought.

At some point, however, I should begin the “real” job search in earnest.

Monday morning Samantha has a doctor appointment that was cancelled back in December for a family emergency. We’ll be leaving tomorrow to head to Lewisburg to spend a few nights. If she feels up to it, we’ll probably spend the rest of the afternoon in Cool Springs.

Tuesday we’ll head to the Apple Store to replace her iBook’s power adapter. An accident late last month found the iBook in the floor and the power plug bent. We learned what happens when, on an incline, the resisting force (friction between base of iBook and the laptop stand) is significantly less than the driving force (gravity). Can you tell I’ve been studying landslides this semester? After that, it’s off to see the Nashville Predators take on the Vancouver Canucks.

Beyond that, the likely end to my final spring break in college will find me/us sitting in the office handling those administrative details that tend to get overlooked while classes are in session. I have an independent study course that I am yet to crack the book for. I also have a Senior Seminar portfolio that is nearing three-quarters completion. It is my intention to throw that on here as soon as I am finished. There’s also that Web site overhaul I’ve been trying to find the energy to complete for the newspaper. I’ve started tinkering around again with it, but I’m not getting the same mental traction I had since I stopped using my PC.

A different kind of break …

In other news, my high school newspaper reports that my senior English teacher is retiring. Faye Green (apparently the reporter missed the importance of a first name) has worked for Hillwood since 1988 and as an educator since 1969. Here is a little commentary about one of those years.

I wasn’t an “English person.” I repeated this a great deal growing up as an excuse for why I consistently made Cs and Ds in the classes. My mother has a degree in the subject, and taught it at a college level, so perhaps it was a bit of not wanting to follow that route. I’ll leave that one up for interpretation, but rest assured I did not envy anyone who spent their days concerning themselves with gerunds, run-ons, dangling modifiers or objects of prepositions. I still don’t.

Mrs. Green changed much of that. She had declared a metaphorical war on poor ACT scores in English for her students. It was a cause she drove home with six to 10 weeks of practice tests and discussions of every last part of speech a sentence could possess. My disdain of previous English classes came from disliking literature. We took these tests and discussed the results down to a science. It became more of a scientific look at our language than your typical grammar class. She explained it in a way that hit home with me: language is nothing more than a math problem of subject and verb. The rest of the sentence must interact with those two elements in a logical and organized fashion.

It just clicked.

A friend of mine and I made it a daily competition to see who would score higher on these ten-question quizzes. We consistently scored 9s or 10s on even the toughest of the questions. Learning was made to be fun, something I think is missing from many classrooms. Even when the rest of the year was spent studying the typical British Literature topics, it just breezed by. For the first time in a very long time, I enjoyed classes again. My grades and ACT scores reflected that.

Faye Green is a Hillwood treasure, and is the model for what I expect out of every high school instructor. She possessed the right balance of humor, toughness, and the unending desire to see her students succeed. I owe my current major and chosen profession to her and my mother. This isn’t to say I would not have enjoyed myself as an Information Systems major, but I have found journalism to be far more personally rewarding.

Well done.

Newspaper wins ‘Best in the South’ award

The Pacer has been ranked the No. 1 newspaper by the Southeast Journalism Conference in its annual “Best of the South” competition, while WUTM 90.3 FM ranked third in the “Best College Radio Station” category of the competition.

Emory University in Atlanta hosted this year’s conference, which featured students, faculty and advisers from 22 public and private schools in the Southeast. The SEJC membership roster typically includes 35 or more schools that pay $50 annual dues.

The Pacer finished ahead of such large schools as Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, the University of Alabama, Emory and Mississippi State.

Contest entries may be submitted in 24 individual and school categories, and all schools, regardless of size, are judged together.

“This award was not earned overnight,” said Executive Editor Stephen Yeargin. “Three years ago in Pensacola, Fla. (2003), we took home a first-place award for the Web site (The Pacer Online) and placed for Ad Design. Since that time, we have steadily increased our take in Troy, Ala. (2004), and Ruston, La. (2005), with multiple writing and design awards.”

