Cory Booker

I can honestly say I had never heard of Mayer Cory Booker until this assignment. He is obviously heavily influence by Dr. King and he reminds me of what Dr. King might have been like if he were still around today. Booker has captivating tone that left me wanting to hear him more by the end of the video. He's a lot like Dr. King in that he can access his vast library of knowledge on a whim. He actually quoted about an eight liner of Dr. King in the video. He didn't seem threatened by any of the questions and he answered all of the questions directly because he didn't have anything to hide. In the video he talks about how it's about getting in the trenches and getting things done or at least moving; and Booker embodies this belief. He spent eight years living in a low-income high-rise. He's had a teen aged boy die in his arms and death threats graffitied on buildings in Newark.

In the article "The Mayor's Crusade Gets Personal" Booker continues to lead by example. He adopts three Newark boys in the big brother program and spend nearly every weekend with them. It's not charity work for him, it's just one of his parts in changing Newark. Instead of trying to change these boys he guides them in love. That's a huge element in Dr. King's philosophy of change. I'm going to start following this guy much closer, I think he's got a lot of big things yet to do at the young age of 39.

Teacher Quality Argument

My assignment was to research and find evidence that teacher quality is not a priority of Belmont's in the letters from Bob Fisher that inform the tuition payers when tuition is going up and in the year end evaluations. The following are quotes from Bob Fisher's '08-'09 letter:

"Belmont is in a very solid financial position as it prepares to weather this storm" (the storm being the receding economy)

-The message that I took from this quote was that Belmont is in a solid financial state and has cash to spend on things, thus why is it not being spent on hiring more quality teachers?

"We remain committed to being good stewards of our finances while offering an excellent educational value to our students"

-If we are good stewards of our finances, are we investing in quality professors that seek to enrich the lives of their students like it says in our mission statement? "Faculty, administration and staff commit themselves to guide and challenge students to develop their full potential in order to lead lives of meaning and purpose." (Belmont Mission Statement)

"In order to ensure the continuing quality of a Belmont education, and to attract and retain the best faculty and staff possible we find it necessary to raise our tuition"

-Does this mean we ARE raising tuition? I don't think they are retaining the best faculty and staff possible, thus is it NECESSARY to raise tuition?

These are just possible points that I think might have some weight behind them if used correctly in this "document" that we might produce.

Non-Violence

Who better to hear from on non-violence than Gandhi himself?

"Non-violence is goodwill towards all life. It is pure love."

This sounds familiar because Dr. King adopted this view of Gandhi's and Dr. King lived this principle. Gandhi says, "Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory." Gandhi lived his principles as well. He spent over six years of his life in prison and devoted himself to non-violence as a means to achieve the freedom of India.

"The greater the progress , the greater the recognition of our unworthiness." Gandhi was humble about any progress that was made through his leadership and that is what probably made him such an attractive leader. Non-violence was the cornerstone to the foundation of his leadership and it proved to be successful.

Financial Aid

Daniel Headlee

Dr. LaLonde

November 12, 2009

My question for Ms. Gill is, “Is there more full athletic scholarships given out than full academic scholarships?” And, “What qualities are most attractive when considering what person gets a certain amount of financial aid?”

After being at Belmont for a year and almost a semester I’ve experience a broad array of fellow students. A lot of the students who come to Belmont come because they want to get a job in the music industry in some way and most of them bust their butt to get here. I understand that it doesn’t make sense for the university pay for students to come here if the student is willing to take on the financial burden himself or herself but Belmont advertises itself as a Christian affiliated school that cares about the individual. If that is what matters to Belmont then I would disagree with an athletic scholarship being given out more often than an academic. On average the students who receive an academic scholarships are going to be students who excelled in high school and want to come to college to develop skills that help them down the road.

In the Belmont mission statement it says, “Belmont University empowers men and women to engage and transform the world. The university prepares students to use their intellectual skills, creativity, and faith to meet the challenges and opportunities that face the human community.” I believe our school does this but I think Belmont is diverging from this mission when they invest high dollars in things such as athletics before things such as speech and debate students (I.E. “students with intellectual skills and creativity”). I’m not saying that the athletes don’t have these skills it’s just that in their sport theses skills aren’t being developed as efficiently as they could be if they were in speech and debate or SIFE.

Gandhi

I have a better understanding of Gandhi after completing this short biography of him and watching the movie but my new understanding of him has generated other questions.

Who did Gandhi pray to? He considered himself a Hindu, Muslim, and Christian all of which have different gods. My guess would be that he prayed to whom I consider the one true God, that Christians pray to, but I don't have any facts to back that up.

Gandhi was a wise man who used his power to cause change for the Indian race. As a great leader himself, who did he follow? From my knowledge it would appear that he didn't follow a deity but values and principles. "Gandhi pondered the principles guiding his life-truth, non-violence, self-realization, and community service." Gandhi's influence didn't cease when he died. His influence continued on to conquer the civil rights struggle in the United States through Dr. King. Gandhi is an irreplaceable figure of our past and our world would be different today if it weren't for him.

Where do we go from here?

The more I read of Dr. King the more I respect him. His understanding of human nature seems infinite and uncluttered by external distractions. In Dr. King's speech "where do we go from here" he continues to impress me with his skills of leadership and drive towards the goal of complete freedom.

The purpose of the speech was to voice that even though they've made some victories they are not done and to inform them where they stood in the big picture thus far. Dr. King does a great job of working along side the people that he is leading and showing them how they're going to beat segregation. He comes off as just one of their own, a normal guy, and that was attractive to his followers.

"First, We must massively assert our dignity and worth."

"Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against a long night of physical slavery"

"We must work passionately and unrelentingly for first-class citizenship."

"We must never let up in our determination to remove every vestige of segregation..."

And probably my favorite quote of the speeches so far:

"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

Also, I thought this is a way was funny just because the job he is referring to is his job.

"The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy"

Nashville Civil Rights

The main thing that caught my attention was how much differently I would think about issues today if it weren't for MLK and the civil rights movement. It was interesting to see the diverse group of people they interviewed. The first being the white soccer-mom (what she would've been referred to today) who believed it was a violation her own civil rights by not allowing her to choose who she gets to serve and not serve. Another interview that was interesting was the group of teenaged boys. One of the boys specifically said that he wasn't raised around African Americans and he didn't want to have to adapt to living around them because he wouldn't know how. All of the people interviewed who were against the civil rights movement in Nashville sounded unintelligent. They avoided the real reason they had a problem with the movement; that they just didn't like African Americans.