After reading Compose, Design, Advocate excerpt 2, respond in a comment to the following prompts. Comments must be professional, thorough, and insightful to receive full credit.
- Look at Renee's letter to the Dean of Students on page 49. Imagine that you are the Dean, and you have decided to grant Renee's request for a late drop. Write one solid paragraph in response to her explaining why you have made this decision. Make reference to the material in her letter in your response.
- Now imagine that you are the Dean and you have decided to reject Renee's request for a late drop. Write one solid paragraph in response to her explaining why you have made this decision. Make reference to the material in her letter in your response.
- Look at Anne's process of developing a design plan on pages 52-54. Think of an instance when you had to produce an important piece of communication and describe your process of design. How did you manage your project? How did you formalize your goals and plans?
Reading response 2
1. Renee, After reading your letter and considering your request, I have decided to allow you to drop the course late. Because you have shown dedication to your intended career path and have done your best to find extra help in your english class, i will allow you to drop the english course only if you take it when you can devote more attention to it. You have shown me your priorities and i can understand how to some people different courses are given a higher priority. However, at this university, you must take an english course so i will only allow you to drop this course if you will sign up for it again with Professor Davidson next semester.
2. Renee, After reading your letter and considering your request, i have decided to not allow you drop your english course late. We establish a deadline for dropping a course to allow students to prioritize early and manage their schedules accordingly. Although you have shown commitment to finding extra help outside the class, you must learn to devote enough attention necessary to each class.
3. I can look back on one occasion that relates to the reading. This past summer at work i was put in charge of putting certain things on sale. I worked at Play it Again Sports, which is a used/new sporting goods store. Apart from determining the right prices at which to put different items, the job also required strong and effective advertising to let customers know that we are having a sale and which specific items are on sale and have the best value. In order to communicate with the customers, I knew i had to not only make a few colorful signs to put on the front door, but i also had to think about where else would be a good place to put signs to remind customers that we were having a sale.
I also had to let the customers know how good of a deal they were getting if they bought something that was on sale. Putting a sale sticker on something wasn't going to be enough. I realized that i had to put a burst or a sticker big enough to jump out at the customer and on the burst i would put the sale price, the percentage off the original price, and the original price to really give the customers a good idea of the value of the sale.
This communication with the customers was effective because i met the stores goals of getting rid of older inventory while still turning a profit and my goal of gaining respect in my job. In the end, it left me, my boss, and any customer who bought something on sale satisfied.
Response to Exerpt 2
1.Renee, you as well as many other students who have previously been very successful in high school sometimes find it difficult to manage the college work load. I have decided to grant you a late drop in your English class. Please make sure you attend and engage in both of the workshops you have signed up for. Study skills along with time management is key to a successful four years in college. If for any reason you find your second try with English is not working out, please make early use of the campus English tutors, they are very helpful. Good luck with the rest of your semester. Sincerely, Dean Meldrum.
2. Renee, I believe that learning the hard way is a very effective strategy which is why I have decided not to grant you a late drop in your English class. Continue to focus on Chemistry but also increase the amount of time and effort you put into your English class. Take advantage of the campus English tutors, even though there are not many weeks left in the semester you might still have a chance of pulling up your failing grade. It is only your first semester of college and you will have many chances to redeem yourself and your GPA. Sincerely, Dean Meldrum.
3. In my MIS 213 class last semester we had to set up a web page. This included not only writing the HTML for the page, but also deciding the content of the main page and all sub pages. This seemed to be a very overwhelming project and was in definite need of a design plan. First I made a list of all the major elements of the page (audience, content, number of sub pages and their content, html codes, design/look). Once I had everything in order theoretically, I started writing the html for the main page and then, as I added links to the sub pages, I wrote the html for the others. Finally when all the html was written I previewed the site and put it up on the server, but I definitely could not have made a web page with out a plan.
Response 2
Dear Renee,
After reviewing you letter and speaking to Professor Davidson, I have decided to grant your request of dropping ENG 1000. I understand that this is your first year at the University, which is one of the reasons why I am dropping this class for you. Do make a note that this is the first and last time that I will be dropping a class with a late withdrawal. I am glad to see that you have made many attempts at helping yourself for the next semester, but I would like to give you more advice while I have you attention. First of all, I can see that you are a hard worker and want to succeed, but you do not want to overwhelm yourself with school work. Pace yourself and take your time, the university is not going anywhere and we will always be here to help you.
