Category Archives: Uncategorized

Public Deliberations

Discussing the Electoral College

By Nathan Smith

With the recent election being so close, it was expected that a large number of people would be dissatisfied the result, no matter which side won.  This past Sunday, this was made very evident by the public deliberation I went to this past Sunday, where several groups discussed the validity of the electoral college, and whether its place in the election system truly allows the will of the American people to be felt in the executive branch.

As I positioned myself in the cozy bookstore where the deliberation was to be held, I was surprised by the number of people that had come to voice their opinions. It was evident that many people had something to share, whether it be bashing our electoral system to bits, or defending it.

Before discussion really started going, we all voiced some of our own ideas of what was good about the electoral college, and what could be improved. One woman was very vocal about how she felt cheated by the system because more than half of the country voted for the Democratic candidate, yet she ultimately lost. Others voiced that they believed it would be unfair to base everything on population, because low population centers could be oppressed.

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Area map of districts in the 2016 election that voted blue and red courtesy of The New York Times

 

After the initial round of comments to get conversation flowing, the large number of people present were split up and we began discussing whether we should keep our current system, as well as approaches to reform the system should it be abolished.

In my little discussion group, there was a very conservative tint to the conversation. Some members wanted to give people less voice in deciding who our president is, and has little trust in the will of the people to decide the correct president of the United States, citing lack of education and fake news was skewing what the will of the people really should be. I pointed out that fake news can go both ways, and I asked them what they believed could make the public more resistant to false information, and if an informed public would make the electoral college system more obsolete. This sparked an engaging conversation on our education system, and I learned a lot about the backgrounds of the people present. We decided that a better-informed public would severely increase a general trust in our system, whether it be through information literacy or education in government policies. We also talked about how electoral votes were counted in states and how this system should be structured to better represent the will of the people. A big concern was how districts were apportioned because lines can easily be drawn in a way that favors those in power. Several ideas were brought up to improve the current system, even banishing state boundaries altogether, but our group could not come to a general consensus of the best way of doing this. However, it was productive conversation that brought to light a very important question.

It was refreshing to see people who swayed very differently politically having such productive conversation, and that there was a common viewpoint that the current situation could be improved. Even I, someone who is not the most well versed in politics, found it easy to share my opinions and discuss them with those that didn’t agree with me.

At the end, we came back together as a group and the major keys to what had been said were shared. Resources that could lead to change were passed along, and I shook hands with those I had discussed with.

This was a great step forward for many people to make America a better place to live.  

Improving Race Relations

By Nathan Smith

After volleyball practice, I rushed out of the gym towards downtown State College. I was going to be late to a public deliberation on how to improve race relations. I rushed to the municipal building, up the stairs, and sat down in a chair right smack into the wrong deliberation on the second floor. Correcting my mistake sheepishly, I repositioned myself in the correct deliberation, and we began to talk about race.

Being someone from a fairly diverse area, the biggest insight I gained from this conversation was how different the setting others have grown up in. I guess I never really thought about how there are communities of people where literally everyone is the same race, and that is he way it has been for many, many years. If a person of color moved to my area, it would be news solely because we had a new neighbor. From what I discerned in the discussion we had, if that happened in a community that has never felt any diversity, it would be monumental.

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Race Populations by Area courtesy of xahlee.org

 One of the members in the discussion my group was having recalled when he moved to a new community and was immediately an because of his race, and how different it was from his old community. Some deliberators cited instances where others offensively changed the way they talked, as if making assumptions about them and they way they spoke. It was agreed that these things add to the tension between races, and could be very offensive to groups of people. One approach to fixing this problem in America included revamping our education system to include the conversation about race. However, the biggest problem we ran into was doing this in communities with little diversity, where the conversation would be the most important. Another prominent topic was that of Safe Spaced, or locations/ groups that people of different races could be a part of in order to be comfortable and have no dangers of being discriminated against or culturally appropriated. Initially, I thought that these would just be an inhibitor to progress, and further separate people of different races. I believed that race and culture was something to be celebrated, not kept in confinement. However, the conversation broadened my definition of what a safe space was, and where they would be necessary. I realized that safe spaces aren’t just for groups of people to be around people that they can agree with, but could also be clubs and religious groups where people of the same race could band together, and find empowerment and pride in who they are together. From that vantage point, a culture could be shared with everyone.

