https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/4e370d7e86331806b263ce5db8882ec7.pdf 387f6435643fc2924a0cdace26ce9247 PDF Text Text Lloyd Agte Bill Bailey Robert Carlson Donna Davis Gary Donnelly Skip Gillum Floyd Kelly Michael Kent Arlene Larson Carolyn Logan Paul Marquard James Milek Helon Raines Jamie Ring Jacqueline Valdez Nora Van Burgh �1991 1991 is an anthology of selected writings by faculty at Casper Community College. In preference to scholarly articles, the magazine presents those with broader appeal. The articles included were presented to organizations, published by journals, or submitted to other publications, with audiences outside Casper; we print them here for college faculty and community members who are interested in the activities of the college campus. These works cover a narrow period, 1990 and 1991, and they are merely representative of faculty work, not comprehensive. IDEAS �Ideas li Published at Casper Community College Casper. Wyoming 82601 Summer 1991 Copyright by Casper Community College Editor: Arlene Larson Cover Design The cover was developed by Emerson R. (Bill) Bailey of the Business Division from an illustration of a light bulb only 5/8 inch tall. The image was repeatedly enlarged on a Konica 1590 copier at 200% until it became 10 inches tall. The resulting light bulb image was then scanned on a Hewlett-Packard ScanJet Plus flatbed scanner as line art (to increase contrast), manipulated to accentuate the burst of matter coming out of the right side of the bulb, and saved as a TIFF (‘‘tagged image format file”) to be imported into PageMaker 4.0 for Windows. The text blocks ("Ideas" and the list of contributors) were then set in ITC Bookman type—Ideas at 210 point size with manual kerning of 85% and the contributors list at standard 12 point. The Casper College logo was scanned in a similar fashion (without the multiple enlargements) and placed on the cover. Finally, everything was combined and manipulated on a Zeos 386 PCcompatible computer and printed on a QMS PS-410 Adobe Postscript printer. The first image of the light bulb had two "eyes" staring from it—a mysterious effect—which were eliminated in PageMaker by placing ovals filled as solid objects over the "eyes.” The cover was then taken to Mountain States Lithographing where a reverse negative was made for final printing. Total time: 4 hours 20 minutes (but now that it's been done once, it could be reproduced in about 15 minutes!). IDEAS 1991 Casper College Anthology BUI BaUey teaches business and data processing. He has an M.B.A- from Cali­ fornia State University/Hayward and has been at Casper College for eight years. �Contents CELEBRATING HISTORY IN THE LIBRARY....................................... 4 Jamie Ring and Nora Van Burgh ON WHY WE KILL OUR SAINTS .................................. Dr. Robert Carlson 6 CHEMICAL HUMOR................................................................................... 8 Dr. Floyd Kelly TERRACING THE CAMPUS..................................................................... 10 Mike Kent SATURDAY CLASSES....................................................................... .. Carolyn Logan 11 FACULTY PROFILE: LIZ OTT.................................................................12 Arlene Larson ENGINEERING COLLEGE PREP............................................................ 14 Paul Marquard MULE DEER THAT SHARE OUR CAMPUS .......................................... 15 Donna Davis BLUEBELLS....................................................................... Dr. James Milek 18 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AT COLLEGE LIBRARY.............................. 20 Jamie Ring ADVERTISING PROJECT........................................................................ 22 Gary Donnelly WOMEN’S STUDIES ................................................................................. 25 Carolyn Logan STANDARDS IN THE PROFESSION........................................................26 Dr. Lloyd Agte. Skip Gillum Dr. Helon Raines, Jacqueline Valdez Photo Printing: Donna Davis �Celebrating History by Jamie Ring and Nora Van Burgh Jamie Ring is the Wyoming Collection Specialist at Goodstein Library. She holds a B.S. from Montana State Uni­ versity and has been at Casper College for eleven years. Nora Van Bnrgh was Public Services Li­ brarian at Goodstein Library. She held an M.L.S. from the Uni­ versity of Arizona and had been at Casper College for thirty years. When library staffs take the initiative, they can influence history as well as store it. Each March, the Goodstein Foundation Library at Casper College, Casper. Wyoming, celebrates Women’s History, one way to "write women back into history." The library staff hosts a reception to observe women’s contributions to history and to honor women from Natrona County who have added significantly to the history of their community and state. Over the past seven years a former Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, and a Wyoming Poet Laureate, as well as authors, teachers, community leaders, volunteers and pioneer women, have been honored. Traditionally written history has focused on economic, political and military events. Women’s energies have been primarily committed to establishing schools, churches, libraries, hospitals, and benevolent and social organizations in communities. While these institutions are the mortar that hold societies together, they are frequently overlooked in written history. Celebrating Women’s History Month refocuses attention on these accomplishments. Choosing March for the observance has its roots in the history of the women’s movement. On March 8. 1908, women who were predominantly young immigrants and who worked in the garment industry gathered in New York’s lower East side to protest against intolerable working conditions and to demand the right to join the garment workers’ union. It was not until the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1910 that attention was focused on the plight of working women. In that same year, at the International women’s conference, a resolution was passed to declare March 8 International Women’s Day. Since the late 196O’s women’s contributions to the organized labor movement in the United States have been observed on that date. In 1977, the first Women’s History Week was celebrated in Sonoma County. 4 California, during the week of March 8. The purpose was to introduce students and teachers to the many contributions that women of all cultures have made to the building of this nation. In 1981. a Congressional resolution was passed to officially declare National Women’s History Week, and in 1987, the celebration was expanded to include the entire month of March. Literature regarding these celebra­ tions of women’s history was sent to organizations, institutions and interested individuals. In the fall of 1983, Nora Van Burgh and Jamie Ring discussed the lack of a celebration in Casper and asked the question, "Why can’t the library be the sponsoring institution of such an event?" With enthusiastic support from library staff members, the two women began to make plans for the first celebration. They selected Verda James, a Natrona County educator, administrator, politician and the first woman speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, to be the honoree. The organizers created displays in the library, sent a guest column regarding Miss James’ contributions to the paper, mailed invitations to relatives and close friends of the honoree, prepared public service announcements for radio and television and delivered press releases to radio and television stations and newspapers. The day of the first celebration proved to be a typical March day in Wyoming—windy and cool, but the weather did not discourage the Casper and college communities from celebrating Miss James’ contributions. Over 100 persons turned out to honor her and share the special afternoon with her. Her wit. charm and intelligence surprised the young TV reporter and a wonderful interview was aired on the news that night. Since then Women’s History has been celebrated at the Casper College Library each March. The reception area is decorated using a theme relevant to the honoree(s), and the library staff provides �in the library homemade treats which are popular with the guests. Displays in the lobby featuring the honoree(s) and news articles focus attention on women and their contributions to history. A local newspaper with state-wide circulation has generously run a guest column each year to focus attention on the honoree(s) and the celebration. Local television stations tape events at the afternoon reception and present news clips on the evening news programs. The 1990 celebration featured the Wyoming Centennial. The library staff greeted guests wearing historical clothing provided by the college’s theatre department. Ostrich feather plumes floated throughout the room. Wyoming’s Secretary of State, the Honorable Kathy Karpan, was the guest speaker. For the first time, youth were formally included when a Brownie troop shared the party and received special tribute from the speaker. They also made a sizable dent in the cookie trays and punch as they practiced pretending to be the speaker at the podium. At the celebration the library staff was able to show its newly remodeled library and the reception room named for librarian Rose Mary Malone. The reception is open to the public and guests are urged to wear their favorite hats and historical clothing. One year, a male faculty member boldly wore a bright pink hat with a veil. The event is popular with members of the community as well as the college population because of the opportunities to honor women, visit with friends and colleagues, and enjoy good food. At the same time members of the library staff appreciate the opportunity to share knowledge of the library’s latest acquisitions of books and electronic equipment. During the first event in 1983. Jamie Ring was asked by a television interview­ er, "What are your plans for next year?’’ At the time this was a shocking question, one that had not been considered. Now. after seven Women’s ANGI MOFFETT and THERESE GOINS, Wyoming Girl Guard. 1990, presented the colors at the 1991 program honoring Wyoming Women in the Military. KATHY KARPAN (right). Secretary of State, was featured speaker in 1990, Celebrating 100 Years. History celebrations in the Goodstein Foundation Library, it is not a question of whom will be honored next year, but rather a question of which of the multitude of possibilities will be developed into the next celebration. “Celebrating History in the Library" has also been submitted to the HPLA Newsletter, a publication of the Mountain Plains Library Association. 5 �On Why We Kill Our Dedicated to Governor Mike Sullivan and First Lady Jane Sullivan of Wyoming, who understand and defend the sanctity of human life. by Robert Carlson Robert K. Carlson teaches philosophy and humanities. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and has been at Casper College for fourteen years. No man is a hero to his butler. The world's hero is too well known by his butler, who is contemptuous of him because he understands his flaws. Thereby is illustrated the adage that "familiarity breeds contempt." How then do we explain what we do to our secular and religious saints—Saints Stephen, Paul. Socrates and so forth—who have flaws so miniscule, they count for nothing? We revere our saints from afar, but when we draw closer, reverence turns to rage, and we kill them. Why? It is ironic that, although truth is said to be the one thing that sets us free, man cannot stand too much of it. When we know the truth about ourselves our lives are seen in clear relief, like the images on a cathedral frieze, bathed in the rays of the rising sun. Not liking what we see, and afraid that others see it too, we devise many ways, some quite ingenious, of killing our truth-telling secular and religious saints, allowing us to hide once again in the darkness of obscurity. Often, we are not subtle in disposing of our truth-telling saints. We simply kill them outright — what could be called "death by execution" — because the force of law is on our side. Witness the death of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, who, speaking to the Jews, summarized Jewish history from Abraham to the crucifixion of Christ and was promptly rushed upon by the irate crowd: ". . .they crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him. And casting him forth without the city, they stoned him." Sometimes we err in disposing of our saints by accidentally killing them in our attempt to be rid of them through a kind of "death-by-contradiction." as the Athenians did with Socrates. When the Athenians took him to trial, most, of course, did not desire to kill him. for he was seventy years old when the 6 trial took place. They had only to wait a short while and he would soon die. They merely desired to humiliate him. to cause him to suffer "death-by-contradiction." What a victory it would have been if this old man who had been pursuing his divine mission for so many years in the agora would contradict all he stood for. Socrates spent most of his time, much to his wife Xanthippe's chagrin, helping his fellow citizens perfect their souls, that is. helping them acquire knowledge of the truth and cultivate the practice of virtue. To accomplish this, he first had to teach them that they lacked such knowledge and virtue and were spending their time on trivialities. Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul? They were ungrateful of Socrates’ attempt to convince them of this truth; in fact, they were downright hostile, and Socrates predicted that such anger would “bring about my destruc­ tion, if anything does — not Meletus nor Anytus (his formal accusers), but the slander and jealousy of a very large section of the people." ^Juring the trial, Socrates had a number of chances to free himself. He could have paraded his weeping wife and children in front of the jury and pleaded for mercy, which the court would most probably have granted, or he could have proposed a reasonable fine for himself, which his wealthy students would have paid. However, he refused the mercy of the court and instead of suggesting a reasonable fine, proposed a ridiculously small one. which he knew to be an insult to the court. He then had the audacity to suggest that the state, in lieu of a fine, should support him at state expense for the rest of his life because of the great good he did for it. Had Socrates suggested a "realistic” punishment in order to save his life, he would �divergent of view. With one voice they excoriated him. drowning in their vituperation his caveat that the truth he spoke came “not from an adversary but a friend.” The response was. “Friend be damned!” Snrique Hank Lopez, a free-lance writer and graduate of the Harvard Law School, wrote a typical review: Saints have implicitly admitted guilt. His life, which had been guided by the rule of truth, would thus have been contradicted, and Plato, his student and biographer, would not have cele­ brated him in the dialogues. Socrates would have died a death-by-contradiction, which was what his Athenian enemies and all enemies of truth often desire. Instead, he drank the hemlock, went courageously to his death, and he lives today to influence the lives of many. ^Jne of the most sophisticated ways of killing our truth-telling saints is through “death-by-distortion.” Alexander Solzhenit­ syn was subjected to this when he delivered his famous Harvard commencement address a few years ago. After having suffered and escaped a repressive totalitarianism. Solz­ henitsyn was warmly invited by Harvard University to address its graduating class. His commencement address at this mecca of liberalism could not have proceeded far before the most perceptive members of the audience must have realized they were “in for it.” In the second paragraph of his speech, Solzhenitsyn invoked Harvard’s motto Veritas, which, one might say, is analogous to introducing Nelson Mandela to a Ku Klux Klan rally: Harvard's motto is Veritas. Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant: It is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. Solzhenitsyn then began to speak the unpleasant and bitter truth about the West: our lack of civil courage, our rampant materialism, our loss of moral sensibility — which loss leads to the sophism that whatever is legal is moral and vice versa — our lack of responsibility in the media, and so forth. Solzhenitsyn's speech became a catalyst, unifying reviewers who were ordinarily Listening to Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the Harvard commencement June 9. I suddenly imagined Cotton Mather sternly scolding his fellow alumni for their profligate sinful ways, their shameful aversion to Puritan ethics. Indeed, as he stood at the lectern. Solzhenitsyn looked like a bearded grandfather lecturing a vast brood of penitent grandchildren; and there was a rather piquant charm in his cur­ mudgeonly self-righteousness. Why was Solzhenitsyn “curmudgeonly self-righteous”? Because of his “condemna­ tion of our free press, our rule of law. our ‘soft liberal' concern for human rights.” Lopez said. But did Solzhenitsyn condemn these things? Indeed, he criticized the irresponsible use of our free press, our assertion that whatever is legal is moral, and our misplaced soft liberal concern for the rights of criminals to the detriment of the rights of innocent citizens. But to argue that he condemned the free press, our rule of law, our concern for human rights, is to distort what he said: it is, in short, to cause his “death-by-distortion.” To assure Solzhenitsyn was dead,—not wanting to take any chances—the powers that be decided he must die a second time, this time a “death-by-neglect.” This exile from repressive totalitarianism, who, before his commencement address, was celebrated in all the media as the “toast of the town,” soon disappeared from public view. Did he too drink the hemlock? One does not know, for like Rip van Winkle he has not been heard from for many years. Death-by-execution, death-by-contradiction, death-by-distortion. death-byneglect—one wonders what ingenious method we will use in disposing of our latest saint. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Does she know what danger she is in with her truth-telling? Turn to the December 4. 1989 issue of TIME magazine, which featured an interview with Mother Teresa: Q. You and Pope John Paul II have spoken out against lifestyles in the West, against materialism and abortion. How alarmed are you? A. I always say one thing. If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West 7 It is ironic that, although truth is said to be the one thing that sets us free, man can­ not stand too much of it. �Saints to be destroyed? It is difficult to explain, but it is just that. No rhetorical embellishment, no political clap-trap, no professional casuistry, just the truth—the kind of truth the child spoke when he witnessed the proud and pompous emperor strutting naked before his cowardly subjects: “The emperor has no clothes." “If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed?" The answer Is “Nothing” of course! Nothing of real human value is left to be destroyed because all other human rights and values are derived from and therefore dependent upon the right to live. It was not accidental that Thomas Jeffer­ son. in the Declaration of Independence. declared our first inalienable right, derived from our common human nature, to be the right to life: “We hold these truths to be selfevident. that all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights: that among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Once wc deny our first inalienable right, the right to life, all other derivative and dependent rights, such as liberty and the pursuit of happiness, fall like so many dominoes. Amidst the sound of crashing dominoes, a particular woman stands up. A frail Albanian nun who has spent her life caring for the unwashed and unloved of the world and has rescued countless abandoned babies from the garbage heaps of Calcutta says to us: “If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed?" Her question points to a truth which “serves to magnify our essential emptiness and sends it to the stars." In response to such truths, we kill our saints. "On Why We Kill our Saints" was first printed in The Shakespeherian Rag, Summer 1990: reprinted here by permission. Chemical by Floyd Kelly As chemistry involves mathe­ matical ability, quantitative reason­ ing and spatial perception and concerns the invisible, i.e. is somewhat abstract, it is seldom an easy course for a student. This is often reaffirmed with vigor by nurses, x-ray technicians and such when they find out they are with a college chemistry teacher. Once the word is out, the typical response is "Oh yuck, that was one of my worst subjects!" Well, chemistry must be learned and understood, so we can’t cut many corners or simplify very much, but I do sometimes inject any chemical humor I can. Sadly, there isn't very much of it. I remember an old {as water) story about a road-killed rabbit who was brought back to life by application of hare restorer. It is always hard to compete with biological courses as their content, visual aids and even humor are far more appealing than ours. Twins are womb mates. Clones are cell mates. You can tell a male from a female ameba by looking in its genes. Those geneticists are always cloning around. Who needs hare-raising stories. We chemists can't empa­ thize with the balloon vendor whose business was so good he couldn't keep up with inflation. There is, however, some humor to be offered by far-sided chemical structures and formulas as shown on the adjoining page. As they say about having "to have been there." many are funnier if you have taken the course. You are invited to do so! A slightly different version of this article appeared in Northwest Science News 6:2 lJune. 1990). Northwest Science News (s published by the Physical Science Diulslon. Northwest Community College. Powell, Wyoming. 8 ANSWERS* 1. paradise 2. a metaphor 3. a metaphysician 4. a paradox 5. a paramedic 6. an orthodontist 7. the ether bunny 8. isopropyl people ether 9. psychohexane 10. mercedes benzene 11. It’s amino world 12. a ferrous wheel 13. a formyl invitation Floyd W. Kelly teaches chemistry. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Idaho and has been at Casper College for twentytwo years. �*To help with 1-6: the arrangement of two groups on a ring are designated with the following prefixes: Humor ORTHO 9 META �by Mike Kent t e r Sweating in the hot July sun and lugging 100-pound slabs of rock on your own campus usually won’t appeal to your prototypical college instructor, but when you need a summer Job, manual labor is better than temporary unem­ ployment. a c i n Bob Moenkhaus and John Schroer spent many a summer doing just that. Their institution. Casper College, did not offer summer classes during their first several years as faculty, so they opted to take jobs as part of an ongoing campus­ terracing project. Little did they realize that their contri­ butions would help leave a lasting impression on this mountainside campus in central Wyoming. Today, the more than four miles of hand-laid stone-wall terracing represent this school’s most distinguishable feature. Casper College, a two-year school, grew with the community during the boom years of the 1970s and early 1980s in oil­ rich Wyoming. The only way for the college to grow was to add buildings going toward Casper Mountain. “When this site was picked, I don’t think anyone anticipated that it would stretch back (toward the mountain) as far as it has,’’ said Moenkhaus, who currently chairs the school’s Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences. The problem, of course, was that the college had to carve out building sites along hilly terrain. Consequently, the terracing project had to be undertaken, Moenkhaus said, for a threefold purpose — preventing erosion, allowing easier landscaping and adding aesthetic value. Casper College’s original facilities consisted of what’s now the Liesinger Administration Building and the Saunders Science Building — built during the middle 1950s and early 1960s — on a 30-acre tract. The city and state helped the college acquire another 175 acres a few years later. By the middle 1960s. several buildings t h e c a m P u s "Terracing the Campus" has also been submitted to American School and University. 