Again I want to reinforce that this chance to redeem yourself will not be given again. Gook luck with the rest of your semester and the next year here at Calumet University.
Dear Renee,
After reviewing you letter and speaking to Professor Davidson, I have decided to reject your request of dropping ENG 1000. I understand that this is your first year at the University, which is one of the reasons why I am not dropping this class for you. Many students in their first year fail out of their classes because they are overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility that comes with attending a University. I am glad to see that you have learned your lesson about overloading yourself, and that is another reason I will be rejecting your request. Now do not get discourage about this, the University allows you to repeat two of you classes during attendance at Calumet University. Meaning you will be able to repeat the class with no consequences. I am glad to see that you have made many attempts at helping yourself for the next semester, but I would like to give you more advice while I have you attention. First of all, I can see that you are a hard worker and want to succeed, but you do not want to overwhelm yourself with school work. Pace yourself and take your time, the university is not going anywhere and we will always be here to help you. Gook luck with the rest of your semester and the next year here at Calumet University.
3) In one of my gateway courses in Communications, my group and I had to design an experiment (including an interview, data collection, analysis, a conclusion, and had to relate it to a theory and explain why it was related) This paper was 30 pages long of what we did, how we planned it out and what information we gained from this experiment. Because we planned it out so well and outlined the paper, we were more organized and got out what happened and how we analyzed our findings. Having a purpose and designing a strategy for the paper, the types of questions in our interview helped the group out tremendously. When we formalized our goals we did what we thought was important to backing up our theory.
Reading Response 2
1. Dear Renee,
After reviewing your letter, I have decided to allow you to drop your English class for this semester. I understand that your first semester in college may have overwhelmed you, especially after coming from a highschool where you did well in your English class. I also understand how difficult the transition to college can be. I am very impressed at your innitiative in signing up for the time management and study skills workshops. I hope you will acquire skills there that will help you next semester in your English and advanced Chemistry classes. Good luck in your pre-med studies.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
2. Dear Renee,
After reviewing your letter, I have decided not to allow you to drop your English class so late in the semester. I understand that your first semester may have been difficult and you may not have been as prepared as you should have been, however, I cannot allow every student who is failing a class at the end of the semester to simply drop the class and retake it. It is my hope, however, that you will benefit from the time management adn study skills workshops that you have signed up for and be prepared for the work that college demands.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
3. When I was in highschool, I had to help design flyers for our basketball team which I was also apart of. I did not really have a set of written down goals but I knew the overall idea was to inform people of our team and get more people to come to our games; so, in a since that was my purpose statement. My strategy in designing the flyer was to make it memorable, exciting , and informative by using WordArt, ClipArt, photos of the games, and some of the player's stats. I decided to do the flyer in mostly blue and gold since those were our school colors and because those colors really jump out at people. I then added a nice big picture of a jaguar (our school mascot) near the top so it would also catch the people's eyes. Then, I added some great pictures taken at a few of our games and a few nice fonts to the flyer. The only testing I did with the project was with the people I was working with. We all looked it over every time we added something to see if it all fit the way we wanted it to. In the end, the flyers were successful.
Laying out a design plan
1.)
Dear Renee,
Thank you for your recent inquiry about dropping the course. I appreciate the time you took in doing this because it is a serious request. As you know, I want to see all students succeed. I believe that dropping the course would benefit your success. I am happy to hear that you are taking time management and study skills next semester. Many freshmen come to college and do not realize the amount of work they have to put in and that they may need to change their study habits. I have decided to grant your request for late-drop in English 1000 section 2.
Best Regards,
Dean Gloria Meldrum
2.)
Dear Renee,
Thank you for your recent inquiry about dropping the course. At this time I have decided to reject your request to drop English 1000 section 2. College requires a lot of work and dedication. I am sure that you will continue to take a full load of courses, so it is important for you to learn how to manage your time so that you can succeed in all of your courses. I do not see it fit to allow students to drop after the deadline. The Learning Center’s Workshops are very effective in helping students with this type of problem.
