School board candidates speak out at public forum

Seven of the eight candidates for the Great Falls School Board gathered April 19 in Benefis Healthcare’s Cameron Auditorium to answer questions and introduce themselves and their views to the greater community.

The event was sponsored by the Great Falls Tribune and the American Association of University Women, or AAUW. Journalism students from C.M. Russell High School and Great Falls High School prepared and asked questions of the candidates. CMR junior Katie Hodges moderated the event.

Seven of the eight candidates who are on the mail-in ballot for the May 3 election were at the event. Candidates are: Randall Hand, a finance officer for Cascade County; Audrey Finlayson, a program director for the Cascade County Retired Senior Volunteer Program; Bob Moretti, an adjunct professor with the University of Phoenix; Mary Sheehy Moe, a retired teacher and higher education administrator; Jan Cahill, a current board member and executive director of the Great Falls Animal Foundation; Eric Bakly, a claims analyst; David Sculer, a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer; and Johnny Walker, a retired investigator with the Department of Homeland Security. Walker was unable to be at the April 19 forum due to a family medical emergency out of state.

The candidates were asked about many topics, including the curriculum, use of technology in schools and the $998,000 mill levy that appears on the May 3 ballot.

Schuler and Bakly told the audience they do not support the mill levy, while Moretti, Moe, Finlayson and Cahill spoke in favor of the funding. Hand told the audience that he chose not to answer the question, as his vote for or against the levy is private.

MESA conference offers ideas, opportunities to be green

At CMR, students are doing more than throwing a bottle into a recycling bin to help the environment.

“We were the main presenters,” senior Katie Noland said about the Montana Environmental Students Alliance (MESA) conference held in Helena March 5. Noland attended a conservation  school last fall and since then has been really involved in saving the environment.

“[We presented] our composting, electric car and windmill projects,” she said. Noland, along with junior Adam Cordeiro, attended the conference to bounce ideas off other environmental high school students. Other schools attending the conference were from Kalispell, Bozeman, Missoula and Carroll College in Helena.

They also discussed the political aspects involved with  saving the environment.

“Pat Williams, an old-time politician, (Montana’s former Representative to the House) had a discussion panel about the difference between partisan and policy directed toward environmentalism,” she said.

 After attending the conference, Noland has made connections that will allow her to continue her life working for the environment. She met Attorney General Steve Bullock, as well as Governor Brian Schweitzer.

“I met a lot of higher-up people. There’s a lot of people at the college level and adults in [environmental] projects,” she said.

Noland is currently working on a project for plastic recycling at CMR, and is trying to get others involved.

“I’m trying to get the art department to decorate the recycling containers,” she said.

“[MESA made me realize] I could be more involved at the high school level,” she said.

Cordeiro agrees that for the environment to benefit, everybody must try to make a difference.

“The best way to become green is to take the first step,” he said. Cordeiro founded the Going Green club at CMR with teacher Randy Faechner. He also helped build the greenhouse. When he went to the MESA conference, he met with others who share his passion for the environment.

“Tree huggers, granola ears, whatever you want to call them. It was a happy, cool environment,” he said. Everybody there was environmentally friendly like Cordeiro. Overall, he enjoyed the MESA conference.

“[It was] a bunch of college kids coming together to talk about what they’re doing,” he said. Cordeiro said high school students were invited so that when they get to the college level, they’re already involved in MESA.

“I talked about wind energy we’re using out here. I talked about the electric car, the ‘green machine’,” he said. Beyond working with the agricultural department, Cordeiro also plans on doing things for Earth Day.

“We’re going to do an Earth fact every day of April on the announcements,” he said. Since Earth Day is part of spring break, Cordeiro would like to plan a cleanup of the River’s Edge Trail. Beyond that, he is going to continue working on the school’s environmental projects.

“I’m going to try to green-ify our school,” he said.

Head 2 Head: Specialization in higher education

Specialization breeds innovation (by Tim Seery)

If you page through a college course book you will undoubtedly find courses that are much narrower in focus than anything you would see in a high school curriculum.

 Classes under the history department titled, “The American West” in the English department called, “The Romantics” or in the math department that focus on “Logic.” However, there are colleges and universities that take this level of specification to a whole new level.

It is not uncommon to come across courses that can become as detailed as “Liberation Ecology: Politics and Policy in the Creation of a Just, Green Economy” or “Topics in Latin American Cultural Studies: Contemporary Cuban Literature and Visual Culture.”

Both of these are offered at Princeton University, known for its fondness of specific courses.