10 were being added — and terracing became essential. The college hired outside contractors to do the initial stages of terracing, but by the early 1970s several faculty were hired to do the work. Retired CC basketball coach Swede Erickson and his assistant. Bin Graefe, led the effort to resume the terracing project that had started a few years earlier but was discontinued after the contractors left town. “The other guys on the faculty wanted work, and they (college administration) approached us. and we said, ‘Sure, we’ll try it,’ ’’ said Erickson, now the executive director of the Casper College Founda­ tion. Moenkhaus and Schroer, along with retired faculty member Cliff Pomeroy, spent several summers on the project. Among the others involved were Erickson and current faculty members David Cherry. Larry Lofgren and Abe Steward. Other than watching the contractors lay the stone, the faculty had no experience in terracing. Schroer said. “It was hard work especially after teaching all year and getting out of shape. It was a good way to get back into shape, and it made you look forward to teaching again in the fall.” The day began at 6 a.m.. and the faculty usually finished by 2:30 p.m. to avoid the extreme heat, according to Schroer, a physics instructor. During the first few summers the faculty used “very little” mechanical equipment. Schroer said, because it wasn’t needed. Then as more rock was being delivered to the campus — as much as 150 tons a summer — frontloaders and other mechanical equipment were brought in. Three kinds of rock were used: “basers,” blocks that weighed as much as 100 pounds each, that were placed at Michael J. Kent teaches journalism. He holds an M.S. from Virginia Com­ monwealth Univer­ sity and has been at Casper College two years. �the bottom of the wall; “builders,” flat slabs that weighed 15-30 pounds each, that were stacked on the base; and "cap rock.” large, flat slabs weighing as much as 150 pounds, that were placed at the top of the wall. Moenkhaus explained, “You’d trench out a flat area about two feet wide, make it level and put in the base rock. As you’d build up, you’d fill in behind it (with dirt). A lot of shovel work was involved.” The first few summers the college used rock from local quarries, but the rock was porous and was susceptible to crumbling, Moenkhaus said. During the latter stages of the project, the college imported Colorado rock, which is smoother and less porous. During the last few summers projects have been limited to areas of need as opposed to a concerted effort to add terraces campuswide, according to Willie Zimmer, the college’s grounds/ maintenance supervisor. Budget con­ straints also have hampered main­ tenance to existing sections of terrace, and Zimmer said this will become a major concern during the next few years. If the college does decide to accelerate terrace construction, don’t expect Moenkhaus and Schroer to be involved in any revived effort. Both said they will step aside to let others become involved. Yet, they have few regrets about those . ............... long, hot summers on the rock crew. Schroer said, “I’ve always been proud of having had a hand in building those walls. Some of these professors (who visit Casper College) are not expecting teachers here to be involved in that kind of labor in the summertime.” Moenkhaus added, “I’ve done my share. Summer school pays a lot better, and it’s a lot easier.” JOHN SCHROER. BOB MOENK­ HAUS, AND CLIFF POMEROY take a .break from laying rock walls in the days when they worked on campus con­ struction. ' Saturday Classes by Carolyn Logan For students and faculty. Saturday classes can be enjoyable and productive. One good example at Casper College is Carolyn Logan’s Nineteenth Century American Women Writers class which met from 9 a.m, to noon for ten Saturdays in spring semesters 1987 and 1990. Scheduling a class for Saturday mornings gives students who have full day schedules of classes or who work and cannot take day classes during the week an option other than evening classes. Students find Saturday mornings, especially during winter months, a good time for class. And planning a course for Saturday avoids overcrowding an already busy evening school schedule. Enrollment in the Saturday classes was comparable to the average enrollments for literature courses traditionally offered in spring semester. In 1987. 14 students enrolled in Nineteenth Century American Women Writers, and 10 enrolled in 1990. The Nineteenth Century American Women Writers course is a two credit course requiring thirty hours of class time which Logan chose to condense into ten meetings to finish the class well before the semester ended, giving further flexibility to the non-traditional scheduling and providing a productive block of time for discussion. Meeting once a week gave students time to prepare. Meeting on Saturdays gave the class a sense of doing something special, and the members have quickly formed into cohesive discussion groups. "Saturday SchcduUng" has also been submitted to AACJC Times. 11 Carolyn Logan teaches English courses. She holds an M-A. from the University of Wyom­ ing and has been at Casper College for twenty-four years. �Faculty Profile: by Arlene Larson projects. Liz remembers particularly David Redfield in science: Darrell Marks from the geology department: a magistrate judge who teaches business law; and Leon Powers, who reported on his study of owls in the Idaho area. Hearing such reports is important because it builds in the regents a sense of pride in the college. And that pride enhances her own teaching. Liz says she returns from each regents’ meeting "psyched up,” thinking, "maybe as a teacher I could give more.” After evaluating a college from the viewpoint of a regent. Liz believes that excellence is based on the mind-set of the faculty. Many teachers begin working at a church college because they feel called to do so: in spite of relatively low salaries, many stay at NNC because of their sense of achievement. "Excellence does not come because of an administrator’s edict: rather it comes from faculty who want to be known, and who want to attract and to influence students.” That understanding, too. reflects on her job. "I realize.” she says, "that if we are to have excellence at Casper College, my courses must contribute to that excellence.” In her two roles, Liz sees teaching from different perspectives: she also gets a chance to see higher education from a wider angle than do most people. There are two obvious differences in the colleges. CC is larger; NNC has approximately one thousand to eleven hundred students and a faculty of ninety-five. CC is financed by local taxes and state funding. Money for NNC comes from tuition and from education budgets of each Nazarene Church in the Northwest Area. A third important difference is in the governance structure of the colleges, Liz contrasts the NNC Board of Regents to Casper College District Board by pointing out that the CC board is elected by the public, is smaller, and meets more frequently for shorter meetings. Because the constituencies are different, the board members for CC are probably less well known to their electorate than the NNC regents A standing joke among teachers is one about the student who says, in honest surprise, “I never thought about your living in a house.” Teachers do not hang in the supply closet over the weekend. But even among ourselves, in a faculty of 170 we often know the name but not the face: the discipline, but not the person. Because every faculty member has an individual perspective on the job, the students, and the college, “Faculty Profile” introduces one Casper College teacher as more than a face in the college directory. In this issue meet Liz Ott. Liz teaches in the Division of Business at Casper College; she also has a role outside the classroom that allows her to see higher education from a perspective that few teachers enjoy: she is a member of the Board of Regents for Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho. By being a regent, she has learned more about being a teacher. One of the things she learned has to do with money. Her regent’s experience with the funding limits at NNC has given her a more realistic view of spending issues at CC than most teachers have. "Teachers want the college to buy whatever will help them teach well; regents must be aware of the financial limits on the college.” she says. "As a teacher I want what is best for faculty: by being on the Board of Regents, I also see the needs of administrators. ” When presented with a proposal, regents ask questions such as "Do you have a funding source? Can you tap government grants or private endowments? Or do you expect your money to be taken from some other area of the college?” Knowing those questions, she now puts in a budget request to her division at CC aware that her request is competing with others for a finite amount of money. Her regent's experience has also given her a sharper appreciation of the importance of teaching. At each two-day Board of Regents meeting, a faculty member from NNC gives a half hour presentation on current studies and 12 �LIZ with Peter, Seth, and Stephanie Jo. are to theirs. While the CC board is elected by all the voters of the district, the NNC board is elected through the church’s representative governance structure. Local churches make up a district and several districts comprise an area. Each area in the United States supports a college. Delegates from local churches meeting in district assembly elect from their number representatives to the board of regents for their area college. First Church of the Nazarene in Casper, where Liz is a member, belongs to a district with other churches in Wyoming and Montana. That district assembly, of about 150 persons, elected Liz its lay representative on the Board of Regents for Northwest College. She is in the second year of her second three-year term. The CC board includes seven members, all from within the college district; the NNC board consists of about forty persons, including an equal number of ordained elders and lay persons, plus the district superintendents. They come from districts in a seven-state area. While the CC board meets for an evening once a month, the NNC regents meet twice a year for two days at a time. Because it is a larger board, meeting less frequently, Liz says, the NNC board probably relies more heavily than the CC board on its committee structure. Liz currently serves on the finance committee, a group of about twelve persons, about half of whom are CPAs. During her tenure, the college established a Foundation to raise endowments for the college. Their goal is to raise three and a half million dollars; to achieve that goal, they hired a consultant to help with a fund drive. The Foundation has naturally been one of the major interests of the finance committee, and Liz served as fund raiser for her district. In spite of the differences in the boards and in the schools, the governing boards of the two institutions do play similar roles. Like the CC board. NNC’s is a policy-making body. The college has a chief executive officer. Dr. Gordon Wetmore, who makes recommenda­ tions for college practices to the regents, and, Liz says, if the suggestions are carefully researched and supported, the regents are likely to concur. On the recommendations of the vice president for business, the regents approve tuition charges and policies. One issue common to most college boards is how to make budgets stretch to cover every­ thing. Because they never do, NNC tries to con­ centrate in areas of excellence, such as their science and their elementary education programs. Striving for excellence in a limited number of programs sometimes means pruning other programs, but doing so without hurting the college as a whole. (continued on page 24) 13 �Mn an effort to increase the enrollment of engineers at the college level, the University of Wyoming and the seven Wyoming community colleges have renewed junior high school recruiting trips throughout much of the state. The trips were common in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, but discontinued in recent years because of budget restraints. They have been renewed in an effort again to help students make informed choices in their high school quite varied. More advanced students show more interest and ask more questions: inter­ mediate students’ interest may fade somewhat when require­ ments are presented, but rekindle when monetary rewards are mentioned. James Best, an engineering instructor at Casper Community College, has participated in the visits. He says that the trips throughout the state may not increase the number of engineering majors, but he believes they improve the quality of preparation of the mass and its relationship with the rate of rotation of the rolling object. Then a ring and a disc are released at the same time and from the same position on an inclined plane to show that they do not reach the bottom at the same time. The demonstra­ tion verifies or refutes the majority opinion of the students on which would reach the bottom first. The instruc­ tors discuss the demonstration and its relationship to the work of an engineer. The students also see a film in which several students and Engineering College Prep By Paul Marquard curricula. During the spring semester, a representative from the en­ gineering department at the University of Wyoming and an engineering instructor from one of the community colleges, visit junior high schools to give a presentation on the benefits and requirements of being an engineer and training for this career at the state institutions. The presentations occur during the normal math periods of the ninth grade students and the visitors see perhaps 150 students a day. A realistic success number would be about two percent, and a good target number would be about four or five percent of students who attend. Student interest is. of course. Paul «l. Marqoard teaches physics. He holds an M.S. from the University of Nebraska and has been at Casper College five years. majors at his college. The junior high schools, and particularly the ninth grade, are targeted because the students are at an early stage in their education. Preparation for engineering must begin at this time. Students need four years of mathematics, preferably through a second year of algebra and trigonometry. They are also encouraged to take four years of science, including chemistry and physics. Education in the social sciences and the humanities is also emphasized, though specific courses are not dictated. Even tenth graders may already be behind this curriculum if they have not planned ahead. The presentation includes a demonstration of a physical problem of interest to an engineer or science major. In an attempt to teach the students to reason out results, the instruc­ tors give an explanation of mass and the distribution of This article has also been submitted to AACJC Times. 