Archive for June, 2009

Last weekend I met a man here in town who told me a sad story from over 20 years before — how he’d graduated from college, he thought strongly, gone into graduate school with a merit based scholarship and then, before the year was gone, flunked out.  He said he’d loved the subject matter — history and philosophy — but just hadn’t been able to keep up with the speed of instruction once he left the small college near his home where he’d done his bachelor’s.

“I think the real problem,” he finally said, “was that I couldn’t really read. I mean, I could read a paragraph or two, but not for very long, and not very well. I later found out I had dyslexia. After I married, my wife helped me work on it and now I can finally read decently.”

My initial question, how did you become a scholarship holder in a graduate program if you couldn’t read, was not broached. But I was confident I knew the answer. The colleges in question were small, special interest and in this case religiously affiliated institutions. Clearly, his bachelor’s institution had not required the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and then passed him along through his degree program for attending class, while the graduate institution didn’t know his true abilities before he came because they didn’t require the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Ultimately, due to the institutions not requiring entrance tests, this man was blissfully unaware that his level of reading was not up to par.

It is very common for such smaller, special interest colleges, which have a hard time competitng with larger public institutions such as TCU or UTA head-to-head, to carve out niches for themselves, such as concentrating on kids of a certain relgious philosophy or taking students with spotty academic records whom larger schools won’t admit.  Some schools, which need to bolster enrollments, do not require admissions testing or any meaningful evaluation of incoming students in an effort to get every possible warm body into their institutions. If you have the money, they have the desk.

Having admitted students who aren’t generally considered college-eligible, these institutions continue to promote students who can’t really handle the coursework to keep keep their tuition flowing in, which in some cases comes from the federal government in the form of loans and grants.

Sometimes, I suppose, graduating from such a  ”degree farm” might be okay, for example if your family owns a business you’re planning to go into and you already know how to do the work involved, or if you’re going into a field or work, and there are some, where college degrees are expected but the work you actually do is not  academic in nature.

If, on the other hand, you plan to do real academic or teaching work, or go to a graduate school, the results of attending a program like the one my friend went to could be heartbreaking.  One benefit of going to an established, reasonably-sized institution (say, over 500 students and over 25 years old) is that you generally know what you’re getting.

My friend who flunked out of grad school now works in the party rental industry. He has a family, loves studying philosphy and history in his spare time,  and one might say he has found his niche.  However, when he talks about his grad school experience, you can still it bothers him. “I really would have liked to be a professor, and I still would,” he says. “I had no idea at the time what was going wrong.”

And at the time, the schools he was dealing with had no intention of explaining to him, because doing so would have cut off potential students’ tuition money.

Congratulations to Lydia Ondrusek of Richardson, Texas, who won the drawing of a lovely sterling necklace from Fort Worth’s Silversmyth jewelry workshop. Now on to our weekly roundup of the best in blogging on Fort Worth:

Arts & Leisure
Amon Carter museum recommends a walking tour of the outside art in the cultural district, complete with a link to a map of the tour. Log Cabin Village blog has a video of the completion of the Howard Cabin. Fort Worth Modern blog has a nice post on “Conjoined” the large outdoor sculpture of two trees blowing into each other visible from the street on the lawn of the museum facing University Drive …

Fort Worth Hole in the Wall talks about planned restaurant “Gradys” and what a North Texas menu consists of. …  Rob at How to Make Coffee has a report on worldwide coffee consumption …

Kevin at Fortworthology takes a walk through a brand new bungalow in the Fairmont District by Joe Frank Homes … According to the Joe Frank website, “JPF Homes Inc. intends to build a neighborhood of bungalow style houses centered around a landscaped commons area to promote community interaction.” Julie at Silversmyth visited a casting facility which is producing newly-designed sterling silver rings for sale through her website and at arts fairs …  Kevin at 5ks and Cabernets found a barber who cuts black hair in Austin …

Business
Richie Escovedo spent a significant amount of time at the Dallas Inbound Marketing Summit May 27-28, and no small about of time on his blog, covering various breakout sessions and posting the videos.

This week we add the Balcom ad agency blog to our list. I’ll include three of their posts to get “caught up” with recent offerings. “My blackberry is my brain,” writes Emily. Chip says that the new open sourced Google Wave, which I’ve never heard of, is a web-based app which will change the way we use computers to communicate. And, although it’s technically past the last week, I wanted to include Kayla’s post on the importance of teaching music in schools.

Politics
Fort Worth Can Do talks about a new SMU report which says natural gas extraction in the Barnett Shale will significantly increase air pollution. … Austin at Fort Worth Real Estate is still miffed about the money being spent on the new post office when so much office space is vacant these days.

National Blogs Talking about Fort Worth

Frank Reed, who is actually from North Carolina, spent two days at the Dallas Inbound Marketing Seminar and wrote “Internet Marketing, Texas Style” for Biznology. On the subject of rail transit for DFW, Fare Enough blog asks from Austin, Texas, “would a public/private partnership for DFW rail be a good or bad thing? This is in response to a story on Metro Rail magazine noting “Dallas, Fort Worth exploring Public/Private Partnership for rail expansion” And in the area of local history we find out from NPR where General Worth, whom our town was named after, was buried. It seems New York City is the answer. Should we ask for him back?

Fiinally …  got something that bothers you or interests you about Fort Worth?  A burning  idea for a guest blog?Let me know at editor (a) fwrenaissance.com.

This week my parenting crisis involved a great deal of controversy of the people yelling back and forth at eachother type. It began when my sons, aged 12 and 14, came home from a friend’s and reported that they’d had a great time “airsofting,” which is apparently what you call it when you take special small guns, which shoot plastic pellets, and play a war game by firing them at eachother. It’s kindof like paintball. But you play it anywhere.

