Britney Spears

I made a comment on Britney Spears post "Friends: Quality or Quantity"

Britney and I shared the same viewpoint on the topic, and I thought it was a great post!

Can you come back after the death penalty?

When I was trying to think of something I could blog about, I considered things that I would personally like to know the answer to. One thing that has been on my mind is our football program. I think being raised around LSU football is what has made me fall in love with the game. Last year I devoted a ton of time to (and won) a fantasy football league, and had an absolute blast. This New Years I paid an outrageous price for sugar bowl tickets so that I could watch Hawaii and Georgia play in the Superdome. I love everything about football. It is so exciting to watch, especially if you're at the game. But SMU football, now that's a different story. So I decided to use blogging as an excuse for find out more about our program, and hopefully will get some information from other people too.

What exactly is this death penalty that everyone keeps bringing up? How long will it take the program to get back to it’s full potential? If we had a better football team, would support be better?

After googling to find out more than what my dad had told me about what happened in 1987, I read a pretty good article.If you want to read more about what happened to cause SMU to get the death penalty. In the article it states that the purpose of shutting down the program was to "eliminate a program that was built on a legacy of wrongdoing, deceit and rule violations." Fair enough, but why is the program still not back on it’s feet? I don’t mean to be such a downer, but no one thinks it’s any fun to watch a losing team. All I can hope is that June Jones turns the program around and by the time we graduate we all have a team to be proud of.

Goose & NOLA Girl

I commented on Goose and NOLA girl. I thought Goose's post about her roommate was pretty good and NOLA girl's was easy for me to relate to. Check both of them out if you get a chance!

Taking Attendance? Back to High School?

Since my arrival on campus two weeks ago, I have been surprised to find that SMU has made checking attendance a mandatory part of daily classroom procedure. Even though I have heard that there are a few professors unwilling to conform to new university rules, I have been highly unfortunate to have only one of these professors as my own. In my opinion, taking attendance is a waste of valuable classroom time and although it may encourage students to be in class, if someone wants to skip then the threat of being marked absent is not enough to make them go.

I wonder how many universities actually require their professors to take time out of their teaching to do roll call? To take attendance in huge lecture halls of public universities would be crazy and take entirely too much time. Since college students are legally adults shouldn’t they be able to decide for themselves if they want to attend class?

To read SMU President R. Gerald Turner’s comments on taking attendance