castles made of sand

Like a portion of college students nowadays, I have a laptop that I use for just about everything. It’s a Dell cookie-cutter computer that I’ve modified to suit my needs, but the main thing I use it for is the internet. Within the scope of my college day, I use my laptop and the internet for a lot of classes. For Psychology, I use the eLearning BlackBoard site to get assignments, I maintain the clarknews.org web site as part of my job at the college newspaper, and I keep in touch with other students in my math class.

One of the boons of having a laptop at Clark College is the wireless internet that’s basically free to all registered students. When I started attending here last year, the only place for anyone to get wireless internet was the upper part of the campus, Gaiser Hall and Cannel Library. But at the start of this academic year, wireless routers were placed around campus, bringing the internet to students who don’t have classes ‘up north’ or simply don’t want to trek up to PUB to check their mail. But this is not all the sunshine and rainbows that it appears to be. When the internet was focused here, in the northern parts of the campus, it was extremely reliably, insofar as it could be. I could always connect and had a fast, responsive connection. When they dispersed the network across campus, that went away.

For the most part, trying to connect to the wireless internet anywhere near the Fireside Lounge, the ASCC, the Independent, or the Upper level is completely impossible. I can connect to the network, but it takes me twenty-three minutes to simply go to the Student Wireless Log-on screen. This is extremely aggravating, as most of my day is spent in this area.

I feel that the college missed the point of larger wireless. The point was to bring a fast connect to a larger area that’s easy for students, and while they have aspects one and two down, they still struggle with three. It doesn’t matter to me at all if they internet is everywhere, if I can’t use it, it doesn’t matter.

Clark has an undefined identity. It’s unique in that, at it’s core, it’s a place of higher learning for anyone and everyone who happens to stumble on campus, but there are a lot of locked doors, a lot of unanswered questions that makes it self know only by anomaly of it being a community college. The younger Clark students, those out of High School or under the age of 25 seem to attend primarily to gain an AA degree and go somewhere else. I’ve noticed that whenever asked, young students are taking only those classes that get them out of here as fast as they can. In that regard, Clark College is High School part two.

For the older student, I’ve found that a majority of them are working toward a specific program or goal in which they either will complete within their stay at Clark College or will finish somewhere else, but they separate themselves by having a goal in mind. Their a lot more focused on what they want out of an education and Clark is an easy first step.

The idea of Clark being the second stage for the High School experiences seems to be magnified by the activities, and even presence, of the Associate Students of Clark College (ASCC). The ASCC spends quite a bit of coin a quarter in order to fund free food events with entertainment thrown in. They direct our students funds and remain the only student organization that the Board of Trustees of Clark College will formally recognize. However, those two attributes are the only thing that separate the ASCC from any High School’s ASB. The real government of the school, the real decision makers is the administration, currently led by President Robert Knight. The way he came into power is still a topic my friends at the paper like to mull over. The Board of Trustees selects various candidates for the President of the College and presents them to the public in a series of conferences that span about five months. However, when the previous President left Clark College under dubious circumstances, of which I’m still in the dark, Robert Knight was selected by the Board of Trustees as the interim President. The odd thing about it though is that when it came time to do the whole democratic process that we so admire, the Board of Trustees basically shirked their responsibilities and only really endorsed Bob Knight.

However, in the interest of fairness, I will not hold this shadowy selection process against Mr. Knight nor his administration. What I will do is question the wisdom of some of the things they’ve spent Clark’s funds on. First, they parking lot identifiers. While this is a helpful tool to campus security and students by offering a quick reference regarding location, it seems that it only puts a fresh coat of paint on a collapsing house. Parking is the single biggest irk for any student that drives or carpools to school everyday. The cries for more parking lots have been heard throughout the life of Clark College and when the funds are allocated for something, we instead get Fisher Price ‘My First Parking Lot’ signs which pretty colors and numbers.

Secondly, the holes in the ground around campus that no one seemed to explain to the students, sadly including The Independent. They appeared one day, roped off with industrial strength caution tape without any indication of purpose. In between Fall Quarter and Winter, those holes were filled with brick and eventually blue signs that say ‘Campus Map’ at the top. However, in the time since, no map has been added to these boards and they remain blank blue slabs that litter the campus.

This school employs the idea of transition to potential students. ‘The Next Step’, as it were. But the school itself is undergoing a transition. With the completion of another branch on Mill Plain, increased presence in the area, and stronger ties to University’s and other institutions, this College is moving away from being a community college toward a University itself.