“We don’t have HBCU’s where I’m from so it is a new experience for me to go to a school where vast majorities of my classmates and professors look like me,” said junior Saundra Proctor a transfer from Pfeiffer University. “Shaw is a very different atmosphere for me.”
Students have returned to the atmosphere of Shaw University for the spring semester. The last semester ended with student led activities that were held in hopes that the university would make some positive changes throughout the campus and in the classrooms.
For some students, things at Shaw are not so different, though they were hoping it would be.
“It’s just plain sap,” said returning freshman Kennay Fleming about the classrooms and curriculum. “Shaw has not met my standards. In some of my classes the instructors have no control over rowdy students who disrupt the entire class. The instructors also shed little light on issued materials, and in one of my classes in particular, students outnumber the amount of chairs so people are standing up which adds to the disruption. It’s just sap.”
Fleming is not the only student noticing the relaxed ways in the classroom. According to transfer junior Octavia Trammell, the classes at Shaw are a lot more laid back in comparison to her previous school. Trammell, however, doesn’t mind the environment of her classes.
Other students don’t seem to mind the environment either and are even impressed thus far. According to junior KeyAuna Jenkins, assignments have not been numerous yet, but her instructors seem to be serious about classroom curriculum and decorum. Jenkins took a semester off during the fall of 2008 and states that things are “coming up in the classroom, or so it seems.”
What do you think about the classroom curriculum and decorum thus far? Share your thoughts with me via email at janelm.baxter@bears.shawu.edu.