Perspective

Today's Letters: Higher ed aims at the bottom line

Professors take the long course in poverty Jan. 6, Perspective story   

I have held research appointments at several major universities in the country and in Europe. I also took a sabbatical at the University of South Florida for a year and taught courses at Hillsborough Community College. So I have a unique comparative perspective on the problems of education and research.

Melanie Hubbard has it right on the button, and her article is long overdue. I bet USF and HCC have adjuncts teaching 70 percent of the credit load. Not only are they vastly underpaid and exploited, but they also get pressured and stressed from the students, who demand grades and advancement, and from the administration, which treats them like temporary workers without benefits, offices or respect.

It's all about the bottom line. Students aren't paying for an education; they're paying for a degree. The more people you pump out, the more money the administration makes.

I feel sorry for any dedicated adjunct who's serious about teaching subject matter.

High school coaches get much more respect, and appreciation

Vis A. Liepkalns Ph.D., Tampa  

You work so hard, child Jan. 6, Perspective story

A problematic perfection

Shary Marshall's article ought to be required reading for every teacher and administrator - in addition to parents.

When we as a society lost the focus on doing one's best - and that was good enough - and turned to "standardized tests" in an effort to force every child/person into a template, too many children were lost along the way to perfection.

People, especially children, are works in progress and unique in their individuality. Putting forth one's best effort, a highly variable measure, is all that God and mankind ought to expect of each other.

Rudolf Dreikurs and Alfred Adler, both creative psychiatrists, trained parents on providing encouragement, an unconditional recognition of a child's effort and participation. Praise tends to be conditional, based upon achieving some identified measure required for recognition. Encouragement promotes cooperation that benefits the group/team/society over individualized competition, which recognizes only the individual.

I thank Marshall and encourage her to continue her work with recognizing best effort and its benefits to the individual and society. Only one can be designated the "champion." Everyone can be a winner.

Jim Teixeira, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Tampa

A loving embrace with deadly consequence Jan. 6, story

Co-sleeping is distorted

I regret reading stories about co-sleeping because they are almost never about co-sleeping. They are about unsafe behaviors like sleeping on a couch with an infant or sleeping with your infant while drunk or on drugs. Co-sleeping is not falling asleep on the couch while watching TV. Neglect of a child while doing drugs is not co-sleeping. It's drug use coupled with bad parenting and unsafe behavior.

The comments of Andrea Moore, of the advocacy group Florida's Children First, about parental need are inaccurate. I wish she would read research about infant sleeping behavior, heartbeat and temperature regulation and breast-feeding. And think about how many children yearly die alone in their cribs due to "SIDS" (sudden infant death syndrome). It's not considered neglect, even though an infant may have been alone in a bed for hours without contact or being checked.

This article was like comparing one safe, parental activity like bike riding with a parent on cocaine riding a bike into I-75 traffic with a 2-year-old strapped on the back. One is normal and doesn't result in death without cause. The other is neglect.

Shannon Mitchell, Trinity

2 propose that sex ed go beyond abstinence Jan. 9, story

Part of the solution

It's important to note that, in the first five years of this administration, fewer teenage girls became mothers than in the years before. That's welcome progress and a goal we will continue to support through hard work.

It is indeed unfortunate that new findings show that 2006 was an exception to the steady decline of teen birth rates. No one yet knows what triggered this, and we should all work together to ensure it is short-lived.

Abstinence education is part of that solution. In fact, data show that 10-14-year-olds, the primary group targeted by abstinence education programs, saw a decrease in birth rates. That means that the youngest teens are increasingly hearing the message that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Parents, families, teachers and government leaders all must help young people make responsible decisions that are in their best long-term interest. That work is important now more than ever.

Stan Koutstaal, acting deputy associate commissioner, Family and Youth Services Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C.

It's not always the doughnuts Jan. 6, Robyn Blumner column

Addiction is a factor

Here we are again at the time of resolutions and weight loss plans. Blumner made some good observations. Some of us are prone to corpulence.

There is a piece to this that is not addressed: addiction to food. After all, what person in their right mind would eat past feeling full unless they had a biochemical disease? We have no trouble addressing addiction to other substances. Refined carbs are called comfort foods for a reason. They give us a buzz. When we reach the point that we cannot tie our shoes, when we are suffering from metabolic disorders, cannot fit into a seat at the theater and refuse to look at ourselves in the mirror, then there is a serious problem.

It is not as simple as calories in and calories out. Food addicts eat out of compulsion and craving and cannot control their behavior until they admit they have a problem and seek help. Abstinence from refined carbohydrates is the way out of the insanity of this disease. Eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables, protein and dairy in measured amounts is the way. As it has been said before: Keep it simple.

Rita Sewell, St. Petersburg

Putting Iowa, N.H. in their place Jan. 6

A fuzzy political picture

How true! Philip Gailey says it all quite clearly: Why are we stuck with two small states like Iowa and New Hampshire to lead off the choice of candidates for president? Here we are - a nation of 50 states, most of which have much larger populations than those two, any of which could show a truer picture of how the American people feel about the candidates.

One can imagine what attracts those two small states - all that campaign money! And, of course, the candidates themselves may find them cheaper to campaign in, although the millions spent there don't indicate it.

W.H. Riddell, Tampa

Droopy drawers bill passes Senate panel Jan. 10

Our government at work

Do our government officials have so little to do that they feel a need to start policing our children's attire? This is an issue already addressed by individual school districts in their dress codes. Every generation sports attire that the generation before does not approve of. This is part of life.

It is time for the general population to stand up and demand that our tax dollars be spent on realistic, worthwhile causes. If we do not start addressing these problems now, we can be assured that 1984 and "Big Brother is watching you" will become a reality. Do we really want the government telling us what we can wear? What's next?

Deborah Lavallee, Port Richey

Teaching suffers

Several years ago, before I retired as a full-time college instructor, a young man was hired as an adjunct professor in our English department. He turned out to be an outstanding teacher who was well-respected by both his students and fellow faculty members.

However, as time passed, he was never offered the full-time contract he desired. Eventually, out of complete frustration and disappointment, he pulled up stakes, left the college and went on to God-knows-where in hopes of finding permanent employment.

So in the interest of saving the money related to the benefits accorded to full-time faculty, we lost an excellent teacher.

Cecil B. Cheek, St. Petersburg

[Last modified January 12, 2008, 21:12:57]