“I am incredibly proud of The Pacer staff,” said Tomi Parrish, faculty adviser and instructor of Communications.

“My students strive every week to deliver a newspaper to the student body that represents life at UTM, both the bad news and the good news. This is their learning laboratory for real-world journalism, and I am just thrilled that their hours upon hours of hard work have been honored this way,” said Parrish, who also is the coordinator of Student Publications.

Representatives from the Associated Press judged the entries for Best College Newspaper, saying that The Pacer has “some of the best designed pages [one judge has] ever seen in either college or professional [newspapers].” Another said that the “editorials are well written and timely.”

In addition to the overall staff award, the newspaper brought home seven individual awards.

• Staff Photographer Matthew Maxey ranked third in Best Press Photographer.
• Arts & Entertainment Editor Rachel Rogers ranked fourth in Best Arts & Entertainment Writer.
• Senior Reporter Kevin Teets ranked third in Best Feature Writer.
• News Editor Will York ranked sixth in Best Special Event Reporter/Editor and also ranked fifth in Best News Reporter/Editor.
• Sports Editor Amy Eddings ranked seventh in Best Sports Writer.
• Viewpoints Editor Elizabeth Watts ranked eighth in Best Opinion-Editorial Writer.

Another aspect of the SEJC’s annual event is the on-site competition, planned by the SEJC president-elect and judged by faculty and professionals from SEJC and the host school. Pacer staff members also brought home three on-site contest awards.

• Senior Reporter Kevin Teets and Entertainment Writer James Baker placed first in Public Relations Campaign.
• Executive Editor Stephen Yeargin placed third in Page Design.
• Sports Editor Amy Eddings placed third in Information Graphics.

WUTM 90.3 FM’s third-place finish came on its first entry in recent history to the SEJC competition.

“I thought it was a great testament to not only the radio station and the staff members, but also all the students who work there and to [faculty adviser Richard] Robinson and [technician] Harold Cochran, who take care of us behind the scenes,” WUTM Programming Director Jordan Tinkle said.

“I am very pleased and gratified that we were selcted as third in that competiion, especially given the fact that we were going up against larger universities with more resources and larger budgets,” said Robinson, who also is an instructor of Communications. “It is a testament to the staff that wants this station to be the best it can be.”

The Southeast Journalism Conference is hosted annually by a member school selected at the preceding year’s conference. Next year’s event will be held in Birmingham, Ala., and will be co-hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Samford University.

For more information about the SEJC, visit http://www.sejc.org/.

Our attempt at celebration last night taught us important lessons about city ordinances and determined revelers. I may opt for a continuation of the festivities now that we’re home safe. The rest of the crew should arrive tomorrow.

The final day of the conference was largely uneventful. I attended the first session this morning titled “Visual Thinking” by Rick Crotts, a designer from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He had some great points about packaging stories for the short attention-span readers. Lord knows we’ve got some of them among us.

The second session was “A Day in the Life of a PR Agency” by Mitch Head, managing director for Golin Harris’s Atlanta agency. The presentation was mostly about internships and how to get them. I had to duck out early for the Resume Doctor session.

Speaking of that, it was not Friday as I had first expected. The appointment went much like the last time around, finding a few silly errors in the typography, and advising I cut or condense most of the vitals down to a single page. I agree, but we are in a constant argument with our department head on what is acceptable and what isn’t in a resume or portfolio. Elsen even told one participant (in rough paraphrase), “Do whatever it takes to graduate, then trash that portfolio. Twenty clips and all that other stuff is worthless to a prospective employer.” He’s all about condensing everything down to just the vital information.

We picked up on-site awards for page design, a public relations project and infographics. My page design contribution garnered a third place finish, which leaves me wondering how we came up short in the “Best of the South” competition. I probably need to look back over the clips we sent for the answer.

That wraps up the SEJC notes. I’m going to go huddle under a blanket and try to stay warm.