14 graduate engineers are inter­ viewed to get their perspec­ tives. The floor is open to questions at the end of the hour. Best has observed one of the weaknesses in recruiting for engineers in the society. He has talked with ninth grade girls in geometry classes who are capable, enthusiastic, and questioning students: however fewer than ten percent of the engineering students in colleges in Wyoming and else­ where are women. One of the questions to be addressed is what happens between ninth grade and college to discourage women from a career for which they seem to be suited. Other challenges that the recruiters have encountered and are still working to meet include keep­ ing the film current to increase its appeal, providing brochures that will find their way into the students’ homes instead of being discarded, designing a demonstration that is simple, interesting. and also mathematically easy to discuss — one with flash and allure. �Mule Deer that share our campus by Donna Davis It was three o’clock in the afternoon during Christmas break in 1986 and I was cleaning up odds and ends in my office so I too could leave for the holiday. The phone rang. A colleague’s excited voice announced that there were some deer on the lawn between the library and the student center: did I want to get some pictures? I grabbed a camera bag and hurried to the location where I was able to expose a couple rolls of black and white film and a roll of slides before the deer moved out of shooting range. That was my first year as full time staff photographer at Casper Community College, but since that day I have received many similar phone calls and had lots of opportunities to photograph the seemingly resident deer herd that share the campus with us. CALMLY RESTING in front of the college library, these deer have eaten their fill for the moment. This photo leaves itself open for a variety of comment, and even became a popular post card. 15 �A CURIOUS DOE eyes the camera with caution, but not a lot of fear. Some of the deer with this herd are second and third generation fawns born right here on campus in the cool shade of the Russian olive grove near the life science building. SOMETIMES AN IRREGULAR BUCK can be spotted sunning on a back hillside or strolling through the crosswalks. Dried yucca seed pods and the tiny branches of the many fruit trees are some of the cuisine favorites that draw the deer to our campus. 16 �STUDENTS AT CASPER COLLEGE never know when they may be treated to a close encounter as they make their way from class to class. THE FIVE MILES of red rock terraces on the Casper College campus offer the deer warm sunny spots in winter and cool shady havens in summer. Donna Davis is the college photogra­ pher. She holds an A.A. from Casper College and has been working at the col­ lege for six years. �Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 1. Illustrates Mertensia oblongifolia var. nevadensis« No hairs in corolla tube or on leaves. Chromosome number of 24. Figure 2. M. oblongifolia var. oblongifolia and var. amoena. Hairs present in corolla tube and on the leaves. Chromosome number of 48. Figure 3. M. oreophila. No hairs in corolla tube or on leaves. The plant is endemic to the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Chromosome number of 24. Figure 3. 18 �Bluebells by James Milek In February 1988, Dr. James Milek completed his doctoral thesis. In April 1991, he presented an oral summary of his work to the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science at their meeting in Laramie. An abstract of the thesis appeared in the April, 1990, edition of The Journal of the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science: *40 “A Genetic and Taxonomic Study of Mertensia Oreophila and Three Varieties of Mertensia Oblongifolia (Boraginaceae) in Wyoming and Southern Montana.” James A. Milek, Casper College, and William E. Harmon, University of Northern Colorado. Because the thesis and the presentation were highly technical. Dr. Milek has summarized his work in a shorter version for readers of Ideas. In April, 1990.1 presented the results of my doctoral research to the ColoradoWyoming Academy of Science in Laramie. My presentation dealt with the research that I had done in Wyoming and Southern Montana on the taxonomy of three varieties of Mertensia oblongifolia and a separate species M. oreophila. These species and varieties belong to a group of plants commonly called blue­ bells. Plant taxonomists have found these species and varieties to be difficult to distinguish from one another and this has caused considerable confusion in the taxonomic keys. My objective was to study these species and varieties and to determine their genetic and taxonomic relationships. This was done by first studying their chromosome numbers. Once this was determined, I tried to find unique mor­ phological features that correlated with the chromosome numbers. Previous re­ searchers had determined that all of the Mertensia species studied thus far had a chromosome number of 24. My research discovered that M. oblongifolia var. oblongifolia and var. amoena had chromosome numbers of 48. Mertensia oblongifolia var. nevadensis and M. oreophila had chromosome numbers of 24. These facts were significant because there is considerable data that supports the theory that, if the chromosome number doubles as it has here, the plants with the chromosome number of 48 are genetically isolated from those with the chromosome number of 24. If they are genetically isolated, they are probably different species and the variety category is no longer a valid classification. Another significant fact is that the characters of hairs in the corolla tube (flower) and hairs on the leaves correlates with the 48 chromosomes, and the absence of hairs correlates with the chromosome number of 24. This separates var. nevadensis from the other two varieties and suggests that it is a separate and distinct species from the varieties oblongifolia and amoena. This research also substantiated an earlier theory that M. oreophila was a distinct species from the similar species M. oblongifolia var. nevadensis. My research confirmed that this species is not only a distinct species but is also endemic to the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. An endemic species is found only in that one area and no where else in the world. I am presently planning additional research projects with botanists from Colorado. Montana, and Wyoming. We hope to clarify some more genetic relationships and to work on the processes involved in changing the classification of these plants. 19 Janet A. Milek teaches btology and genetics. He holds a D.A. from the Uni­ versity of Northern Colorado and has been at Casper Col­ lege twenty-four years. �discovery and exploration in the nineteenth century west of the Mississippi River. Currently the collection contains over 4,200 monographs. The subject headings range from “Acculturation” (of the Blackfeet Indians) to “Zoology. Yellowstone Park.” Between A and Z there is much to be found on a variety of subjects including George Armstrong Custer, the fur trade. Indian tribes. Oregon Trail, outlaws, and Wyoming communities and county histories. The monographs represent a variety of sizes, ages and values. The smallest book in the collec­ tion is the two by three inch Charter of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming. Maximilian's Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-34, at 21 by 16 inches, is the largest. The original edition is one of the earlier books published about the west, though the oldest book in the collection is Henry M. Bracken­ ridge’s Journal of a Voyage Up the River Missouri Performed in 1811. The library has the second edition of this book which was printed in 1816. Not only is this the oldest book in the collection, but it is also one of the most valuable. The value of a book is determined by a variety of factors, and age is not always one of them. Essentially a book must have intrinsic importance in order to create consumer demand which in turn can cause the demand for the book to be greater than the supply. Intrinsic importance can be based upon the topic, the illustrations, and whether the original work was suppressed. Other factors which determine the value of a book are special bindings or printing processes, an innovative design and autographs or inscriptions by the author. One book published in Wyoming in 1894 had its value increased because of the suppression that followed its publication. In 1988, a first edition of Banditti of the Plains, or The Cattlemen’s Invasion of Wyoming in 1892 by Asa S. Mercer was valued at 82,500 by a rare book dealer. While Banditti of the Plains may not be considered an objective account of the Johnson County War because Mercer was angered by the apparent miscarriage ofjustice in Johnson County, it did not deserve its Special Collections at cortege’s Goodstein Library by Jamie Ring Did the Overland stage ever go through Casper? Where were the first Casper College classes held? What is the earliest date on a map in the collection? Who was the first woman to be Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives? Do you have a photograph of a “cooster wagon”? The answers are yes; the third floor of N.C.H.S.; 1867; Verda James; yes. These answers and more can be found in Special Collections at the Goodstein Foundation Library which contains materials about Wyoming. Natrona County and Casper. Because members of the public are welcome to use the library, materials in the Special Collection are available to all residents. The library will issue a free borrower’s card to anyone who lives in the district, but. because the collection includes out-of-print material, its use is restricted to the library unless there are duplicates in the circulating collection. Sometimes the material can be easily photocopied in the library. Primarily the materials are historical, but the collection also contains recent materials such as the 1989 Wyoming Data Handbook and the Casper Urban System Study. Major Street, and Highway System Report. 1989. Additionally, the collection contains materials in which a significant portion is related to or similar to the experiences of people in Wyoming. Thus, there are books which contain information on ranch life in Montana. Indian wars in South Dakota, military life in the Rocky Mountain west and Jamie Ring is the Wyoming Collection Specialist at Good­ stein Library. She holds a B.S. from Montana State Uni­ versity and has been at Casper College for eleven years. 20 �subsequent fate. Following its publication, Mercer was jailed and charged with sending obscene matter through the mail. A court order commanded that all plates and all copies remaining in the publisher’s hand be destroyed. Later editions of this book have enjoyed brisk sales, but none of these are as valuable as the ones which were not burned in 1894. Special Collections does not contain a large number of rare books, but it does have books that are irreplaceable. In some instances these publications are one of a kind, and in other cases only a limited number of books of a certain title were published and over the years MONUMENT across from present day courthouse, Casper. the books have become scarce and Chicago and NW depot and old Sears in background. (Webb difficult to replace although their Historical Collection, Casper College Library.) intrinsic value outside of Wyoming may not be very great. Along with scarce books, the collection has some unusual books. Jack Gage wrote a book about the Johnson County Invasion in which he presented both sides of the dispute. He did this by giving the book two titles. Opening the book one way. the reader finds an account of the invasion entitled. The Johnson County War Is a Pack of Lies; turning the book over and opening it from the other end. the reader finds the title The Johnson County War Ain’t a Pack of Lies. Another unusual book is the eight and one-half by thirteen inch reproduction of The Official Record of a Court of Inquiry Convened at Chicago, Illinois, January 13, 1879 by the President of the THESE MEN eire believed to be the Bothwells, a Natrona County family. (Bob David Collection, Casper College Library.) United States upon the Request of Major Marcus A. Reno, 7th U.S. Cavalry to Investigate His Conduct at the Battle of the Little Big Hom, June Washington, D.C.