The document discusses Curry College's mascot, a colonel. It notes that Curry is one of only five colleges left with a colonel mascot. It provides background on the mascot, noting its origins are unknown. Some students see the colonel apolitically as representing toughness, while a professor sees it as potentially representing the Confederacy due to the college's founder's background. The new director of the PAL program hopes to increase enrollment and better integrate PAL students into the general student body.
The Need For A More Dynamic and Ecological Assessment of Children Experiencing Barriers To Learning To Move Towards Inclusive Education A Summary of Results of The Daffodil Project PDF
The document discusses Curry College's mascot, a colonel. It notes that Curry is one of only five colleges left with a colonel mascot. It provides background on the mascot, noting its origins are unknown. Some students see the colonel apolitically as representing toughness, while a professor sees it as potentially representing the Confederacy due to the college's founder's background. The new director of the PAL program hopes to increase enrollment and better integrate PAL students into the general student body.
The document discusses Curry College's mascot, a colonel. It notes that Curry is one of only five colleges left with a colonel mascot. It provides background on the mascot, noting its origins are unknown. Some students see the colonel apolitically as representing toughness, while a professor sees it as potentially representing the Confederacy due to the college's founder's background. The new director of the PAL program hopes to increase enrollment and better integrate PAL students into the general student body.
The document discusses Curry College's mascot, a colonel. It notes that Curry is one of only five colleges left with a colonel mascot. It provides background on the mascot, noting its origins are unknown. Some students see the colonel apolitically as representing toughness, while a professor sees it as potentially representing the Confederacy due to the college's founder's background. The new director of the PAL program hopes to increase enrollment and better integrate PAL students into the general student body.
University of Mississippis mascot in April of this year. Since the 1930s, Ole Misss mascot was a Civil War-era military man of the Confederate south named Colonel Reb, but university oIfcials recently chose to sack him following complaints of racial insensitivity. As a result, Curry is now one oI only fve colleges/ universities in the country to have a Colonel as its mascot. The other schools are Centre College (Danville, Ky.), Eastern Kentucky University (Richmond, Ky.), Nicholls State University (Thibodaux, La.) and Wilkes University (Wilkes-Barre, Penn.). Curry professor Melissa Anyiwo, who teaches in the Politics and History Department, said the Colonel is an increasingly embattled mascot because of greater social awareness. Increased sensitivity about stereotypes prompted the NCAA in 2005 to ban sports teams from using American Indian mascots during any post-season tournament, deeming nicknames such as the Braves, Seminoles and Illini hostile and offensive. I was pretty shocked when I realized that Curry had a Confederate-looking colonel as its mascot, said Anyiwo, who leads various campus-wide diversity initiatives. But given that the North can more easily hide its legacy of anti-black atrocities behind its participation in the Civil War on the side of good, it is not surprising. It is not the colonel that is the issue, she added. It is the type of colonel, representing a defeated army of a temporary nation committed to the continuing enslavement of an entire race. That said, Anyiwo doesnt believe many students or faculty at Curry have given much thought to the potential meaning behind the schools mascot. They probably just see it as a colonel, she said. Curry librarian David Miller, who in recent years served as interim director of the library, said he has never discovered the origins of Currys mascot. Similarly, politics and history professor John Hill, who has been at Curry since 1969, said he did not know when the mascot came about or why. According to the colleges Web site, the schools founder, Samuel Silas Curry, grew up in eastern Tennessee during the Civil War. Silas Curry was also born into the rigors of farming life, including the diIfculties oI the four years of the Civil War, during which the armies of the North (to which East Tennessee remained loyal) and the South kept moving across the state, taking from the farm whatever they wanted, the site reads. Despite the mystery surrounding the origins of Currys mascot, some students view the Colonel apolitically, simply as a military man who represents toughness. I like the Colonel because its a little different, said Jimmy Mascioli, a sophomore criminal justice major. I think of the army colonel. Were here to battle. Daniel Freeman, a sophomore communication major, echoed Masciolos sentiment. I think its unique, said Freeman. I didnt know what a colonel was until I came here, and I think a unique mascot goes far. However, Freeman said if he could change something about the mascot, he would remove its purple uniform. I dont like the color, Freeman said. I prefer red and black. 4 THE CURRIER TIMES OCTOBER 2011 Curry one of only five colleges/universities left in the country with a Colonel mascot F i l e
P h o t o &XUU\VRIFLDOPDVFRWWKH&RORQHOEHDUVDVWULNLQJUHVHP- blance to the former mascot of the University of Mississippi, Colonel Reb. Ole Miss got rid of its far more serious looking mascot last year following complaints of racial insensitivity. Mascot Mystery Cullen Joins Curry Faculty as New PAL Director By Zachary Weiss Joseph Cullen is the new director of PAL, flling a position that has been empty for the last three years. Cullen comes to Curry from Appalachian State University in North Carolina, where he held various positions, including associate professor of special education and interim associate director of an institute focused on health and human services. Cullen holds a bachelors degree in sociology from the College of William and Mary in Virginia and a doctorate in special education from the University of Connecticut. He has worked in higher education since 1996, and had previously served as a psychologist in various public schools in Connecticut and Germany, as well as in private facilities for individuals with mental health issues. PAL, which stands for Program for Advancement of Learning, is among Currys most storied programs. Established in 1970, PAL is designed to provide academic support to students with language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, or behavioral disabilities, such as attention defcit disorder or attention defcit hyperactivity disorder. Such students apply to Curry through PAL and pay to receive, among other things, up to two hours a week of specialized tutoring in any subject. ZW: Why was the director of PAL position appealing to you? JC: Energy of the program. I felt very strongly that PAL was a place faculty cared about the students success. They understood students with learning disabilities and worked with the students challenges in their lives. ZW: What do you hope to accomplish as director? JC: I have two goals. One is to assure its sustainability in the short term. The numbers have been dropping, and we need to focus on how to stabilize student enrollment. Once we achieve that, then its time to think longer term. I want to see PAL reach out more to students with learning disabilities who are not serviced by PAL, and work more closely with the general Curry faculty. ZW: What are some of the strengths of PAL? JC: The strength of any program like PAL is its faculty. The faculty is committed, aware and they care about the students. The other strengths it has are its national history and tradition of assisting students with learning disabilities, long before any other program [did]. ZW: How can PAL help upperclassman more effectively? JC: I envision it as a transition program for students with learning disabilities to make the switch from high school to college liIe. College is the fnal rite of passage that you belong in a certain place in the world. It prepares you to be a knowledgeable, thoughtful person. ZW: How do you expect to compete with learning disability support programs from other colleges that dont cost anything? Currys program costs full-time students $6,550. JC: You have to compare PAL to other programs that are like PAL. Programs that are free do not offer the same regiment of services that PAL does. They are not staffed by faculty, but by learning specialists. You may not see the same person twice at other schools. It is set up more like [Currys Academic] Enrichment Center. ZW: Can you retain students through four years at Curry given the current price of PAL? JC: I think its a big nut for a parent to come up with $6,550 extra so their child can get the support they need. Having said that, it is about four times more expensive to educate a PAL student than it is to educate an ordinary student at Curry. ZW: Why is it more expensive to educate a PAL student? JC: Personnel costs are tremendously expensive. State universities succeed at keeping those costs low because they keep caseloads high and credentials low. You can work with someone with a bachelors degree, but with no specifc knowledge oI learning disabilities. Zachary Weiss was admitted to Curry through PAL, but is no longer involved with the program.
The Need For A More Dynamic and Ecological Assessment of Children Experiencing Barriers To Learning To Move Towards Inclusive Education A Summary of Results of The Daffodil Project PDF