Best Regards,
Dean Gloria Meldrum
3.) When I was applying for UNCW I chose to write an essay on how I had met some obstacles and goals and how that changed me. I had to write why UNCW would be a good school for me. My statement of purpose was that UNCW would help me further my education and that they had a strong psychology department. Then I was able to use a description of certain obstacles I was faced with and how I overcame them. I used an outline and wrote my major obstacles and then listed the details under each obstacle. I also elaborated on goals that I had placed and accomplished, followed by long term goals. I use a few paragraphs to describe how meeting goals and obstacles had changed my character. The medium I used was an organized essay. Then I had my parents and two instructors from CFCC read my essay to make sure I was communicating my purpose efficiently.
Reading Response 2
1) Renee, after careful consideration of your request I have decided to grant you a late withdrawal. I appreciate the professionalism that was displayed by your letter, it enabled me to see this request was was important to your academic career. Though you explained why you did not do well in the course you never gave an excuse for it, which shows responsibility. Not only did you explain yourself, but you made arrangements to attend workshops to improve your skills in the lacking areas. Thank you for consulting with your professor beforehand and having thought through everything, you left nothing for me to question.
2) Renee, after careful consideration of your request I have decided that a late withdrawal can not be granted. While you must insure that you do well in classes required for your major, it is no excuse to be lacking in your basic studies. I understand this will damage your record for future goals, but you had ample time withdraw from the course before the deadline. Mistakes are made by everyone and while I'm pleased to see you taking steps to improve your time management, I can not grant your request when others have not had the same luxury.
3) I volunteer for an area youth group and was asked in the past to find high school students that were willing to volunteer like me, but in different areas. My goal was to get five students to volunteer once a week, so I asked fifteen students to meet with me about it. I had to first, find a place where we could all gather together and where the students would feel comfortable. I decided that it would be nice to meet at a local coffee shop during the week, so they could feel relaxed. Then I put together packets that had sheets explaining the different areas of service and what would be required of them in those areas. I let the students look through the packets and pick the areas they were interested in. Once they had a basic understanding of their areas of interest, I allowed them to openly discuss in detail what serving in a specific area would be like. After the discussion they were able to give me their final decisions and I exceeded my expected volunteers but three.
Reading Response #2
1. Dear Renee, I am going to grant you your request for a late drop from your English class. After reviewing your letter I see that you are trying to improve your grade by taking tutoring sessions along with study skills and time management workshops. I hope you now realize that a college course is far different from a high school one and that it takes much more time and energy. I respect that you are this dedicated to your career path but you must remember that you cannot cruise through the rest of your courses just because you have no interest in them. Good luck with the rest of your semester. Sincerely, Dean Meldrum.
2. Dear Renee, I regret to inform you that I am revoking your request for a late drop from your English class. This may seem like a harsh decision, but I feel that this is the only way you will learn your lesson. You yourself said that you delayed doing work with hopes that you could catch up later because you could do so in high school. I hope you now realize that that is not the case. I am sorry that this lesson is coming at such a heavy cost to you, but you must learn the hard way. I admire that you are working hard to catch back up, and I know that that will help you in the future. Good luck with the rest of your semester. Sincerely, Dean Meldrum.
3. The first semester of my sophomore year I had to write a persuasive speech for my public speaking class. First I made a list of topics that I found interesting. I then narrowed that list down by researching the topics online and choose the one that I could find the most information on. I decided to do my speech on the benefits of milk in an athlete’s diet. I decided to begin my speech by telling my audience that I was a division one college athlete and I personally know the benefits of including milk and other dairy products in any diet. I categorized the rest of my speech into different sub topics (such as muscle recovery and increased metabolism) and wrote out as many pros for that topic that I could find. I then researched cons to those topics and decided to include the ones that I could prove to be false. I continued by listing other dairy products that could be used in place of milk but were equally beneficial. I finalized my project on a power point and added several funny pictures and videos to keep my audience interested. I practiced my speech multiple times before the actually presentation so I would thoroughly know the material and wouldn’t seem nervous. The speech went very well and the professor ended up giving me an A (and the class laughed at all my jokes).