Altogether, this was a very stimulating conversation that got me thinking about myself, and the bias I have because of my background. It gave me many new perspectives, let me share mine, and that type of conversation between people is what is important to being able to make change.

Penn State Greek Life

This past Thursday, Penn State enacted sanctions on its Greek life, partially in response to the February death of fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. The sanctions include limiting the number of socials with alcohol allowed to 10 per chapter per semester, ending daylong drinking fests, eliminating kegs, and, very notably, halting the fall 2017 fraternity and sorority rush which will be postponed to the Spring. The restrictions also cite that there will now be a “strongly enforced prohibition of underage drinking”.

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A Penn State Fraternity Party, courtesy of odyssey online

The new university policy seems to have been much needed, possibly for a long time now. Before, the number of socials allowed for these chapters was 45. That is going out almost three times every week. If that is happening, it feels to me that other opportunities that students could take advantage of are being overshadowed by partying, and responsibilities are being neglected.

Furthermore, these sanctions have brought to light the national, highly controversial issue of whether the Greek system should remain at universities, with proponents and opponents of each side. It is no secret that a large part of fraternity life involves alcohol and partying to a very high degree. In fact, Greek life in popular culture seems to only fulfill the function of providing students with a pathway to binge drinking, partying, and other such shenanigans. However, this was never what fraternities and sororities were supposed to be about.

In fact, the first Greek letter organization, Phi Beta Kappa, was not only created for social purposes of companionship and camaraderie, but also met to discuss controversial topics and had principals that showed a strong moral center. Another early fraternity chapter Beta Theta Pi was crated at Miami university as a way for members to grow morally and intellectually. Evidently, these organizations have devolved to something much different than their original purpose in today’s society. And because of it, several people argue that they should not be part of Penn State University’s culture any longer.

But party culture isn’t something that is solely tied to the universities. Penn State was named the number one party school in the nation by University primetime in 2015. With only 19 percent of the university involved in Greek life, this party culture cannot be solely the fault of these organizations. There will always be State Patty’s day and Arts fest. College students will never stop partying. It is possible to take the perspective that Greek life even provides a vestige of containment that limits the amount that the parties affect the local community. If we didn’t have fraternities, where would the partying leak into?

Which makes me think, would it really be the best thing to eliminate them? Could they still have a positive impact on the university if they change their culture?

In my opinion, Fraternities and sororities do not need to be eliminated from our school. I will never be part of one, and for a long time I could see no benefit in keeping them, however merely eliminating them is too simple of an answer to a complex problem. Rather, I believe it is the culture of these organizations that has gotten out of hand.

Many of my friends involved in Greek life agree with me.  Pledges cited the ridiculous amount of alcohol that they were forced to drink, and the hours they had to do favors for higher-ups in the fraternity hierarchy.  Many pledges drop out of rushing these organizations because they believe it is having a severe impact on their health, grades, and even their social life. Hazing runs rampant despite laws and University policies explicitly banning it.

In my opinion, starting to put sanctions on the negative aspects of Greek organizations is the first stem in shifting their culture to once again have a positive impact on the university. They challenge the Greek organizations to highlight the volunteer work and philanthropy that they do, as well as prove that the support network that they provide isn’t just a social medium to drink alcohol. From this, fraternities and sororities will truly be something that benefits the University. They can continue to raise millions of dollars for THON. They will continue to have a higher graduation rate than other groups of students. They will continue to make higher donations to further better the university. This was the original goal of these organizations, and I think that most students agree that having this become the culture of something that they are part of would be much more satisfying than going out to drink three times a week.

As the role of Greek life shifts to dedicate itself towards the betterment of the University, I believe this will be the best form of containment for the party culture and binge drinking that plagues Universities. If they educate all of their members and spread awareness of sexual assault they can decrease the instances of these on campus. They can do impactful volunteer work. They can have a strong network of people, socially and professionally.  From this, fraternities and sororities may even decrease the amount of things that have made them infamous in the national spotlight today.

So, I think these sanctions, although poorly received, are not a bad thing. They do not aim to destroy the Greek life on campus, because there is some worth to it that shines through. And as fraternities and sororities begin to prove that this light can shine brighter, then the sanctions can become less and less stringent.

If the Greek system can successfully begin to shift their role in the university, they can overshadow the negatives that have overtaken their culture.  Maybe then philanthropic work of these organizations will be what make national headlines, student deaths from binge drinking and hazing.

