I Have a Couple of Things to Share with You This Week

05/10/2016

Parents,

It seems like such a short time ago that I sent you the first email. This year has gone by very fast. I hope your student did well on finals. Student’s grades are available on 5/10. I’ll be here every day this week except Tuesdayand Friday should your student need help.

I have a couple of things to share with you this week.

■When grades come out, a lot of students will need change their schedule. If students need to get into a class, I advise them to camp out on their computer on the day the grades come out.

■When grades come out, you might want to be sure the scholarship requirements are met. In most cases, students have until the summer to meet the scholarship minimums. I have provided an attachment with the scholarship requirements.

■Be careful in looking at the minimum credit hours because courses taken prior to this fall semester don’t count.

■If your student needs to do some work to meet the minimum credit hours or grades, he/she needs to act quickly. At most campuses, summer school starts on Monday (5/22).

■Your student will need to have courses taken at another University approved ahead of time. Most have already done this, but if your student has not, they should contact their advisor. I’d like to help, but our Student Services office won’t accept forms from me unless I’m the designated advisor.

I hope these emails have been helpful. When other academic units in the University hear about the emails, they applaud the effort in our college. But other units seem reluctant to involve parents because they don’t want the interference. I can honestly say that I have rarely experienced any parent interference in doing these emails. I truly enjoy the responses I get from you. I have appreciated your thoughts, and I don’t think of them as interference. I believe that college is 360° effort involving students, their teachers, their parents, and their classmates. Without strong effort from any part of the 360° circle, students are unlikely to succeed.

I have tried to balance the emails with specific factual material and with guidance that I have acquired in 49years of teaching. I hope the balance worked for you.

The emails are my thoughts only. I have never had a University official tell me what to say or what not to say. I don’t want the emails to sound like some message that has been worked over by a bunch of public relations people.

I get a lot of questions about the student stories. I get asked about how I can come up with so many stories. I teach nearly 2000 students a year,and I get very involved with my students. I may have taught more students than any other faculty member in the history of our College and maybe the University. So finding stories about our students has not been a problem.

I can’t begin to tell you what this time of year feels like. I’m very proud of our graduates. For many of them, I recall a specific incident when they sought out my help on a tough issue they were facing. I’m just glad that I could be of help to them. This is also a sad time because I’m saying goodbye to students who I have grown to know so well over the past four years. But I’ve already started working with the next class. And there will be new stories to tell.

While this is my last email to you, my support will continue. I hope that you will save my email address and feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions. I often hear from parents long after the first year.

Let me close with some questions I ask myself as I think back over the year.

How do you advise a student who just found out that her mother is experiencing organ failure and that she would likely be missing classes to be with her mother? Her mother is not a candidate for an organ transplant because she is an alcoholic. The student’s step father had sexually abused her in the past, so being at her mother’s bedside was going to be even more difficult.

How do you advise a student whose fiancée had broken off their engagement. The student went into a severe funk. He hadn’t gone to class in a month. He was failing most of his classes in what would have been his final semester in college.

How do you help a student who has serious financial aid issues? He lives with his grandmother who is a compulsive gambler. He doesn’t know where his mother is. He never knew his father. He doesn’t even know how many brothers and sisters he has, although he knows there are at least 8.

How do you help a student whose father just died unexpectedly of a heart attack? He is the oldest child in the family. His mother is inconsolable, and he has suddenly became the surrogate father and head of the family at age 19.

How do you help a student whose mother refuses to sign off on her financial aid application? There is no father in her life, and her mother doesn’t think that college is right for her daughter. The student has joined the National Guard to help with college, but this only takes care of part of her financial obligations. Her financial obligations are now ok, but she is suffering from PTSD because of an incident in her military service.

How do you help a student who father just got out of jail and is fighting with her mother to renew custody with her two younger sisters? Her mother has no funds to hire an attorney. Her father has a history of violent behavior. Her mother and sisters live 5 hours away from campus.

How do you help a 21 year old married student who says to you: “I have to come to accept the fact that I’m an alcoholic.”

How do you help a student who doesn’t know where her parents are? Her parents lost their home and their job. They started across the country to find a job, but she hasn’t had any contact from them in weeks. She needs to find her parents to fulfill a requirement from the University.

How do you help a student whose mother is dying of breast cancer? He discovered that his sister was stealing her pain medicine for her own drug use. His academic status is very borderline because of needing to spend time helping his mother.

This is my life. This is what I do. There are days when our students’ challenges are overwhelming. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t work with a student on an issue that might be a turning point in his/her life.

Some days are very tough, but I’m pleased to say that all of the above situations worked out satisfactorily. That makes my work very satisfying and it’s the reason that I will continue doing what I’m doing as long as my health holds up.

Thanks for allowing me to be with you each Wednesday for the past nine months. Good Bye for now.