Dean's Letters
1. Dear Renee, I have decided to grant your request to drop your English 1000, section 22 class, even though it is considered late. The reasons I have decided to allow it this time is because you have showed me you plan on doing better the next time around by signing up for two seperate classes that will make you stronger in studying and help you feel less stressed as new semesters come along. Also, by talking with your teacher instead of keeping him in the dark and by your willingness to speak with me about the matter you've shown me that even as a freshman, you've gained maturity through experience already. I wish you the best of luck throughout the rest of your college experience.
2. Dear Renee, I have decided to reject your wish to drop your English 1000, section 22 class. I understand that college was a shock to you, but it is the same for most freshman. There is a time period for everything in life and if you were failing English during the time that the dropping period was still an option, you should have let the class go then. I'm glad that you are taking classes to help pace yourself a little more and that you've realized that college is not the same as high school. Remember that in the semesters to come and hopefully your grades will reflect this learning experience.
3. In my psychopathology class my freshman year at UNCW we were able to do extra credit at the end of the class by watching a movie, then writing a 3 page paper on what psychological desease the character had. I watched 8 different movies, but my favorite was Girl Interupted. There were two characters in the movie with psychological deseases, and while one of them was a basic Borderline Personality Disorder, the other character was a Psychopath. Being that she had such a distinct and serious psychological desease, it also had different effects that can be treated. I researched all of the different deseases in all 8 movies and made outlines for every paper, detailing everything from the desease to the cure to the effects on the person diagnosed and the family and friends surrounding them.
Reading Response #2
Dear Renne,
After careful consideration I have decided to grant you a late drop out of your English 1000 class. I understand adjusting to college life can be difficult and take some time; however I will not be as lenient if this situation arises again. I am glad to see that you are using the college resources, and taking the time management and study skills workshops. There are also free on campus tutors that are available to help you anytime you feel you are falling behind. I understand you are majoring in pre-med, so you will put more effort into your science and math classes, but make sure you make it a priority to also put time and focus into all of your classes, and sign up for English 1000 again next semester.
Dean of Students
Dear Renne,
After careful consideration I have decided not to grant you a late drop out of your English 1000 class. I do understand that adjusting from high school to college can be a big change but, withdrawal dates are set for a reason. Try to use this experience as a lesson to put effort and time into all of your classes and get help early next time. Not only are there time management and study skills workshops available, but also free tutors that are there to help you at any time. It is still very early in your college career and I urge you not to get disappointed, because you will have time to make up for the consequences your failing grade had on your GPA.
Dean of Students
During this past summer I worked at the YMCA in the Childwatch. I was in charge of watching the member’s children while they worked out upstairs. I was asked to redo the room’s visual designs to make it not only educational and fun but also something that would distract the children so their parents could leave. I first set about by brainstorming what I should make (numbers, letters, shapes, colors, pictures, etc.). Then I tried to think of a way to design it by watching the children to see what entertained them most. Did they like colorful and complicated or basic? Then I asked other employees and parents what they thought of my ideas and asked for suggestions. In the end all the effort paid off and the project was much easier because I had an idea it mind and took the project step by step.
Reading Response 2
1.Dear Renee,
After reviewing your request, I have decided to grant you the late withdrawal from ENG1000. In your letter, you stated your struggle with the college adjustment and time-management. An essential key to a successful college career is learning time-management, and I trust that you have learned a different way to approach your studies next semester. I am pleased that you are signed up for classes at the Learning Center to help you with your struggles. Your initiative taken towards working with Learning Center shows your sincerity and seriousness about your academic path here at Calumet University. Good luck with the rest of the semester.
Sincerely, Dean Meldrum
2.Dear Renee,
I am sorry to inform you that your request for late withdrawal of ENG1000 has been denied. The withdrawal dates and deadlines have been established since the beginning of the school year. Unfortunately, if steps had made to request a withdrawal before the deadline, we could talk about your different options with this course. However, due to the fact that deadline has passed, all withdrawal requests will be denied. Like you, many first year students often find themselves overwhelmed with the adjustment to college life, academics, and expectations. I am pleased to see that you have taken initiative to work with the Learning Center. Learning to improve your time management and study skills will only make you a stronger student in the semesters to come. Good luck with the rest of the semester.