However, as it stands, big changes still need to be made for the betterment of the University, and the students that attend it. The first step has been taken, and I believe that Greek life needs to begin to work with the university to accept responsibility for their unwieldy culture, and continue to make strides for the better.

High School Athletes in America

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The United States has the biggest athletic culture in the world. How did this develop, and what has been its impact on American High School Students? 

Nathan Smith    December 2016     Education/Sports


Bzzzzzt. Getting up for school is a momentous task, done with down-turned lips and tired eyes. Sometimes it can only be done with a coffee. Sometimes people decide that it just isn’t worth it.

Yet, back in high school, no matter how leaden my limbs felt as my       alarm clock rung (and got promptly snoozed) at 7 a.m. on a school day, I was always light as a feather when my alarm rung at 4 a.m. on a Saturday to wake me up for a volleyball tournament. I only needed to set one, and as soon as it beeped, I sprung out of bed ready to drive three hours to the tournament site. There, I would spend an hour warming up and play five matches in a row with my team before returning home at 8 p.m., utterly spent.

What’s more, to my infinite appreciation, my father readily drove for hundreds of miles to these tournaments. He found the best camera with a wide-angle lens, filmed every match, and poured hours into watching film with me so I could improve.

Volleyball is something I have dedicated a large portion of my life to. I’ve spent countless hours playing it, and came all the way across the country from my home in California to be part of the Penn State Division 1 Varsity men’s volleyball team.

My parents initially introduced me to the sport as a way to have a good experience, meet friends, and exercise more. However, as my career progressed, it became something that my parents and I began to place much more importance upon. We invested a great deal of time and money for me to be successful. They saw playing volleyball as a way I could gain opportunities for scholarships and to further my education.

Coincidentally, my own experience with volleyball mirrors the shift in the history of how high school sports have developed in American Society. No longer are sports seen as mere recreational activities for young athletes; they have become a prominent cultural and economic center in American life. This is illustrated by the attitude, values, and lifestyle of competitive athletes on elite sports teams. Sometimes this borders on militant discipline, responsibility, and punctuality. For example, if any of my teammates or I was late to a club volleyball practice, the entire team could be forced to spend the next hour doing sprints.

Further indication of this trend can be seen in the insanely high viewership in sports stadiums at the high school level. For example, in 2013, 54,347 were in attendance for the High School Division I Texas State Championship football game.

Pick-up games at family gatherings and on after-school basketball courts still have their place in society. However, competitive and organized sports have surpassed the role of merely being fun activities. Rather, they have gained a significant amount of prestige, and become an integral part of some student’s identities and prospect for success in the future.

How and why has this shift occurred in society? More importantly, has this shift benefited the lives of young student-athletes, or detracted from them?

Although sports can be such a stressor and have such prominence today, prior to 1850, they played a marginal role in American life. Basketball hadn’t even been invented until 1891, and volleyball until 1895. American football wasn’t fully developed from rugby until the 1880’s. During this time, popular sports were not the center of attention for the average American youth, and were just beginning to make their way as intramural leagues on college campuses. Athletics as a whole were still in their infancy, without a widespread established infrastructure. They were most often seen played in the schoolyard, not commonly in grand gymnasiums and expensive AstroTurf fields by athletes in expensive Nike gear.

It was in the early 1900’s that a rapid change was initiated. Organized sports began to gain popularity. The first high school leagues came to being in New York, and students at universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Springfield college (the birthplace of basketball and volleyball) began to organize intercollegiate competition.

However, like many things that we take for granted in society today, widespread organized athletics didn’t come to being without a fight. Various sports, especially football, were viewed by university and high school officials as a potential cause for dishonesty, cheating, and rowdy behavior. Athletics were perceived as a detractor from education, so different than the pride schools take in their sports teams today. School officials tried to curb many intramural sports initiatives, but to no avail. The wants of the student bodies could not be stopped, and institutions gained little control of the development of student run athletic organizations at several prominent universities. They slowly became a way of life.

By 1905, intercollegiate competition had developed past the point of no return. However, regulations for the competitions remained almost nonexistent. Athletic injuries and even deaths became a growing concern, prompting precautionary measures. Most notably, a meeting was called by President Roosevelt that ultimately led to the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, an agency that developed rules for all intercollegiate competition. In 1910, this organization would be renamed the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). Initially, rule-making was the extent of its role in athletics, but how this role developed parallel to American sport culture further illustrates the importance of modern athletics to our society, and the impact it has had on high school athletes.