—and one book co-authored by 25-26, 1876. Only 125 copies of this official Dick and Lynne Cheney entitled. Kings of the record were reproduced by W. A. Graham, noted Hill, Power and Personality in the House of Custer authority. Nolie Mumey wrote a book Representatives. about the Pony Express and to accompany this The collection contains fascinating titles that book he had a facsimile of the leather bound will intrigue patrons with a variety of interests. Bible carried by all Pony Express riders Titles such as Dog Soldiers, Bear Men and reproduced. The small Bible was easily carried Buffalo Women and Few Clothes and Plenty by the riders during their dashing rides from St. Horse conjure up visions not always associated Jo. to Sacramento. Finally while they are not (continued on page 23) unique or unusual, the collection contains two books by Lynne Cheney—one is historical fiction This article appeared in the March 2. 1991. issue of the Casper set in the Cheyenne area before the turn of the Journal under the headline "Western history buffs can lose selves in CC library. " century and the other is a contemporary novel of 21 �Advertising Project by Gary M. Donnelly Suggestion: Do not wait to get started on this project. It will take time to do an adequate job. While working in groups you will also learn something about group dynamics and some of the problems in trying to get anything done in a group, especially a project of this size. If you as a group feel that a member or members of your group are not fulfilling their part or portion of the workload the following procedure will be followed. The group and the instructor will meet privately and come to a decision as to what will be done. This project will constitute a large portion of your grade, so it is the best policy for all concerned to be honest and straightforward with each other from the very beginning. iA project developed by Gary Donnelly for his advertising course is scheduled to appear in the 1991 summer edition of Great Ideas for Teach­ ing Marketings You will develop an advertising campaign for a downtown business, for a specific time period and a specific budget. Your group will contact a business and get the time period the campaign will run and the budget and you must stay within the budget. Specific Guidelines: (These must be included somewhere in the project.) 1. Established written goals for the campaign. 2. Define the market segment your campaign will appeal to and why. 3. Select the media you will use and explain why. 4. Develop sample ads for the chosen media and explain each ad and commercial in detail regarding the message you are trying to get across and to whom. Also, include the cost of each ad and commercial and state the time period they will run. 5. Develop an evaluation method for determining if the campaign was successful if your campaign gets used. Be creative and include anything else in the campaign which you think will make the campaign successful. You may utilize any outside resources that you can find. This project is your final examination, so do a complete and thorough job. The project will be graded by your instructor and the manager of the business for whom the project is developed. This will give you the fairest and most objective grading possible. The business will be able to keep the project if they choose and use any or all of the project for their own advertising. The project is required for you to get actual hands-on experience in developing advertising and experience the problems of working within budget limitations and still get the maximum amount of return from the advertising dollar spent. This project can give you the best insight possible into retail advertising. Cooperating Business: 1. Students are to develop an advertising package (campaign) for you for a period of time chosen by you. They will need a realistic budget from which to work. 2. The students may need to get some additional information about the store, peak seasons, etc., possibly even some ideas as to last year’s expenditures for the same period of time. 3. The students should be given only basic information, as they are the ones who must learn to develop advertising. 4. You will be involved in grading the project when it is completed. The project is the students’ final exam. 5. You may keep the project when it is completed and use any ideas, ads, or commercials that were developed in the advertising package. In the past, grading has posed somewhat of a problem for cooperating businesses. The Gary M. Donnelly teaches business courses. He holds an M.Ed. from the Uni­ versity of Idaho and has been at Casper College ten years. 22 �Special Collection (continuedfrom page 21) individuals—for instance George Mitchell, Casper’s first mayor and Matt Campfield, the first black barber in Casper who homesteaded the land previously occupied by Fort Caspar—and groups such as the Casper Fire Department resplendent in their new uniforms of white trousers, blue shirts with red collars, and red belts. Events such as the 1904 Industrial Convention and Fourth of July celebrations were captured by photographers and saved for later generations. All of the photos in the collection are indexed by proper names and subject headings for easier access by researchers. Patrons are also welcome to browse the collection. There are eleven archival collections including Casper College materials in Special Collections. The most significant of these collections is the Robert David Historical Collection. There is much primary source material about the Casper area and Wyoming in this collection. Another facet of the David Collection is historical maps. The oldest map Is a reproduction of a map dated 1867 and titled “U.S. War Department Map of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers and Their Tributaries Explored by Capt. W. F. Raynolds. Topographical Engineers and 1st Lieut. H. E. Maynadier. 10th Infantry. Assistant, 1859-60.” “Map of the Military Department of the Platte. Wyoming, 1874,” is another map that provides history buffs with vital information. Other collections are smaller than David’s, but they contain useful materials about the Casper vicinity dating back to 1889. Special Collections at the Goodstein Foundation Library contains an enormous amount of interesting information about Wyoming and the West. Students, community patrons and history buffs will find answers to many questions in these holdings and they will find many hours of enjoyment as they peruse the various collections. with life on the frontier. Manual for the Modern Day Mountain Man or How To Make and Use the Atlatl; the Ancient Weapon of the Ice Age Hunters would help us all step back in time and experience life in an age without necessities and conveniences we think so important. No Life For A Lady and Hell on Horses and Women lead one to think that the frontier was no place for women. On the other hand such titles as A Bride Goes West and Letters of a Woman Homesteader make us realize that women did successfully settle on the frontier. And finally if one is seeking mirth in the collection the following titles should help: The Damned Elk ’Et My Broom; Baled Hay, a Drier Book Than Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”; A Light Hearted Tour of the West on a Search for the Two Story Outhouse. T he Special Collections photograph collection contains over 2,500 historical photos primarily of Casper and Natrona County. Wyoming. One of the oldest photos is an 1890 photo of Center Street in Casper complete with sagebrush in the street. There are pictures of Advertising Project following are the evaluation: Poor suggested criteria for Fair Aver. Above Aver. Excel. Was the project well planned? Were the ads and copy well done? Did the students use good judgment? Were the objectives of the project realist­ ic and feasible? Would you use the advertising? Your cooperation with this is appreciated by the students, the college, and more so by the instructor. It allows me to provide the students with a learning experience that cannot be achieved in the classroom alone. 23 �Since teaching at CC. she has kept a small tax practice of her own in order to keep current with tax laws and accounting practices. To maintain her CPA. she must complete 40 CEUs (continuing education units) per year. Liz is married to Steve Ott, who is also an accountant. They have three children. Peter. 6. Stephanie Jo. 4, and Seth. 2. All facets of her life come to bear on Liz's role as teacher. For two years, she has been working an all-evening schedule, with two courses each evening and office hours before and after the class meetings. In the evening classes, most of her students are returning students, with whom she enjoys working. She says she likes the schedule, at least for a few semesters while her children are young. Because of her work background, she has the perspective of a CPA even in the way she teaches her business courses. Those courses usually include Principals of Accounting I and II, Management, and Accounting 151. which concentrates on using Lotus 1-2-3 for accounting. “I think that my reputation is that I am ‘hard core' in my subject,” Liz says, “but I believe that the most important part of teaching is caring about each student as an individual. "I believe that the credibility of the individual teacher determines how well students respond and, in some instances, encourages students to come for help. For that reason I go ahead and speak up. telling my students something about my values, so they will see me not as just a lecturer but as an individual human being. "What I am enjoying most about teaching right now is investing my life in the lives of students.” After teaching at CC for nine years. Liz now has former students who return to see her; in talking with them she realizes that the return on the investment often comes years later. After attending NNC and UW. Liz says that by teaching at CC she has come to appreciate what twoyear schools do best: the faculty maintain close contact with students. She believes that students remember teachers who care. (continuedfrom page 13) Liz’s interest in NNC goes even deeper than her current position as regent. It grows naturally from her background. Elizabeth Mosteller was born in the Cape Verde Islands, two hundred miles off west Africa, of parents who were missionaries for the Church of the Nazarene. She has two sisters, Virginia, three years older, and Kathleen, seven years older. She lived in Cape Verde until she was eight, when her parents moved to Brazil. There her father was Mission Director. Because her parents believed in living in the culture of their host country, they spoke Portuguese at home and it was Liz's first language. She was in college before she thought as easily in English as in Portuguese. Her early years included a variety of educational experiences. In Cape Verde, the Mostellers were the only American family in the immediate area and the girls took correspondence courses. In Brazil they lived near other missionaries so Liz attended the American school in Campinas. Sao Paulo, Brazil, through grade ten. The school provided instruction in two languages in dual courses. She finished the equivalent of an American high school education through the University of Nebraska extension division. Every four years, her parents returned to the United States for a year’s furlough; during those times, the children lived with their mother in Oregon City. Oregon, and attended school there while their father traveled throughout the country. Liz counts as many the advantages of her early years. The variety of school experiences was enriching. The population of Cape Verde was black and that of Brazil multicultural; consequently, she believes, she is not culturally biased in her judgments. Travel has broadened her horizons, giving her appreciation for practices other than those in the United States. As a result of all this, she can examine education from several points of view and she can examine business, especially international manage­ ment. from several perspectives. At eighteen, Liz returned to the United States to attend Northwest Nazarene College. She graduated with a B.A. in business administration, then earned an M.B.A. with a concentration in accounting from the University of Wyoming. After the necessary three years of experience, she became a CPA. She worked in Casper for Elmer Fox and Company arid for Macy and Associates. This article has also been submitted to The Messenger, the alumni publication of Northwest Nazarene College. Arlene Larson teaches English courses. She holds an M.A.T. from Colo­ rado College and has been at Casper Col­ lege for nineteen years. 24 �Women's Studies by Carolyn Logan Casper College has a women’s studies program which began fall semester. 