Sincerely, Dean Madam
3. For my final in ART220, a computer graphics class, a design plan was absolutely essential. The assignment was to create, design, and animate any virtual character we could dream up. Designing this character required a lot of brainstorming, research, and planning. My strengths in animation are creating with "cartoonish" characters- particularly animals. I knew I wanted to go more of a cartoon-route with my character, so I decided to create a cat. I had to pick narrow down an audience that this cat cartoon would specifically appeal to, so I picked kids ages 5-8. I researched several different cartoon styles that were popular among that age group, and picked out elements that made them successful. This age group really shifted the design elements to become more simple, playful, and kid-friendly. The design plan then geared the character to focus on using brighter colors in clothing, less detail in facial features, highly- animated facial expressions of the cat, and so on. Planning out all of the details was really important, especially with meeting a deadline.
Response #2
1.)
Dear Renee,
I am sorry to hear about the struggles you hvae encountered since your arrival. I am glad to see that you have already taken steps to improve your situation. For this reason, I have decided to grant your request for a late drop. Understandably, adjusting to a college workload can be stressful for many students despite previous success in highschool. I wish you all the best of luck as you pursue your goal of entering medical school.
Sincerely,
Dean Gloria Meldrum.
2.)
Dear Renee, I understand the challenges students in their first year of college face. Unfortunately it is the university's policy to limit late drops whenever possible. As an alternative, you may consider a withdrawal which will not affect your grade point average and will allow you to re-take the Professor Davidson's class. Though I do not recommend that any student accumulate more than three withdrawals, I feel that this is the best alternative for your situation.
I am pleased to see that you have already taken steps to ease your adjustment to campus life. In addition to the Time Management and Study skills workshops, the Learning Center also offers a free peer tutoring program called the "Write Place" which you may find helpful. You appear to be a dedicated student with a strong work ethic. I wish you all the best as you continue your college career.
Sincerely,
Dean Gloria Meldrum.
3.)
One of the most intricate pieces of communication that I’ve had to produce was my senior project in high school. My project consisted of writing a thesis, designing and building two fully functional costumes for the main character, organizing costumes for the rest of the cast, and compiling a portfolio that organized it all in a clear, succinct manner. I was fortunate to have a rubric to follow. This gave me the essential skeleton for the portfolio, but it did not have suggestions on how to organize the vast amounts of information and documentation needed.
In order to manage the list of costumes needed, I created spreadsheets organized by actors’ names that included character names, costumes for each scene as well as actors’ measurements. In addition I included the sketches for the main character’s costumes. For the medium, I chose to put each page of the portfolio (including the thesis and all documentation) into sheet protectors and secured it with a three ring binder. Because the project would be graded by a panel of judges, I created a table of contents for easy reference. I wrote a project proposal which is similar to a statement of purpose in that it acts as a plan for the project. However, the plan was sometimes adapted as new materials, such as the sketches and other documentary evidence, had to be incorporated. Throughout the project, my mentor checked over my work in order to test its quality and on the whole found it satisfactory.
Reading Response 2
1) Dear Renee,
I am writing this letter to inform you that your request for the late dropping of ENG 1000 has been accepted. You have presented a logical argument and listed several reasons that I feel warrant an exception to our recent hard policies on late drops. You are obviously are a student with the potential to succeed and have demonstrated dedication by attempting to improve yourself. Furthermore, you are also young and inexperienced in the college life as indicated by this semester being your first so this has been taken into account. Note that the university expects you to learn from this experience and not to repeat it as a second time will not be looked upon so favorably. You’re your recommendation from Professor Davidson, I can find little fault with giving you a second chance.
Dean Gloria Meldrum
Dean of Students
2) Dear Renee,
I am writing this letter to inform you that your request for the late dropping of ENG 1000 has been denied. The university has adopted a strict policy against late droppings past the deadline date. In the interest of equality, the university expects all of its students to be able to meet the same standards and expectations. As this is your first semester, your grade will more than likely be very affected by a failure in this course, however if Professor Davidson is right about your potential with course then you can simply take it again next semester and any better grade will replace the grade you had before in the course. The university understands that a great deal of its students will make mistakes such as these, but also expects those same students to be able to learn from said mistakes and remedy them. The Learning Center’s workshop is a great place to start and sounds like you are on the right track now.