Edit: Copies of the presentation (PDF) may be downloaded from his site (mirror).

I also attended a “Handling the Next Crisis in Communications” by Ann Wead Kimbrough, Chief of Staff to Decalb County CEO. It was a shame that the attendence was so lousy for this one, as I think it is something PR majors in particular need to be familiar with. It might convince, as she said, that “it is all not glitz and glamour.”

Now for the big news …

The Pacer walked away with eight individual awards and ranked No. 1 overall in the Southeast Journalism Conference as a newspaper. We improved from our eighth place last year at Louisiana Tech. I’ll publish the individual awards as soon as I can verify the information.

We’re celebrating as much as the law will allow (or look past).

Registration is complete, and I’m once again going up for an on-site in page design. We’re using InDesign rather than Quark, something that tripped me up pretty bad last year. The one drawback is the page format: We’re assigned a tabloid page rather than broadsheet. I’m not as versitile on the smaller format. Who knows.

Bill Elsen of the Washington Post (retired) and I have a pre-lunch resume review session tomorrow. I’m psyched about this simply because I had the opportunity to have him look over it last spring, and have made the suggested corrections. I appreciate the UT Martin Communications faculty’s opinion, but there’s a real benefit to having someone who has worked in the field give it an eye.

Best in the South is set for lunch tomorrow, and I have to admit I’m not very optimistic. We had a great year last fall and this spring, but some of our “good” didn’t translate onto the page as well as I would have liked. Who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised. No one can ever predict what these judges have up their sleaves.

As for now, I do believe our expedition to the local establishments has returned. Remind me to set a wakeup call for the 8:30 opening session.

The onset of winter also means the end of the fall semester. Finals start next Monday, and I wrapped up classes yesterday. I think this is the most dedicated, half-assed effort I’ve ever given to a semester. I’m attending class more regularly than usual, but my mind is usually elsewhere. I’m not too optimistic for stellar grades, but I’ll get by. I had a professor today tell me that I would pass the course as long as I attempted the final. My math on the rest of them tells me that I have little to worry about. When you get this far in college, it becomes more about the remaining hours and less about the grades associated with them.

The newspaper wrapped up the last issue of the semester this week, which means next week is dedicated to the aforementioned finals and organizing the office. The Editorial Board will remain intact this time around (a relief), with only a few other personnel changes. This past semester has been an exercise in “no matter how long you work at a position, unexpected things will still come your way.” We’re trudging along from issue to issue, but I still maintain we’re not reaching our potential. Then again, I was reminded today sifting through the archives that it has been much, much worse. This was also an exercise in why the Executive Editor (wasn’t me at the time) should read every page before it goes to print.

My spare hours of late are filled with formulating a complete overhaul to Content Manager. As with every coding project I undertake, most of the work is being done in the late evening / early morning hours. Samantha has given up on prying me away from the computer, which either means “I win” or “I need serious help.”

For those of you who don’t work on the newspaper staff (or, those … ahem … who never update your own sections), Content Manager is my less-than-original name for a content management system for The Pacer. It seeks to offer all the amenities of the big guys (College Publisher, Digital Partners or New Digital Group) without all the ads. I had to learn PHP to even begin work on it, with the majority of the initial coding completed on an ill-fated family vacation to North Carolina. I burried my face in a 486 Compaq laptop while the rest of my family had loads of fun checking out lighthouses and prancing around in the Atlantic Ocean. My mother still reminds me that she was strongly considering buying a bus ticket to send me back to Middle Tennessee.

At any rate, the site won a regional award in its very first year of operation. To say it has rested on its laurels in the last three is an understatement. I blame a change in job titles and an unwillingness to allow anyone else to come anywhere near the core code of it. I’m almost to a point in the roadmap that I can safely say it will come to fruition soon. I’ve made the functions recyclable, so I’ll start incorporating of the updates into my other sites.