1990. Over the past fifteen years. CC has had two or three courses with significant content on women, but there was no effort to build a program. In July. 1989. Carolyn Logan (English Department) and Nora Van Burgh (Library), with enthusiastic support from the Vice President for Instructional Services, began enlisting a committee of faculty interested in starting a women’s studies program. The committee became a thirteen member multi-disciplinary group of faculty from fine arts, business, English, psychology, biology, health arts and sciences, anthropology, law. library, and counselling. Faculty on the committee redesigned existing courses or designed new courses for the program. Four existing courses redesigned to be taught from a feminist perspective and/or with significant content about women are Business Management. Freshman Composition I and II, and Literature of the American West. Nineteenth Century American Women Writers, the pilot course for the program, was offered in spring, 1990. New courses are Women in Art. Women in Music, Issues of Women’s Health, and Introduction to Women’s Studies. Those new courses were accepted by the academic departments, and by the committee of deans and division chairs in April, 1990. Psychology of Women and other new courses are being proposed in the 1990-91 academic term. For fall semester. 1990, the Women’s Studies Program offered Introduction to Women’s Studies, Freshman Composi­ tion. Issues of Women’s Health, and Business Management. For spring semester, the program added Women in Art. Other courses will be added to the schedule in later semesters. The Women’s Studies major is a liberal arts option. Students will take the introductory women’s studies course. Women in Art or Women in Music, Psychology of Women, the designated sections of freshman composition, and either of the literature courses in women’s studies; they will be advised to take Issues of Women’s Health and Business Management, depending on their secondary interests. In April, 1990, Casper College hosted Wyoming’s first annual articulation conference on women’s studies. Partici­ pating faculty from Casper College, and Carolyn Logan the University of Wyoming met for two leaches Bnglish days to discuss course content, transfer of courses. She holds M.A. from lhe credit, and plans for the next year’s an University of Wyom­ meetings at Casper College. ing and has been at Although other community colleges in Casper College for Wyoming offer one or two courses in twenty-four years. women’s studies, and the University of Wyoming offers a minor, Casper College is the first community college in the state to have a women’s studies program. Faculty participating in the program or serving on the committee are Deborah Bauert, Dr. Ruth Doyle, Dr. Julie Horsch, Mary Kubichek, Arlene Larson, Dr. Barbara Mueller. Barbara Ochiltree. Dr. Bonnie Phillips, Linda Ryan. Cheryl Wrasper. and Logan. Student members of the committee are Margaret Randall and COMMITTEE: Karen Ware, This article appeared tn the Spring 1991 Issue of NWSAction, a publication of the National Women's Studies Association. 25 Doyle. Wrasper, Logan, Ryan. Larson, Mueller, and Phillips. �Standards in the Profession: A Community College Case Study by Lloyd Agte. Skip Gillum. Helon Raines, Jackie Valdez^ The 1989 CCCC statement on writing teacher load recommendations became for the Casper College English Department a classic example of irony. While the rest of the profession seemed to be moving forward in identifying and promoting responsible teaching loads, we soon would be required to teach additional writing at a college in the state where the Wyoming Conference Resolution was conceived. Although our teaching duties at Casper College always have exceeded the conditions described in the standards statement, our four-plus-four course load (twenty-five students per class) came reasonably close to the recommendations. In addition, we were fully aware our load was less than that in five of our sister institutions in Wyoming and that we with one other community college stood as something of a buffer against the erosion of load standards. However, under the most favorable interpretation of the new campus­ wide load policy at Casper College, we would be teaching at least twenty-seven hours per year. Our dismay was palpable as we saw ourselves being moved further from the recommendations in the statement as well as from the reasonable loads we had maintained for over twenty years. In addition, these events forced us to reassess our publicly stated beliefs in the value of two-year colleges.In particular, we were forced to question whether our English Department could continue to offer the exceptional writing program on which we prided ourselves. Some of the tensions generated between hope for progress in a global sphere and dismay over regression at the local level found temporary release in our opportunity to organize a panel on load issues for the first meeting of the Western Conference on Two-Year Colleges. Perhaps the story we presented at Salt Lake City in October 1990 will provide ammunition for others in the continuing war to create the conditions for teachers of writing that allow us to provide environments where students can learn effectively. recent developments at Casper College where the panelists teach. Our institution is a comprehensive two-year college founded in 1945. Since 1986 our campus has housed an upper-division degree granting program, the University of Wyoming/Casper College Center. The two institutions. Casper College and the upper level UW/CC Center are on the same campus which is located in Casper, population 50.000. Head­ count for the two institutions was 7.082 in fall semester, 1990, with Casper College full-time equivalency (FTES) of 3.500 and University of Wyoming/Casper College FTE about 500. In the spring of 1989. the Casper College English De­ partment thought we had staved off the most recent attack on the discrepancy between the load carried by English faculty and the load normally carried by the rest of the college. However, in fall of 1990. we learned that by the next year we would be expected to teach more writing students. At professional meetings in 1989 and 1990, I discussed our concerns with Utah colleagues, Liz Nist and Ron Severson, who then invited me to participate in planning a conference for the NCTE Western Conference of Two-Year Colleges. Brainstorming ideas for the meeting, we gravitated to the effects of standards statements on community colleges and decided that this was a good topic for the conference to address. The purpose of this panel then is not to whine, since we are well aware that even our increased teaching load at Casper College will give us fewer students than many community college writing instructors presently have. We also will avoid shouting, or. what might be our most honest response, killing the nearest administrator, particularly since the CC Vice-President of Instruction Skip Gillum is with us. While we are not here to whine, shout, or kill, we are here to tell our particular story in the context of the continuing conversation on standards. We hope that a review of development of the CCC Standards Statements, of Casper College load policy history, as well as our suggestions for future action based on our past experience, may generate more than dialogue. We hope that by the end of the day the Western Conference will decide on a course of action for assisting in implementing standards for community colleges across the country, no matter how simple or limited that action may be. TEXT OF PANEL ON STANDARDS IN THE PROFESSION AND THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE EXPERIENCE AT THE WESTERN CONFERENCE FOR TWO YEAR COLLEGES, 1990, Salt Lake City Context for Panel Presentation (Helon Raines) Review of the History of the Wyoming Resolution and the Subsequent “ Statement of As a case history on load policy, we will review 26 �Principles and Standards for the Postsecon­ dary Teaching of Writing” (Jackie Valdez) seek a degree in English that she wept” (277). That student had a “galvanizing effect” on her audience (277). Although she was unnamed in the article. Susan Wyche-Smith since has become known to us through her articles and her presence at conferences. From the events at the Laramie Conference developed what became the Wyoming Conference Resolution which charged the Executive Committee of College Composition and Communication to speak to the needs of postsecondary teachers of writing. The result is the “Statement of Principles and Standards for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing.” the history of which follows. 1986: Resolution drafted. 1987: Resolution endorsed by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. A most enlightening history of what has come to be known as the Wyoming Conference Resolution may be found in the excellent article by Linda R. Robertson, Sharon Crowley, and Frank Lentricchia entitled “The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.’’ which appeared in College English, March. 1987, (274-80). According to that account, the Wyoming Resolution grew out of a dramatic series of events that occurred during the June. 1986, Wyoming Conference on English. The theme of the conference was “Language and the Social Context.” In brief, the first of four major catalysts that led to the Resolution were James Moffett's remarks that writing teachers are responsible for helping students to recognize the freedom that comes with being able to express themselves (274). Robertson, Crowley, and Lentricchia write that a number of conferees “were struck with the irony” that those “charged” with empowering students were themselves powerless in speaking out about “the fundamentally unfair conditions under which we labor” (274). As a result, conversations regarding those “unfair conditions” ensued among conferees (275), conversations to which each teacher of writing could add his or her own particular, yet similar, experiences. The comments of James Slevin are a second element credited in the Robertson, Crowley, and Lentricchia article with focusing attention even more sharply on working conditions. Using information gathered by the Association of Departments of English. Slevin stated that “only forty percent of new English PhDs now find tenure-track positions” (Robertson, Crowley, and Lentricchia 275). The implication is that the remaining sixty percent provide an available pool of part-time or temporary labor (275-76). This situation, say the authors of the article, has been attributed to difficult economic conditions. Further, they point out, in the 197O’s projections of declining enrollments were reported. In fact, “. . . enrollments in colleges and universities increased by twenty to thirty percent between 1974 and 1984” (275). A third contributor to the growing agitation among conferees was James Sledd who spoke of “exploitation” in the very English departments decrying their own exploitation (276). He chastened English faculty with the remark that, if we sought evidence to disprove the notion that the study of the humanities promoted more humane conduct, we need look no further than the way we treated graduate students and part-time faculty in our own departments. (276-77) His remarks sparked a fourth and culminating event that brought the concerns to a climax—the impassioned speech of a graduate student who “challenged” the conference participants to address themselves to the issue of exploitation (277). In short, she implored them to do something. “So conditioned was she.” the authors write, “to keeping silent that her voice broke as she spoke: so frustrated was she by the conditions she had felt compelled to endure in order to Perhaps the story will provide ammunition for others in the continuing war to create the conditions for teachers of writing that allow us to provide environments where students can learn effectively. 1988: Resolution endorsed by the Executive Commitee of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. 1989: “Statement of Principles and Standards for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing” published by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the statement being accepted and approved for publication by the Executive Committee. 1990: “Statement” endorsed by the Modern Language Association. The Resolution charged the CCCC as follows: 1. To formulate, after appropriate consulta­ tions with post-secondary teachers of writing, professional standards and expectations for salary levels and working conditions of post-secondary teachers of writing. [This step has been taken.) 2. To establish a procedure for hearing grievances brought by post-secondary teachers of writing—either singly or collectively—against apparent institutional non-compliance with these standards and expectations. 3. To establish a procedure for acting upon a finding of non-compliance: specifically, to issue a letter of censure to an individual institution’s administration. Board of Regents or Trustees. State legislators (where pertinent), and to publicize the finding to the public-at-large, the educational community in general, and to our membership. (qtd. in Robertson, Crowley, Lentricchia. 