Dean Gloria Meldrum
Dean of Students
3) I recently had to make a small paper of additional comments for my preliminary application to the US Naval Academy. In this paper I was allowed to describe events and awards of my life that are noteworthy in order to make myself more appealing to the admissions board. I compiled a short list from records that I have kept and took the ones involve traits of academics, physical fitness, and leadership such as my GPA and unofficial transcript along with activities on campus.
reading response 2
1.
Dear Renee,
After reviewing your letter and speaking with your English professor, I have decided to grant your request to drop your English class late. You seem driven to make the high grades necessary to be accepted into medical school, and I feel that it would be a waste of potential if your failure of this English class prevented your acceptance into medical school. I also spoke with Professor Davidson about your situation, and he stated that he felt you had the potential to do well in his class if you put more time and effort into it. I am pleased that you are taking the initiative to sign up for the Study Skills workshops that will help you learn better time management and study skills; I think they will certainly assist you both in the present and the future. I sincerely hope that dropping your English course and attending these workshops help you perform to your full potential in your other courses.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
2.
Dear Renee,
After reviewing your letter, I regret to inform you that I am denying your request to drop your English class late. I sympathize with the fact that you are putting a lot of time and effort into your Chemistry course in order to be accepted into medical school in the future. Unfortunately, many other student are going through similar situations in regard to adjusting to the college life and finding the necessity to improve their time management skills. I have the confidence that, as you adjust to college life, you will better learn how to manage your time, and I believe that you have the potential to be successful in both your Chemistry and English courses this semester. You also mentioned signing up for Study Skills workshops focusing on time management and study skills; I think this is a great idea and would certainly help you perform to your full potential in your courses both now and in the future.
Regards,
Dean Meldrum
3.
When I was applying to colleges my senior year in high school, the most important part for each application was the essay. Although each school had different prompts, there were common elements such as: Why do you want to attend this university? What do you have to contribute to our community? Where do you see yourself in the future? Essentially, I had to write an essay “advertising” myself to the university. My main goal was to highlight the “important” things I did in high school, such as playing sports, having a part-time job, and being in honors societies and clubs. I also had to give an idea of what I could contribute to the university community by getting involved with clubs and sports, and eventually graduating with some sort of degree. After getting those ideas onto paper, I drafted an essay, proofread, and revised it. I was successful in my goals and planning because I was accepted by several universities.
responds
1) Dear Renee,
I understand that the first year of college can be very difficult for new students, due to the drastic change in expectations and the way things are run. I am glad that you realize how many requests I receive from students that wish to drop classes when the load overwhelms them. However, I am very impressed that you took the initiative to do something about your situation in order to reach your full potential and that you went beyond expectations by signing up for workshops to prevent this problem from recurring. I have decided to grant you the late class drop for English, provided that you attend the workshops and retake the course as planned. I would still like for you to come in for the appointment we made so that we can discuss ways to prevent this problem from happening again.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
2)Dear Renee,
I am very impressed that you took the initiative to realize the problem and correct it, and also to prevent the problem from recurring in the future by signing up for time management and study skills workshops. However I feel it would do you no good in the long run to let you drop your English class so late because you did so poorly, no matter what the reason. I can see that you learned a good lesson concerning time management and understanding your limits, and I believe the next time you are faced with a similar decision, you will make the best choice you are able to because of this experience. I understand thoroughly that the first year of college can be daunting for new students, but all new students need to learn that exceptions will not always be made for those who make mistakes in the real world, and I feel that it is imperative you learn this early in life. I applaud your decision to sign up for workshops that will prevent this problem in the future, and your decision to retake the course so that you can do your best work in it. I wish you the best in your coming semester at the college.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
3)There was a time in middle school, during my 7th grade year, when the administration was considering suspending me for the rest of the year for fighting another girl in class. A meeting was set up between all my teachers, my parents, and myself so that I could defend my case and try to convince them to let me finish out the year. I am taking a public speaking course this semester at UNCW, and one of the first things our teacher explained to us was the importance of passion when you are communicating. Finishing out the year in middle school was very important to me, which made it easy for me to provide good reasons to be allowed to stay at the school. I sat down with my parents and discussed why they wanted me to be able to stay in school, why I wanted to stay in school, and what I could tell my teachers that would make them want me to stay in school. I made a list of reasons that I should finish the year of school that was in the best interests of everybody involved, and used the list when I was speaking to the group. I emphasized the fact that I had learned from the experience, that it would not happen again, and the importance of finishing the year in regards to what I wanted to do with my education after that year. When I presented all of this at the meeting, I was allowed to finish that year and continue the next year, going on to graduate from middle school and gaining alot of respect from my teachers.
