Yowza! This first-person piece, by a St. Petersburg Times columnist, is painstakingly blunt. It's a chronicle of Bill Maxwell's brief stint, as a journalism prof, at a historically black college in Alabama.
While he does have words of admiration for the heroic students he encounters, the experience totally burned him out and caused him to second-guess educational schemes like "open admissions."*
Mr. Maxwell writes: "A number of students had criminal records, and others were awaiting trial on criminal charges. Stillman accepted them because they could not attend college anywhere else.
Terry Lee Brock, a 41-year-old freshman, was shot several times by a woman around 2 one morning in early February in front of the Night Stalker's Lounge. He died a short time later at the hospital. His trial for rape had been scheduled to begin the following week.
I did not learn until after his death that many of our female students were afraid of Terry. At least two told me they had complained to college officials that an alleged rapist was allowed on campus. ... we had students such as Terry who had no business being on a college campus ... "
Before he left his writing gig to teach, Bill Maxwell's employer wrote this optimistic farewell.
*If you're interested in learning more about open admissions, you may want to check out Herman Badillo's book - One Nation, One Standard. In his polemic, he discusses what a disaster the policy has been for City University of New York.