The expansion of the NCAA began in the 1920’s, where successful and entertaining sports teams garnered a great deal of public interest. Attention was multiplied again as higher education became more readily available after World War II. Desire to win and commercialization of athletics had grown out of proportion, and as a result the NCAA’s regulatory role increased as well.

Today, the NCAA dictates all rules of intercollegiate competition for all division one, two and three institutions, conducting significant research and gathering empirical data to justify every one of its regulations. It leads investigations into athletic scandals, and sets rules for recruitment and endorsements. In addition, the NCAA makes a significant impact on the lives of high school athletes through its recruitment and eligibility guidelines. It has become relevant and necessary for the NCAA to exist because of this shift in commercial potential and omnipresence of intercollegiate sports that could lead to exploitation.

I myself have had to go through several compliance meetings and paperwork sessions to learn the intricacies of various rules that the NCAA sets for gambling (don’t do it), doping (don’t do it), and failing classes (don’t do it). All of these regulations were set in order to prevent people from cheating the system, something incentivized by money and America’s massive athletic culture. It also limits corruption that could come from the commercialization of collegiate athletics and boundless zeal that university’s students, faculty, and alumni take in their sports teams. The NCAA also regulates athletics scholarships.

Scholarships are a great contributor to the rise in importance of high school athletics, and, like the NCAA, came about as a result of the increasing presence of sports in American society. In the 1960’s, grants were mostly confined to revenue producing sports such as basketball and football. However, by 1970 athletic scholarships for such sports as track, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, baseball, and swimming began to rise in numbers due to increasing viewership. As these came into being, paying for club sports outside of high school became more of an investment to save on college rather than money wasted on an extracurricular activity. The creation of Title IX of the Educational amendments of 1972 also made for equal amounts of athletic scholarships for women as men ($1.2 Billion annually), as well as equal funding for their programs. From this, female athletics as well as programs and media coverage of women’s sports  grew exponentially because the sport provided the means to have an education.

Along with the already emergent fanaticism with sports in society, scholarships have resulted in an immense pressure and incentive to perform for pre-college athletes. No longer are you putting a ball in a basket to prove your strength and ability to your peers. Rather, hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarship money could depend on how you perform on a single given day where a college coach is watching you.

I know that feeling. Everyone in the gym knows when a scout, usually an assistant coach at a university, struts to the court at a large tournament with a binder full of names of players they may only watch for a total of five minutes each. They sit down and take notes with purpose, silent and staid. The whole mood of a match changes. Your sweat turns cold. You realize the stakes have gone up. There is now a premium for every play you can make for the rest of the time he/she is watching.

It’s a hard feeling to ignore.

The desire to be recruited has created somewhat of a craze in the sports world. In order to give their child  more opportunities in the future, parents have begun to push their children to be involved in sports earlier and at a higher level. My good friend David was introduced to a volleyball at the age of 3, and played on a travel team for 11 years that went to venues across the country to compete. Although this is an extreme example, starting an athletic lifestyle early prevails in many sports. Where young boys used to begin carpenter or silversmith apprenticeships at the age of 12, nowadays many begin their sports careers. Training hard for many years, groomed into their student-athlete profession. From this norm, sports have become intensely competitive. Many of my friends who play women’s volleyball have told me stories of parents on a team fighting with the coach about playing time, and nasty rivalries between player’s competing for a starting position. It is understandable, as families can pay upwards of 40 thousand dollars to put their child through travel volleyball if they are part of a prestigious club as an investment for future athletic scholarship.

However, it also illustrates the extremity of measures that can be taken in the name of athletics for high school students.

Along with expensive athletics clubs,  as sports became more important to society, the high school sport infrastructure grew as well. 7.8 million high school students in America are now given the opportunity to play a sport and develop a passion for it for a relatively low cost. It is taken for granted, but some wouldn’t get to play a sport otherwise.

Today, parents balk at the idea of their school district not providing a means for their child to engage in athletics because it has too much of a tradition in American society. Like my father, they attend games, become members of the athletic-boosters club, and organize fundraising events. For some, being an athlete is almost looked upon as a necessity. There are even several articles circulating on Forbes.com and Parents.com about how parents can cope with a child who doesn’t want to play sports, ensuring that everything will be OK.