278-279) While there is much in the “Statement” of value to all writing teachers, of immediate concern is the section entitled “Part-Two: Teaching Conditions Necessary for Quality Education.” If we compare this section with our own reality, too many of us find discrepancies. For example, this section recommends 20 as an appropriate number of students for “any 27 �writing class. Ideally, classes should be limited to 15.” Further, numbers of remedial and developmental students should be limited to 15 per section. An instructor should have no more than 60 writing students per term. 45 if the students are in developmental classes (335). The “Statement” continues, advocating writing centers, opportunities for faculty scholarship and growth, and. finally, office space and support services for all writing faculty (335-36). spirit of the load requirement while teaching four courses. In the fall of 1989. however, with a new administrator in a position called “Vice President of Instruction.” our previous agreement was at first unknown, and when finally found with all the requisite signatures, nullified. We were asked to teach four courses one semester and five the next for a twenty­ seven hour load. We were back to square one. In a rare display of complete unanimity, the English Department dug in its heels and said “read our lips—no more classes.” We were granted exception to the new load policy for the fall term to allow us time to address the issue again. We then drafted a proposal to the Deans and Chairs Committee requesting that writing courses, given the burden of correcting papers, be weighted as more than three hours, arguing that our marking sessions were equivalent to lab hours in a science course. Our lobbying of division chair colleagues to explain our Load Policy History in the Casper College English Department (Lloyd Agte) Casper College is structured into nine divisions with little departmental autonomy. Our department has thirteen English teachers and usually one or two parttime Instructors. The load policy at Casper College has. from the 195O’s until two years ago, been vaguely defined. While the faculty handbooks usually stated Lloyd Agte Skip Gillum Helon Raines that fifteen hours per semester was the normal fulltime load, in practice it varied greatly across departments. The English Department generally taught twelve hours. The exceptions were new faculty, who sometimes were assigned fifteen hours for a few semesters or until they began to grow fuzzy around the edges and their knees began to buckle. We sometimes heard, however, resentment from other departments because the English Department, whose major job was teaching freshman composition, had set their load at twelve hours. In 1988 a new president established a campus-wide operations policy: one of the first issues addressed was pay and load. The Faculty Senate recommended that divisions and departments should set their own load policies. This recommendation was ignored by the administration, and the load policy arrived at by a majority vote of the divisions set the normal class load at thirty hours with a three-hour possible adjustment by the appropriate division chair. The English Department completed a self-study on hours spent preparing, teaching, and grading writing courses and submitted a proposal that each hour of a writing course, because of the paper-grading load, be counted as 1.25 hours, making a normal three hour course worth 3.75 hours toward our load requirement. This was approved by the dean of faculty and we assumed that we were meeting both the letter and Jacqueline Valdez case apparently fell on deaf ears, for we were overwhelmingly defeated. Our written and verbal presentations with numbers, pleas for quality, and information about national standards apparently meant little or nothing to the Deans and Chairs Committee. The following is an excerpt from an “underground” account I wrote. In the spirit of comparing peristroika with a growing love of centralized power in our school, I datelined it Kaspergrad. February 14. 1990. When one inflamed member of the English Department made an impassioned speech in defense of academic quality, the life of the mind, and the detrimental effects of an exploitative work load, the comrades of the Central Committee [the Deans and Chairs Committee) rallied together to quell the subversion. One after another they told Lloyd Agte teaches English courses. He holds a Ph.D. from Kent State University and has been at Casper College sixteen years. F. B. (Skip) Gillam is vice president for instructional services. He holds an M.P.A. from the University of Wyoming and has been at Casper College nineteen years. Helon Howell Raines teaches English courses. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver and has been at Casper College fifteen years. Jacqneline K. Valdez teaches English courses. She holds an M.A. from the University of Wyoming and has been at Casper College eighteen years. 28 �tales of their own exploitation, the pain they had to inflict on comrades in their own departments and in general made it clear that if they had no justice then no one else should have it either. When the English Department brought up national professional standards, which clearly state that 12 hours is considered a maximum load, some members of the Central Committee proudly boasted that for years they had been violating their own professional guidelines. Responding to our appeal, the senate affirmed the principle that load decisions should be made within divisions and departments. An ad hoc committee of the English Department recommended a load policy, following guidelines from NCTE, CCCC, MLA and others. The administration chose instead to support a campus-wide load policy. Back to square one. Our attempts to change the course into a four-hour course were met with resistance by those who said it would transfer only as a three-hour course. We discussed scheduling a one-hour “conference lab” with students, but the scheduling logistics would have burdened both students and teachers. Administrators finally granted the option of allowing us to play magic numbers. We could work in the writing center, the English lab, or do other divisional duties for three hours per week for three contact hours. All departmental members did this in the fall of 1990 except one person who chose to teach a fifth class. The need to renegotiate our schedules each semester as well as the real danger that those arrangements could be nullified by administrative fiat at any time gave us serious reservations about this arrangement, although it seemed more reasonable than an additional twenty-five writing students. In the fall of 1990. we launched another proposal before the Deans and Chairs Committee to have writing courses considered as worth more than three hours. This has been tabled at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Vice President of Instruction Gillum suggested that we rewrite a course description of our writing courses and add an hour of study “To Be Arranged,” making these classes four contact hours each. Thus, we wrote into our job description the contact and grading load which accurately reflects what we do. This extra “TBA” hour was recently voted down ten to two at a Deans and Chairs Committee meeting. We had made no progress. Back to square one again. The only bright light on the horizon is that there is again some sentiment now for allowing divisions and departments to establish their own load guidelines. If there is any lesson in this brief history, it is that departments should not give up the fight. We all sincerely felt that we were doing the best professional job we could do and that taking on another class would compromise instructional quality, professional development, and academic service to the college and community. We were and still are adamant about that. Another lesson is that national professional standards are valuable, not arrived at whimsically, and can provide a solid rallying point for all departments. But more importantly, we learned we had failed to calculate the hostility of other departments toward the English department. While it is one thing for the public at large to confuse the hours in the classroom with the total obligation for which we are paid (“What? you mean those teachers get all that money for workin' just fifteen hours a week?”), it is another thing to hear it from our colleagues. We need to restructure the descriptions of what we do so that our colleagues too know that the hours devoted to marking papers and consulting with students are legitimate and necessary parts of work loads. It would be nice if we at Casper College were the only ones who have to go through this frantic running about only to return to the well-worn square, but load The Wyoming Resolution grew out of a dramatic series of events that occurred during the June. 1986, Wyoming Conference on English. The theme of the conference was “Language and the Social Context." and pay rationalization by state bean counters in institutions of higher education in the West is only beginning, and we must all be fully armed for the assault. An Administrative Perspective (Skip Gillum) Several different methods of defining and measuring teaching work load have evolved in recent years and are well documented in the literature by such researchers as Harold E. Yuker in his work Faculty Workload: Research, Theory, and Interpretation. Some of these methods are as simple as reliance on assigned credit hours based on little or no real rationale (fifteen credit hours per semester). Schools relying on this method usually are operating under the belief that class size, type of instruction, discipline, or course type have little bearing on workload. This is the type of policy statement that Casper College had selectively enforced for over twenty years. Other schools use a slightly more sophisticated approach. In an attempt to measure faculty productivity, these Institutions calculate the number of credits a teacher is assigned and multiply those by the number of students in those classes and again multiply that number by the per credit tuition cost. The resulting figure is then compared to the faculty member's salary. If this method were used at Casper College, it would produce efficiency percentages for six individual instructors as follows. DISCIPLINE Criminal Justice Math Political Science Diesel Power English Music •Student Credit Hour *SCH 440 361 358 224 215 156 FULLTIME .565 .479 .432 .356 .259 .196 SCH 30 213 180 n/a 165 16 PARTTIME .524 1.812 1.950 n/a 1.420 .344 As you can see, instructors who teach classes with low enrollments do not fare well compared to instructors who traditionally have higher enrollments. Also, in looking at cost alone, part-time instructors appear more efficient than full-time instructors. Results like these can be used to argue for increasing 29 �the number of classes an instructor offers or the number of students in the class to bring them closer to the desired rating. They can also be used to argue for the use of more part-time faculty. Still other schools rely on a formula similar to the one outlined by G. H. Durham in his 1960 article "The Uses and Abuses of Faculty Load Data." Under this method of attempting to quantify teaching load, the total student credit hours for a department are divided by the number of full-time equivalent faculty in that department. The larger the resulting number, the more efficient the department. This method not only looks at entire departments instead of individual Instructors but it also allows for more meaningful comparisons across disciplines and also can be used to calculate the relative cost of departments on campus. This method has never been used at Casper College, but if it were it would reveal the following numbers for select departments. Math 480.2 Criminal Justice 387.1 Political Science 362.9 English 239.9 Diesel 210.4 Music 88.1 Again, it should be noted that departments with large classes or few faculty, or a combination of both, will appear to be the most efficient and productive departments. None of these models was used as the basis for the Casper College load policy. The policy was developed by a campus-wide faculty committee representing every academic division on campus: three academic deans were also members. The committee worked for approximately three-fourths of the 1988-1989 policy, one must be aware of the political climate that existed in the state and at the school at the time. Casper College receives over eighty percent of its 13.5 million dollar budget from the state legislature. Wyoming’s economy has been in a downward spiral since approximately 1983, with the legislature tightening its purse strings each year since, cutting the budgets of most agencies almost every subsequent year. A system of formula funding, now in its second year, was developed to more equitably disburse state funds to all seven community colleges. The main driving factor in the formula is full-time-equivalents (FTE’s). If institutions have any hope of maintaining or increasing their current level of funding, they must maintain or increase the number of full-time equivalent students at the school. Over eighty percent of Casper College's total budget is consumed by personnel costs, most of which are for full-time, benefited people. Casper College prides itself in relying on full-time faculty: we want to continue to avoid excessive use of part-time instructors. Budgets, funding formulas, and staffing practices all were factors the members of the load-policy committee members considered as they did their work. At the time the committee was developing the load policy, the new president initiated a participative management approach, a management style that for the first time allowed faculty input into college-wide decisions. As a result, the committee became aware of previous faculty load and overload pay variances, and they worked to offer a solution to that problem. Furthermore, they expected their work to be imple­ mented by the administration. By now. it should be obvious that the issue of what the English Department could have done to avoid the addition of the equivalent of one three-hour class to their load each year is not simple. It may have been beyond the control of the English Department to influence factors such as the following. 