Specialization in higher education serves a distinct purpose. Secondary school education is known for having a wide breadth with very shallow depth.

This system offers a students the opportunity to take a wide range of courses so that they leave high school with a solid foundation in all academic subject areas. College provides the depth that high school lacks.

Specialization in higher education has a clear purpose: It completes a student’s overall education.  High school lets students explore a wide variety of academic subject areas with the hope that each student gain some sense of purpose. It is with that sense of direction that a student pursues post secondary options.

The very nature of academia lies in specialization. Our colleges and universities grant degrees to individuals who are experts in a certain field of study. The sum total of these individuals in our society creates an environment where no pursuit is left untapped, coupled with a workforce ready to tackle any challenge.

This climate of specialization does not mean that one cannot explore the peripheries of their imagination and dabble in a variety of pursuits. It simply asks that everyone complete his or her education by emphasizing one area of focus whose knowledge they can utilize to better the human condition.

Simply put, specialization fuels ingenuity. Medical colleges are continually expanding the scope of their research and the fields of study that they offer.

Through specialization, more research can be conducted and more programs can be offered to medical students. Thus you could say that specialization fosters an environment where answers to society’s most pressing questions and solutions to the most monumental problems are discovered.

The Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical practice comprising 55,000 medical professionals based in Rochester, Minn. touts specialization as the cornerstone of medical innvoation. The Mayo Medical School, established in 1972 begins by exposing its studens to broad based health philosophy eventually leading them to a specialized field of study that results in doctors with the specialized knowledge to provide medical answers for the millions of patients who come through the Mayo Clinic.

Specialization in higher education completes the holistic education of the individual while maintaining an academic environment where cutting edge research can be performed and new horizons opened.

The men and women entering our institutions of higher education will be the pioneers of these new horizons.

Credentials are killing creativity (by Nick Green)

The Renaissance man is dead.  An over emphasis on credentials to the exclusion of creativity and innovation is its murderer.  Over-specialization in higher education is the bane of potential innovators in such fields as science and architecture who do not excel in the stark overly analytical world of degrees and credentials.

The “rebirth” of sorts that took place in Italy during the 14^th Century unleashed a torrent of brilliant minds upon the world and allowed for individuals (well at least men) to follow their passions uninhibited by the constraints, fiscal and cerebral that we currently face. The Renaissance, however, is beginning to look like the last gasp of a very noble ideal: “Knowledge for the sake of knowledge.”

I am not saying that our situation is the same as it was during the Renaissance; the sheer bulk of human knowledge does in many instances require specialization. I certainly wouldn’t want a brain surgeon whose experience consists purely of a bachelor’s in biology. What I want to suggest is: while our technological age requires more study, pure talent and creativity can’t be overlooked.

One of my biggest gripes with the over-specialization of higher education lies not with the concept of it, but rather lies with the motivations many students have when joining academia.  The primary motivation for many medical students or lawyers is money, and a true and honest desire to help society and in turn better themselves is often missing.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that they want to be a doctor or a lawyer and when asked to their motivation aside from honest motivations money is usually the largest factor not a love of science or a passion for rhetoric but the potential for higher earning potential. Money isn’t an inherently bad motivator, it doesn’t however, get the high quality results that passion and interest do.

A search for pure knowledge is now seen as unprofitable and ultimately futile, but this is far from the case. Most innovation occurs in the minds of creative individuals –not in health clinics where the currency of the day is getting through the day.
Academia needs to foster an environment of creativity and exploration –not rigid relearning from textbooks. The hallmarks of math and science are logic and reason, both exceptional things, but when a logical approach leads to illogical immovability then creativity must be called into play.

If I were to make one point in this rant it would be this: scientific and mathematical education without a genuine intellectual interest and a creative bent is pure and simple money grubbing.

I have perhaps been overly aggressive in regards to doctor’s and lawyer’s motives. They are not the only problem that I see in our education system. People no longer dream in the grand terms they used to. This is the fault of both students and their teachers. Some may think that our vast amount of knowledge requires smaller dreams, but I think that it is exactly the opposite; with cooperation and teamwork the twin devils of too much knowledge and too little time can be overcome and great things can be done.

The polymaths of the Renaissance achieved not because they caved in to the conventional wisdom of their times, but because they absorbed and then moved ahead with life. True knowledge is not attained by burying oneself in a book and then hoping to come out a sage.  It comes from diving head first into books and then having the common sense to swim your way out. As in all things, the middle way is usually the best, and in higher education it is no different. Book smarts would be nothing without a practical implication, and ambition would be nothing without follow through. 

Higher education is not broken our imaginations are.