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.