by Phil Campbell
hat started
out as a disagreement between a teacher and the nine students she failed
has exploded into a debate about the academic integrity of Shelby State
Community College's nursing program.
More bewildering than the controversy is the number of politicians who have gotten involved in the students' failure, including Governor Don Sundquist, Chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents Charles Smith, State Rep. and Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry, and five other local state representatives. Even U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. held a meeting with the angry pupils and called Shelby State President Floyd "Bud" Amann for details.
At
the time this story went to press, Amann said the situation was "in
flux." On Monday, he appeared determined to send a letter to the governor
and the state representatives promising changes in the school's nursing
program to help overworked students, but refusing to re-admit the students
who instigated the controversy.
On Tuesday morning, he told the Flyer that we would listen to proposed alternatives and expected a decision "shortly."
State Rep. Joe Towns, who says he speaks for the other five state legislators, accuses the school of conspiring to eliminate certain students before graduation, students whom the school thinks are doomed to fail the state nursing board exam. If the students don't graduate, the school can have a higher percentage of success stories, says Towns, who serves on the House of Representatives' education committee.
The school administration denies the charge, citing the need for academic standards and integrity as the reason for not re-admitting the students.
All of this has become a test for Amann, a white educator who left a similar position in Rochester, New York, less than a year ago to take the opening at the predominantly black Shelby State. Amann's selection as president was originally opposed by Maxine Smith, then the head of the local NAACP. In some quarters of the black community, Amann is still looked upon with some distrust.
Aware of his position, Amann is speaking delicately. He agrees that the amount of political interest in the matter is "unusual" and hastens to say that the issue is not racial.
Stronger opinions were left to Stephen Haley, the tenured faculty president.
"What we're trying to resist is, very clearly, political, external interference," Haley says.
It all began last semester, when nursing instructor Mary Vines failed nine students. For the students, it was the second course that they had failed, and, according to school policy, failing two courses results in an automatic expulsion. "These students were not just borderline failures. We're talking 40s and 50s [percent scores]," says Vines. Haley says that each of the nine students had taken five tests over the course of the semester and passed only two of the 45 tests taken.
Vines says only four students made appointments with her to discuss exam results, and one never showed up. They contested the exam results in writing. Vines says she responded, explaining that she would not change the grade on the multiple-choice tests. The students then took the issue through four layers of the school's academic bureaucracy, but Vines' grades were upheld each time.
The students, however, weren't through. A meeting was called on March 29th with faculty, administrators, and six black state representatives -- DeBerry, Towns, Ulysses Jones, Kathryn Bowers, Larry Miller, and Barbara Cooper. It lasted five hours.
The students also went to the media. "I know I didn't fail that class. I studied night and day," Jacquie Quinn told The Commercial Appeal. She told WREG-TV Channel 3 that she had never failed a class in her life. Quinn couldn't be reached, but her answering machine tells callers that they have reached the organization "Students for Justice."
With all this momentum behind them, the students managed to get a private meeting with the governor, who then had a private meeting with Amann and the chancellor. Haley says that Amann has since received a letter from Richard Rhoda, the vice chancellor for academic affairs, supporting Amann's decision not to re-admit the students.
The issue boils down to one thing, Towns says. Did Vines and other instructors deliberately try to weed out students by helping other students succeed and letting the rest falter, perhaps fail? He believes that the proof lies in a copy of a master exam that Vines, with the support of Amann, is not turning over. The students accuse the teacher of helping other students by giving out copies of the exam before it was administered.
It's a charge that Vines and Haley deny. "None of these accusations pan out whatsoever," Haley says. Towns remains unconvinced, particularly because Vines broke down and cried and asked for a lawyer when she refused to hand over the master exam for inspection. Vines compared the Good Friday meeting to a "reenactment of the crucifixion," and says she became nervous because the legislators were intimidating her.
As for the changes the nursing program plans to make, Amann says that will be made public soon. "It's been a pretty sticky issue, and I'm trying to address some long-standing issues," he says. "I think it took a while to develop these issues over time. We're just not going to turn this around on a dime." Amann said the changes would affect testing procedures, tutoring, and student-advising. For example, the two most difficult nursing classes are currently taught during the same semester. In the future, they'll be offered during different semesters.
It's unclear how the issue will resolve itself. Towns says the students have a lawyer, and that legal action is likely. For him, the issue comes down to the school's philosophy. "Nowhere in the system should you [expel students] for failing classes," Towns says. "Especially in a climate of welfare reform. We want people to make something of themselves."
State Rep. Ulysses Jones says it would be a "mistake" for Amann not to re-admit the students. He didn't rule out legislative action that would eliminate the problem once and for all. "I can't look upon Shelby State with a fair eye if they're going to tolerate things such as this," he says. "If these problems continue, if they think they have so much autonomy, that we can't question everything, then I don't think they need the [nursing] program."
by Phil Campbell
NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WHY THE crooks are doing it, but, suddenly, they're robbing banks again.
Bank robbery, romanticized for decades in Westerns and other Hollywood flicks, is a bad idea, though. With television cameras blanketing the bank branch inside and out, exploding dye packs ready to ruin the loot and robbers' bank-robbing attire, and every bank branch wired to alarm the cops immediately, you'd think the bandits would have given up by now, and gone back to sticking up unarmed train engineers or something a bit easier.