Reading response #2
1. Dear Renee,
After careful consideration of your request I would like to inform you that I am going to allow you to drop your English. My decision is based on your professionalism. As the Dean of Students I am very pleased to see you accepting the fact that you could not handle the situation, and in this, finding a way to problem solve in an intelligent manner. Also, the Learning Center will be very rewarding to you especially as a first-year student.
Sincerely,
Dean Gloria Meldrum
2.Dear Renee,
After careful consideration of your request I am sorry to inform you that I am unable to allow you to drop you English class this late in the semester. As the Dean of students it is my responsibility to find solutions that students can learn and benefit from in the long term. You being a first-year student it is better to learn now than later. I hope you still decide to use our learning center and reap the rewards. I wish you the best of luck.
Sincerely,
Dean Gloria Meldrum
3. After looking at Anne's process of developing a design plan it reminded me a lot of my Communication classes. The main purpose of the classes were to find your specific purpose and then create a plan to affect your audience with the utmost clarity. Moreover, If you really find your specific purpose the execution of it will be the easy part.
Reading Response 2
1. Dear Renee,
After carefully reading your letter, I have decided to grant you your request and allow you to drop ENG 1000 with Professor Davidson. I understand that the transition from high school to college can very tough. I admire your determination to focus on your Chemistry course since you want to attend medical school, but you must learn to balance your time among your classes. I think you made a very wise decision when you enrolled in the time management course as well as the study skills class. This helped show me that you are serious about learning to manage your time and enrich your study habits. I am also glad to see that you spoke with Professor Davidson and that he is willing to work with you again in the future in hopes of bettering your grade. You sound like a very smart young lady and I hope you will do better when you re-take English next year. Good luck with your classes next semester.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
2. Dear Renee,
After thoroughly reading your letter, I must inform you that I have decided to deny your request. Being a freshman in college once myself I know firsthand about how demanding and stressful your first semester can be. I understand you wanted to focus more on chemistry because your want to attend medical school, but that’s no excuse for neglecting your other courses. If I were to allow you to drop ENG 1000, then I would have to do the same for every other student who asked. We have predetermined dates as to when you can drop/add courses and they must be enforced. A large part of the college transition is being able to manage your time. It is not fair to all the other students who had have been denied in the past and here at Calumet we treat everyone the same. Again I am sorry about your English course. I hope that the time management course you are taking next semester will prevent this from happening in the future. Good luck with your classes.
Sincerely,
Dean Meldrum
3. When I was a senior in high school I was required to do a semester long project on a topic of my choice, where I chose veterinary medicine. For this senior project I had to write an extensive research paper covering veterinary medicine (what it is, job opportunities and salaries, different fields, etc), complete 15 hours in the field of veterinary medicine, interview veterinarians and people in veterinary medicine, and at the end of the semester I had to make a presentation, of at least 10 minutes, of all the material with visual aid to a panel of judges. For my presentation I was told to imagine that the judges knew nothing about my topic and I had to teach them a basic overview of veterinary medicine so they understood it once I was finished. The first step in starting my project was to make a timeline so I could manage my time with the amount of work I had to do. I set dates that allowed me to see when each part of the project had to be completed so that I would be finished on time. The hardest part of the project was my presentation. I had to communicate with the judge’s well enough so that they understood veterinary medicine. In my presentation I gave a short, informative speech about veterinary medicine and used a scrapbook for visual aid. The scrapbook had pictures in it from when I worked at the veterinary hospital and pictures of all the different areas of the hospital (surgery room, x-ray, treatment, kennels, etc). This allowed the judge to see and visualize firsthand what it’s like to be a veterinary or work at a veterinary hospital. I also brought in a dog and showed the judges how to do a basic check-up on the dog like a veterinarian would.