I’ll get screenshots up to my gallery once I have the opportunity to get to Nashville and argue with my former Web server. The project isn’t anything earth shattering, but the change is notable.

Speaking of “former” Web server, I will not be as likely to update the look of the site until I get a better handle on Secure Shell with Dreamweaver. Samantha has allowed me to use a subfolder on her TextDrive account rather than my Dad’s Network Solutions account or continuing to point the domain back to my house. TextDrive is picky about using SSH tunneling, something Dreamweaver MX doesn’t handle natively. My days using Dreamweaver are likely numbered as it is, since making the switch to CSS-based layouts. However, I haven’t found a satisfactory code editor / file transfer client.

I’ll add that to my list(s) of things to do.

The critics will not write history, and no one can take joy in the disaster our nation has become.

Along the same vein, Samantha and I attended the Tennessee Federation of College Democrats Fall Summit this weekend. My reason for even bothering to go wasn’t so much for the summit, as I’d been to one before. We had tickets to a hockey game that night (nice tickets … proud of my idiotic-but-fun purchase), and needed something to fill our afternoon with. Besides, it was good to witness first-hand the torch being passed to a younger generation. Scarry thought.

Now, taking a non-hockey fan to a hockey game is a challenge. You can’t sell them on the intricacies of the game. Instead, you just have to rely on the electricity that fills the arena. Over 17,500 of “my closest friends” certainly created enough of it. Hartnell put two in the back of the net to open the second period, and the rest of the game was spent keeping the Blues contained to their lone goal in the first period. Add Timonen locking it up and the third, and you’ve got another great game on Broadway.

My thoughts lately have wandered to where we might wander after college. I think I’m spitting out about three semi-serious ideas a day. I’m mostly trying to get the specifics of the summer nailed down. Having to take that one Spanish class puts a monkey wrench into the works a bit. Jackson, Tenn. is one possibility on the table right now. It would allow for Samantha to finish her MBA while holding down a full-time job. Job prospects in Jackson are brighter than Martin. The other is Nashville, with a significant delay on her finishing the program. Either way, I have to be near Martin at least until the end of July, barring an appeal to allow me to break my “final 30 hours” clause in my degree. UTM likes for those to come from UTM.

I’ve registered for my final full-time semester at UTM, thanks to the 120-hour degree mandate that altered the requirements for every major. After recalculating my schedule earlier this semester, it was determined that Fall 2006 became Summer 2006. This altered a lot of my future planning, but it made a lot of it a lot easier.

So yeah, the future. I guess that’s where the mind should stay for soon-to-be college graduate. I keep telling myself that, although I’m not totally convinced. I have a strong feeling, much like many that I’ve spoken with that came before me, that my higher learning is a bit lacking. How am I more qualified to go out into the world than I was five years ago? I’m migrating through the phases of sadness, anger and acceptance that my degree isn’t the bright and shining trophy I thought it would be.

Like they say, all is well that ends $15,000 in debt. Right?

Speaking of which, Samantha sent me a prototype for what the next incarnation should look like. I’m excited about it, and hope I can get enough content together to make it something both of us are proud of. I’m torn right now if I want to go ahead and get an iBook for myself, save up and get a G5 iMac, or go for a Mac Mini. Then there’s always the option of just opting for a Windows machine. Who knows? I think the bank account balance will be the deciding factor.

On one hand, I need to take advantage of the student discounts available to me now before I lose them when I graduate. These are enormous savings when you calculate the retail cost of some of these hardware and software packages. On the other hand, I’m not on sound enough financial footing to drop $1,000 – $2,000 on something that has an average shelf life of six months. Whatever I buy now has to last me until I get a promotion or a significant balance in my savings account. The latter isn’t prone to happening.

The university owes me money, plain and simple. For whatever reason, UT Martin refuses to send a billing statement to Vanderbilt (where a large chunk of my tuition is paid through) until six weeks into the semester. I’m sure this is to protect their own asses in case I take the money and run, but who would? I can say this because Arizona State and MTSU (schools attended by my sister) filed the claim before classes even started. UT Martin waits until mid-October. I’m sure there are proper channels to register my complaint, but I’m too weary of it all to care.