Bank robberies in Shelby County fluctuated between a high of 57 and a low of 30 from 1991 to 1995. Then they posted an almost 200 percent increase from 1995 to 1996, jumping from 31 robberies to 90, according to Willie Stewart, the spokesman for the new Safe Streets Task Force, which is composed of city, county, and federal law-enforcement officers who investigate bank and armored-car robberies.
A look at 1997 numbers shows a potential for an even greater increase. If things go at the same rate they are going now, by the end of the year there may be as many as 134 bank robberies, a 52 percent jump.
Bank officials don't like to discuss how much money they lose every year from robberies, and law-enforcement officials never disclose how much was taken at individual branches. That just encourages more incidents, they figure. Regardless, something has been inspiring the bad guys lately. A small network of marginal criminals, working in groups or on their own, have caused the largest increase in that type crime, Stewart says. Yet he says local law enforcement's apprehension rate is higher than the national apprehension rate, which stands at about 50 percent.
With the number of bank robberies on the rise everywhere, there's bound to be an increase in the number of unusual, even bizarre robbery incidents. So The Memphis Flyer has decided to ruthlessly steal information from the archives of The Commercial Appeal to compile a brief summary of the strangest bank heists in our area:
by Jacqueline Marino
LEGISLATION REQUIRING STATE prisoners to undergo mandatory HIV-testing upon entering state correctional facilities, and again upon release, is cruising through the House of Representatives.
Rep. Kathryn Bowers (D-Memphis), who is sponsoring the bill requiring HIV-testing of new inmates, says it has already been approved by the State and Local Government Committee and will be considered by the full House on Thursday.
"I'm concerned about the health of people in prison," Bowers says. "This provides an opportunity to determine if a person is HIV-positive and get them medication and early treatment."
Bowers' bill and a related one sponsored by Rep. John DeBerry (D-Memphis) have drawn criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union's Tennessee chapter.
"We are concerned when a facility tests in the beginning because we're not sure where that information goes," says Hedy Weinberg, ACLU-Tennessee's executive director. "What's the purpose? If it's to ensure quality medical treatment, that's wonderful. But when that information gets shared with people, then privacy is compromised,"
DeBerry's bill, which was also approved by the State and Local Government Committee last month, would require inmates to be tested for HIV before being released. Two amendments to the bill would allow for the test results to be shared with the inmate's spouse or steady sexual partner. DeBerry's legislation would also require the inmates to pay for the tests, which are estimated to cost between $3 and $7 each.
DeBerry's bill is scheduled to be considered by the Ways and Means Budget Subcommittee Wednesday.
Bowers says the legislation would not affect jail inmates unless they are awaiting placement in state facilities. Both representatives say they are concerned about the spread of HIV in the heterosexual community. In the March 27th issue of Tennessee Today, a daily report from Capitol Hill, DeBerry said he is concerned that male inmates will become infected in correctional facilities and spread the disease to their loved ones when they are released.
by Todd R. Wallack
FIRST, MICROSOFT CORP. CODE-named the next version of its Internet browser software "Memphis." Then, more than a thousand laptop-toting hackers dropped in at The Peabody last week for a low-key Internet conference. You might have noticed them lugging black computer cases on Beale Street.
But this was no ordinary computer fest. The Internet Engineering Task Force meeting is where some of the most intense programmers in the country get together to tinker with the Internet. They don't just work on Web sites. IETF participants write the underlying code that lets different breeds of computers talk to each other from across the globe. Some of them built the so-called information superhighway. Most of the rest are working on the next generation.
So, it's probably not surprising if some of them seem, well, fixated on technology.
Take the opening orientation. While giving an overview of the city, a speaker was quick to complain that the nearest Radio Shack was three miles away and closed on Sundays. But she nearly forgot to mention Graceland -- until a native set her straight.
Friday's sessions included workshops titled "TCP over Satellite," "IPNG," "Frame Relay Service MIB." Even some of the techies confessed it was over their heads.
Not that they weren't having fun. Late Wednesday night, a computer network manager from MIT was so excited that he rocked back and forth on his heels at the beginning of an IETF party.
Other highlights included:
Still, the IETFers weren't too busy staring at cathode ray tubes to notice The Peabody's traditional duck march.
In fact, the IETF persuaded the hotel employee who usually introduces the ducks to welcome the group's board of trustees. With the enthusiastic music blaring, he welcomed the "world-famous march of the IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group)."
The board members proudly entered in single file, wearing beaks and flapping their arms. You didn't even need a laptop to get the joke.
IF YOU WANT YOUR B.A.T., JUST CHECK your MTV.
The Memphis soul-funk group Big Ass Truck has become a staple of the music channel and its sister station MTV2 lately. The band's video for the song "Theem From" off their second CD Kent is in regular rotation on the nascent MTV2 and has also been featured on MTV's Sunday-night alternative-music show, 120 Minutes.
And this week you'll actually get to hear the Truck talk. Band members Steve Selvidge, Robby Grant, Colin Butler, Robert Barnett, and John Stubblefield were interviewed last week for a segment on MTV's new program Indie Outing, which spotlights independent labels and their bands. The B.A.T. interview will be part of a profile of their label, Boston-based Upstart Records. The episode of Indie Outing featuring B.A.T. premieres this Monday, April 21st, at noon and 7 p.m. CDT.