That wasn’t the problem. The problem was they wanted ME to buy them airsoft guns to use around here.  I thought about it for ten minutes, then said, “No, no tradition of gun ownership here. No airsoft guns.” And then the screaming the yelling, the complaining, the demands for an explanation began.

“I’m the mom, I don’t need a reason,” was my first reply. Then, to the older, “why didn’t you stay in Scouts, they had you shooting guns there, if you want to shoot so badly.” And finally, “leave me alone, I just got home from work, I don’t want to argue about this. If you don’t stop, I’ll give you extra chores.”

They skulked away. A couple hours later, after being a good kid, walking the dog, emptying the dishwasher, and talking with the adults at dinner, the older son came in to my room. “Can I talk to you, mom?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Why won’t you let me have an airsoft gun?”

Long sigh. “Let me think for a moment.”  Finally I said, “I do not think an airsoft gun is an appropriate amusement. I’ve always defended the rights of individuals to have guns, but we dont’ have them and I don’t want to start having them now.”

“But it’s not a real gun.”

“And that’s the other reason. This game you’re talking about, running around shooting your friends as if you’re an army man, it’s stupid.” He startled. How could I dare? I continued, “it’s a fake game simulating real violence. I want you to have real experiences, not simulated ones. Guns are for two things, shooting animals and people. Your ancestors homesteaded on the prairie and they had to take a gun out and shoot game, watch it bleed, and die, bring it back home skin it, gut it, prepare the meat and cook it. You have ancestors who fought in World War I, in the Civil War, in the Revolutionary war, who took their guns out and shoot at other men and my great grandfather died out there, and you want to turn this all into a game? Where we shoot at our friends? Not on my watch.”

He tried a few more times to start the discussion, but I think he knew he had lost. And this morning, when I asked him what that strange red cut on his leg was — it looked like a cigarette burn — he admitted it was a wound from one of the airsoft guns.  I gave him a look. He tried to explain that it didn’t usually leave a bloody mark on you, but I think he knew it was hopeless.

I believe that sometimes, yes, you just have to say no to your kids ideas.  So it’s not democratic, or whatever, this is my house and I’m not buying them airsoft guns. Call me a mean mom or whatever. If no one else supports me on this, I feel sure the ancestors do. I can feel it in my bones.

If you’re doing social media networking on twitter, do you ever have anxiety about tweeting wrong? They say you there’s no right and wrong on twitter, but the truth is, there are some signs that you haven’t quite got it yet … some of these signs would be:

1. You never stop promoting your website or ebook long enough to tell anyone even so much as what you had for lunch.

2. You use an automatic tweeting service to send a set of pre-designated tweets of pithy inspirational quotes every 15 minutes for the next ten years.

3. You’re a robot.

4. You have no followers, no avatar, your handle is a set of random numbers and letters and you’ve been blocked by Twitter Control.

5. You have 50 followers, an avatar of a sexy girl, your handle is a girl’s name with a four digit number after it,  and you’ve been blocked by Twitter Control. 

5. All your followers are MLM people.

5. Someone misinterprets your tweet to be flirtatious and sends you inappropriate DM’s with inappropriate suggestions.

6. Someone misinterprets your tweet to be flirtatious and sends you inappropriate suggestions publicly.

7. All your followers are men.

8. All your followers are women (though there are no recorded occassions of this).

9. @David_N_Wilson has listed you on the Tweeple Blog as a #dillweed.

7. You write an how to tweet post on your blog and inadvertently criticize someone of whom you actually value their twendship. And they ask you about it. But you ask for their forgiveness in advance, because you believe it’s better to appologize than ask permission. Really.

The sculpture is being installed in Byers Green on Camp Bowie.

FORT WORTH – If you’ve recently driven by Byers Green, the triangular green space at the intersection of Byers Avenue and Camp Bowie Boulevard, you’ve probably noticed the dirt is flying.

Earth Fountain, a public art project by artist Philippe Klinefelter, will consist of a nine-foot diameter granite orb, with a fountain of water flowing smoothly out of three openings in its hollowed center.

Carved out of a single, 30-ton block of Texas Sunset Red granite (the same granite used in the Tarrant County Courthouse), the fountain echoes the color of the Thurber brick used to pave Camp Bowie Boulevard. The sculpture will be installed into a specially designed concrete basin at the western end of the green space.

The sculpture’s design was inspired by how water comes from, shapes, and returns to the earth. The three openings in the sculpture are related to the angles of the three adjacent streets. The water flows out of the three openings over a carved, scaled representation of the local topography. Klinefelter carved the massive sculpture by hand in his Austin studio.

Fort Worth Public Art and Urban Green, a local nonprofit, teamed up for the project. Urban Green, an organization that works to improve public green spaces throughout the city, entered into an “Adopt A Park” agreement with the city for the Byers Green median. Urban Green is underwriting improvements to the site that include irrigation, electricity and pathways to the sculpture. Click for a plan of the Earth Fountain site.

The City of Fort Worth’s public art program commissioned Earth Fountain for Byers Green as part of its Long Range Public Art Plan for the 2004 CIP. The entire project is expected to be completed in June and the public will be invited to an unveiling celebration.

The Arts Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County administers the city’s public art program. Fort Worth Public Art creates an enhanced visual environment for Fort Worth residents, commemorates the city’s rich cultural and ethnic diversity, integrates the design work of artists into the development of the city’s capital infrastructure improvements, and promotes tourism and economic vitality in the city through the artistic design of public spaces. To learn more, visit www.fwpublicart.org.