However, high school sports also take a toll on the education of students in school districts around the country. Many high schools are de-funding the athletics programs at in favor of increasing the budget for academic courses. For example, Premont Independent School District’s Ernest Singleton, suspended high school sports after the district was put under scrutiny for financial mismanagement and academic failure. The school immediately saw profound results in pass rates (80 percent versus the 50 percent before suspending sports) and  an increase the weight students and parents put on academics. Even the science labs could be renovated with additional funding.

And even if sports do provide opportunities for students to advance their education, they can still detract from a student’s education at a college level. Playing in college is like holding a part time job that puts you in a constant state of exhaustion. I have talked to runners at Penn State who say that they run upwards of 70 miles in a single week. Football players start practice at 6 a.m. every day with an added lift in the afternoon. With the time spent in these commitments, it may be impossible for an athlete get the degree they want, or even a usable degree at all. UNC was recently under investigation for creating classes that their basketball players received credit for that didn’t even exist. These so call “paper-classes” had a single essay that needed to be completed independently and turned in at the end of the semester. The paper was often written by a tutor for the players. The easy A allowed them to remain eligible to play without ever attending class. It seems that Americas sports craze has caused athletics importance to surpass education, even in the proud academic beacons that our universities are. By playing a sport to represent a university, an athlete’s education that you receive could be severely compromised. From this information, it is questionable whether the sacrifice that high school athletes are making are really worth the opportunities they create.

But has America’s sports culture been purely detrimental to pre-college athlete’s?

There are definitely concrete benefits to playing sports. Even if a child doesn’t  want to continue at a collegiate level, varsity athletics is respected as a major time commitment and extracurricular activity by universities in the college admissions process.  According to campusexplorer.com, a college resource website, athletes are seen as capable of teamwork, communication and leadership to application readers, and this reflects positively on their character. Skills that are linked to athletics cannot always be taught in the classroom. Furthermore, athletes on average have a higher college attendance, employment rate, and post-graduate salary than non-athletes according to a study done by the National Center of Education Statistics.

And it is also important to consider the incredible experience that an athlete can have, and the relationships they build through their sport. For me, I wouldn’t trade the long hours bonding with my teammates, traveling everywhere during the season, and pushing my limits every day for anything. My way of life has been shaped so heavily by my passion for volleyball. I love my sport and it is not something I feel like I could live without competing at the highest level. The long hours have also taught me to be disciplined in my studies, to sacrifice and prioritize. It’s a rewarding experience that has shown me what I find important, and without it my time back in high school and currently at Penn State would have less meaning.

It is also important to not forget that for some, athletics is the only means for them to afford going to a university,as well as a very prominent source of school pride. Furthermore, going to sports games, even high school matches, can build bonds between people.

So, what of the shift in sports in our society? We went through thousands of years of civilization without institutionalized football, baseball, and basketball, why is it necessary now? We have developed a love for sports that has trickled down to impacting the lives of high school students through scholarships and societal prominence, and possibly the quality of their education. Personally, I know that volleyball has impacted my life in a very meaningful way, and become very important to my family. I wouldn’t be where I am without it, and my parents are willing to start the whole athletics process once again with my little sister. I’ve already heard she is sharing the same passion I had, and awake far earlier than her alarm on tournament days. I know she will become a better person because of volleyball.

As for college athletes, all of them that I have met at Penn State are incredible people, that have so many athletic accomplishments that are a part of their identity. Athletics has shaped them, but they are also so much more than the sport they play. If they came to represent the university for only one of their talents, would be a shame. It is inarguable that sports cannot overshadow the importance of education. If athletes are failing out of courses or not getting real degrees, it is evident something is amiss. A balance must be found for the perfect storm of athletics and academics in our high schools and at a college level as well.

Athletics can have an incredibly positive impact on a student’s life and the community, and we should value high school level sports in our culture for the positives it can create. It is important to remember to keep everything in perspective, and remember why sports were created in the first place: for fun. Further adding onto the value of sports in our American Society are the institutional prestige and loyalty, the individual development in leadership, dedication, and discipline, and the inspiring athletes that sports create.

America has created an incredible environment for high school athletes to be incredible at their sport, learn valuable skills from it, and be given more opportunities to progress from it in their future.

With just a small shift in mentality, we can make it even better.