1. State-wide budget constraints 2. A system of formula funding, dependent on numbers of students 3. Discontent among faculty about who works hardest 4. School-wide reluctance to increase part-time faculty 5. Faculty committees feeling that they have the ability to influence policy, possibly for the first time in CC history 6. A previous policy that set one standard and select­ ively allowed some groups to openly violate it Casper College is an institution that strives to treat faculty equally, regardless of their teaching assignments. The college operates under a campus­ wide pay scale which is driven by the education and experience of the instructor, not the demands of the market for a particular discipline, nor merit. Casper College treats all faculty as equals with reference to the issue of rank: all are instructors. Almost all of the 157 contracted faculty are on tenure track or have already attained tenure. The attempt to standardize load was yet another example of an attempt to treat all people the same in determining the teaching segment of their load and in attempting to determine when overload compensation is warranted. Back to square one. Back to square one. Back to square one. Back to square one. academic year. Briefly stated, the policy they recom­ mended required either 15, 20. or 26.5 contact hours of teaching time per week each semester depending on whether the contact is through lecture, lecture/lab, or straight lab. It allows for overload compensation for activities beyond the "full-load," and it also allows for division chair discretion to lower or increase the teaching load 10% based on the presence or absence of other measurable criteria such as the number and difficulty of preps, the number of advisees, the number of committee assignments, and grading requirements, to give but a few examples. Implementation of this policy will result in the members of the English department assuming one additional three-hour class per year or working in the Writing Center for three hours per week one semester each year, or some other similar activity with actual student contact equal to three hours per week for one semester. To understand what the English Department could have done to avoid the impact caused by the new load 30 �2. Publish that information 3. Formally endorse the standards statement 4. Send the endorsement to the administrations of all schools in the Western Conference 5. Publish in the newsletter recommendations, the status of schools, as well as individual schools’ progress toward improving teaching conditions Where are we on the standards issue nationally? The CCC standards committee continues to work to implement the “Statement.” Currently they are gathering histories, case studies, and accounts of successful and unsuccessful strategies to implement policy. They plan to make political action packets available to individual schools trying to improve teaching conditions. We would like to see them also pursue steps two and three in the Wyoming Resolution asking CCC to establish grievance procedures and actions for noncompliance to standards. We believe that with all of our professional Where We Have Been. Now Where Are We Going? (Helon Raines) In concluding the panel presentations. I would like to add a few observations by looking at four questions on standards in the profession. Where are we going at Casper College? Where are we going in Wyoming? Where we we going in the region? Where are we going at the national level? First, as already stated, because of formula distribution of funds and issues of measurement and accountability, administrators at CC and other state schools see the need for campus-wide load policies. However, we must continue to look for ways to make the numbers work for us and for our students. In addition to the lessons we learned at the local level, which have been mentioned by the panelists, we also leeu’ned that, to maintain or improve loads, the Casper College English Department should have established its own written standards. Even if a department is unable to adhere to the written policy, and even if the rest of the campus has more exploitative workloads, the written statements can stand as an ideal towards which the department can aspire. However, in order to get a statement of policy, a department has to gather local history, local, state, and national data, and it has to gel administrators to examine that data rather than reviewing only the anecdotal information they gather from other administrators and other schools in the area. We also learned that getting a written departmental policy is not enough: in addition, we must conduct an ongoing education of administrators, faculty, staff, students, and the general public. We have to be prepared with arguments to counter those who say professional standards formulated by national or regional organizations are meaningless in community colleges. In order to educate others, faculty in English departments need to know what the standards issues are. and particularly they need to be clear in articulating how standards relate to excellence in teaching and learning and to the larger issues of literacy. Overall, we learned that we must be politically active. We learned that in this political struggle we need help from other colleges and even more support from professional organizations, at least in providing recommendations and endorsements of standards and in gathering current and accurate information about situations at two-year colleges. Where are we headed in the state of Wyoming? At a recent meeting of the Wyoming Association of Teachers of English, two-year schools formed a coalition of English departments, primarily to collect and publish data from local colleges, at least among ourselves. We also will consider either securing formal endorsement of the CCCC standards statement from WATE and from the Wyoming Coalition of Community Colleges or writing a similar statement for Wyoming schools. What can we do in regional organizations, specifically in the Western Conference? Those of us on this panel recommend that this group consider the following actions. 1. Gather data from member schools Casper College prides itself in relying on full-time faculty: we want to continue to avoid excessive use of part-time instructors. organizations working together we can educate accreditation agencies and the general public. In other words, we should use our networks, both formal and informal, to bring attention to the issues and to use all available means to pressure for compliance. Afterword The discussion following this panel resulted in the Western Conference voting to gather information on loads and conditions in Institutions throughout this region. We plan to publish that material when it is collected and summarized. As of February, 1991, the news from Casper College is not encouraging. The proposal to the Casper College Executive Committee, previously mentioned, was tabled and the issue went to the interim president. He sympathized and pledged support to lobby for more English faculty, but he refused to change the policy. We now are planning further Investigations into the load issue through the Wyoming Education Associa­ tion. We plan to request the local Affirmative Action Committee to look al departments across the curriculum in relation to gender, loads and salaries. We also will gather more information on teaching time, preparation time, and evaluation time in calculating loads in other departments at Casper College. Finally, we have an English Department committee to research and recommend ways to restructure our writing curriculum to develop a program that will allow students to continue to improve writing, communication, and critical thinking in our classes without further shortening the life expectancy of our English faculty. It is clear to us at Casper College, however, that whatever we do will be a diminution of the writing program. For self-preservation, we will have to cut writing in some way. thus watering down 31 �our overall curriculum. At this point then it seems we (temporarily) have lost the local battle. The outcome of the war will be determined only in the educational lives of our students. Raines, Helen. “Is There a Writing Program in This College? Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Two-Year Colleges Respond.” College Composition and Communication 41.2 (May. 1990): 151-163. “Teaching Writing in the Two Year Colleges.” Writing Program Administration. 12.1-2 (Fall/Winter 1988): 29-37. Robertson, Linda R., Sharon Crowley, and Frank Lentricchia. Opinion. "The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.” College.English 49 (March. 1987): 274-80. “Statement of Principles and Standards for the Post­ secondary Teaching of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 40 (October. 1989): 329-36. Yuker. Harold E. Faculty Workload: Research, Theory and Interpretation. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report No. 10. Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1984. 1-15. NOTES ‘The body of this article originally was a panel on standards in the profession at the first Western Conference for TwoYear Colleges in Salt Lake City, October. 1990. The article is intended as a case study of the struggle at one institution to maintain a twelve hour per semester teaching load for com­ position instructors. Because this article has been rewritten slightly to serve as a case study on load issues, we also have omitted comments by Ron Severson, University of Utah. ’See for instance Melon Raines. “Is There a Writing Program in This College?.” May. 1990. CCC. and “Admin­ istration by Representation" in Fall, 1989, Writing Program Administration. WORKS CITED In addition to its having been a panel presentation at the October conference, as Indicated in the body of the article, this paper has been sent as a case study to the standards committee of CCCC. and Is under review by the CCC Jonraal. Durham. G. H. “The Uses and Abuses of Faculty Load Data.” Cited in Faculty Workload: Research. Theory and Interpretation by Harold E. Yuker. 1960. 10. 32 � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Print magazine Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ideas Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1991 Description An account of the resource Taken from the publication, "Ideas 1991 is an anthology of selected writinngs by Faculty at Casper College. In preference to scholarly articles, the magazine presents those with broader appeal. The articles included were presented to organizations, published by journals, or submitted to other publications, with audiences outside of Casper; we print them here for college faculty and community members who are interested in the activities of the college campus. These works cover a narrow period, 1990 and 1991, and they are merely representative of faculty work, not comprehensive." Related materials include Casper College Public Relations Department photographs and Women's Studies Program records. An anticipated special collections accession of Jamie Ring's research on Captain Henry Blanchard Freeman may also be of interest to users of the archives. Faculty who submitted to this magazine include Jamie Ring, Nora Van Burgh, Dr. Floyd Kelly, Mike Kent, Carolyn Logan, Arlene Larson, Paul Marquard, Donna Davis, Dr. James Milek, Gary Donnelly, Dr. Lloyd Agte, Skip Gillum, Dr. Helon Raines, Jacqueline Valdez. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Casper College Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA_10.i.2025.01_Ideas_1991 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Extent The size or duration of the resource. 33 pages