Welcome. We're about ready to get started. Of course, before we can get started, I have to graduate. Being allowed to graduate, as you may realize, is one of the most important steps in graduating, and it's one that I thought I had achieved.
Here's the story: my freshman year, which I spent at UMKC, we were required to take a class called Arts and Sciences 100, which was essentially a college orientation course dealing with time management, study skills, bullshit bullshit, etc. I didn't want to take it, but I was required...so be it.
Sophomore year I come to KU. My credits are all wonky, but at least they're counting for SOMEthing (which I would later rectify to their proper equivalents)...all but one class. Arts and Sciences 100. Those credits are unceremoniously canceled. Whatever, I say at the time.
Flash to this year. I look at my credits and realize that, when all is said and done, I will come up exactly 2 credits short of the number I need to graduate. At the same time, I find out that there is a class offered at KU called PRE 101 which is basically the exact same thing as the class I took. How do I know this? On top of knowing two people who actually taught the course, I took the syllabi to the Director of the program here at KU, Dr. Mary Ann Rasnak, who reviewed my claim and signed off on the fact that, indeed, the classes were identical and should be counted for credit.
I went through the process of getting my appeal together with the syllabi, the written claim from Dr. Rasnak, the personal statement on why the credits should be reinstated...and turned all of this in in mid-February.
And then I waited.
And then I waited.
And then I heard nothing. I went ahead and applied for graduation, got my Major Certification Form filled out and started making plans for the new life/show (officially titled The Amusement of Others now), and was sporadically in contact with my graduation advisor, who informed me that my petition for credit wouldn't even be going in front of the committee until APRIL 15. That's just about a 2 month delay, for those of you keeping track.
April 15 comes and goes. I hear nothing. I e-mail my advisor, asking when I might be hearing. She informs me that the woman should be getting in touch with me with the decision from the board. Another week goes by. I decide to try and get in contact with this person directly, through phone...through e-mail...even by visiting her office and being denied the chance to see her. A few days later (this would be yesterday), I get notice that the credit appeal has been denied.
I'm left waiting more than two months, as I start making other plans to move on with my life, for them to tell me that they're denying me the two ELECTIVE CREDITS (not major credits, not gen ed credits) that I need to graduate. It wasn't enough that the director of the actual academic program here at KU said that I deserve credit...apparently, whoever is on the Academic Standards Subcommittee (and I've tried to find out who they are, but, of course, their names aren't listed) are better judges than the people who actually run the class.
So now I'm left in a bit of a spot. This all strikes me as an attempt to suck a few hundred more dollars out of me before they give me the stupid piece of paper that I've worked towards for the last 4 years, and I'm not standing for it. I've moved on with my life, and I am not going to take more classes at this University.
It's a very difficult thing to demonize this school right now, on the heels of the National Championship or whatever. I don't care about the athletics of this school, I care about the academics, and I have fulfilled my obligations to this University...whether it's through my schoolwork or my involvement as an organizational leader on campus.
This is a slap in the face, and I am going to spend the next week or two (the small amount of time I was given between the time that they chose to finally inform me and the time I would technically graduate) to rally all of the contacts that I have built up over the last 3 years and find out how I can overturn this decision.
You're not getting any more money from me, KU. And you're never getting my respect now. I don't care how well you can toss a basketball.
Soon: Back to the actual show, with a preview of everything that one needs to do to properly reinvent their lives.