At the very least, even if they didn’t want to give me the money right away, go ahead and file the paperwork. The money would be sitting there drawing short-term interest for the university rather than in an account at Vanderbilt waiting to be paid out. The delay puts a severe financial strain on all of us attending UT Martin who receives the same benefit. We can’t afford books until after midterms, and have to take out sizable student loans just to attend. It needs to stop.

But back to my Web site. I’m eagerly awaiting the launch of WordPress 1.6 for a couple of reasons, chief among them are the specialized plug-ins for each theme. From a development standpoint, it is a lot easier to package, release and archive custom functions for a site if it is tied down to a specific theme release. The other reason has a lot to do with the file management side that would finally allow for better image management, etc. Most of these features are of the same concept that I would like to include in the next edition of Content Manager (proprietary system used by The Pacer Online Edition).

Speaking of that, the deadline for SECJ is looming (at least, we think it is), and I’ve sworn that I’d have something together to showcase for my last year with the staff. I’ve also half-jokingly said that if I don’t manage to put together the kind of system it needs, I’ll just recommend it be jettisoned in favor of CollegePublisher or some other company. At least there would be some continuity built into it. Who knows?

There’s a lot on my plate that I’d like to get done by way of programming. The newspaper needs a better system to track display advertising orders. The fraternity needs a back-end overhaul to compliment the front-end redesign recently completed. My own site could use a few enhancements (mostly those that would help land me a job after college). Looking ahead, there’s no time left for any of these projects unless I forgo sleep a few times. Wouldn’t be the first time.

The newspaper is on a hiatus this week thanks to the break. It’s a good thing, too, because I think we were getting close to a boiling point. We are losing a lot of creditability (as ridiculous as it is) over not printing the full Homecoming results. The storylines for why this supposedly happened are taken right out of a spy-game thriller. Surely it has something to do with fraternity membership? Perhaps they hate freedom, apple pie, and UT Martin? Maybe they are just lazy?

Give me a break. Yes, it should have been in there. Yes, we could have made room. No, I’m not losing sleep over it. No, I’m not apologizing beyond admitting those first two statements. We live, we learn. We move on.

I’ve challenged the staff to come up with story ideas for the remainder of the semester. These are to be pseudo-timely issues that require quite a bit of footwork to gather. The idea is that if we have these stories ready a particular week, they can compliment the regular run-of-the-mill coverage. We’ve fallen deep into the trap of only working from week to week, and often too much in just one day.

I’m not a management guru and have never claimed to be. There are some things that I do around the office I’m proud of, a lot more that I think could have been done better. This year has been a tough one because I’ve got very capable people working with me, but often I get the impression that we are all working in different directions. I need to find a way to get some creative energy infused back into the newspaper staff. We need to break free of whatever it is that’s got us treating each issue like a homework assignment rather than an outstanding piece of journalism. We need a bit of passion for our jobs. Me included.

I need to get back in the habit of writing. For one, I have a blog I seldom write in. I also believe that writing is something that improves not only with how long you’ve been doing it, but how often you do it. Someone can write for twenty years off and on, but someone who writes constantly for five has the tendency to have a better grasp for the language and current trends. It’s not like riding a bike. You can lose a bit of luster.

Samantha and I are settling into more of a pattern now that the initial shock of the new academic year has worn off. We are both looking for ways to entertain each other and ourselves. Gas prices keep us close to Martin except for occasions such as Fall Break. I’m slowly getting used to my classes, but if my midterms are any indication, I have a lot of work to do.

Midterms came back about where I expected them, with more C’s than A’s. I need to try and get back on track in a few courses. I’m not struggling with the material, although it is tougher than I’d hoped. Geology and Spanish are the two focal points of the semester, as they are the first step towards fulfilling multi-step requirements. The rest of my schedule is fairly safe.

At least, I hope so.