Definitions of University and College Staff Members

Definitions of University and College Staff Members

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Please note that multiple definitions will be written for any one position. The reason being is there are more than one definition for each position.

Faculty
A) faculty, is a person who appears to have achieved an honest degree in some field and as such might be able to share that knowledge to a classroom of students. Part of the classroom process is the setting of standards for getting a grade of attainment.

Note: The faculty member is probably the key person to create any new passion in a student who does not come to a university already possessing a level of passion for a particular area of study. A faculty member that can achieve this remarkable metamorphosis in a student is an academic saint.

B ) Faculty can also mean someone who thinks he knows a lot more than he or she really does because that person possess a piece of paper that proves to some that he or she has gone through the doctorate process. Many faculty do have this problem. Some institutions are better than others at giving a doctoral degree meaning the paper means more when it comes from one institution compared to another.
C) Faculty is a person who can, at times, act arrogantly and childishly to a degree that is most surprising. The arrogance comes from achieving a doctorate degree and with that a look down the nose attitude toward anyone else not possessing that paper. Childishness stems from an expectation that preferential treatment should be granted from attaining the degree.
D) Faculty may be a person who achieved a degree out of a sub standard process. Some degrees are purchased. Some achieve a degree through correspondence course institutions. Some doctor degrees are partly awarded through the cheat mechanism of a “garage publication” where a “journal” is created for the express purpose of being listed as a publishing credit which is epected to be a positive measure of academic achievement. If the department, college and university does not check carefully that the publication is or is not a juried and legitimate, peer reviewed, publication then the faculty member may get away with this scam. There is a degree of cheating going on in the degree granting process. The “garage publication” is only one example.
E) Faculty of record is required to teach the classroom instruction and be available for office hours. For media type of instruction, it is often times a staff member, a technician or grad student, that will step in and teach when the instructor leaves or is not available. In some cases the staff member can instruct better than the instructor of record. Some times a child of a faculty member will instruct, get paid, but will not be the instructor of record, dad or mom is. The students attending these classes are most often times cheated when a child of the faculty member steps in to instruct.
F) Faculty is a person who can not do the tasks involved in a particular profession, so teaches others how to do them. A problem for education institutions is the faculty person who graduates with a doctorate with no real life experience. The person comes straight up and out the chain of education, and finishes with a doctorate degree with little or no practical work experience in the field. This path often times works well for research activity such as science. For media production classes this does not usually work out too well. Some universities hire part time faculty that do bring the missing component of real life lessons into the classroom. The pecking order puts the part time faculty below the level of the full time PHD. Another problem is that faculty meetings typically do not involve part time faculty so the PHD viewpoint, a self serving view, is all that is put forth unless the department chair takes action to present part time faculty input and give that input a sincere voice.
G) Part Time Faculty can be one of the following:

Often times the term “part time faculty” refers to an individual who has real world experience and is hired to enhance a department’s educational program. Often times these hires are a dice roll as to whether they do offer a benefit to the student. Being a good instructor comprises a number of factors and some people can walk in having what it takes while others don’t. Student evaluations typically identify the level of success or not. Those who do not measure up are not asked to return unless there is some hanky panky going on.

A new PHD, who is being exploited by being worked just under full time so benefits, do not have to be paid out might be considered a part time instructor. This saves the institution a lot of money. When this practice is carried out longer than a couple of years the situation becomes quite insulting to the faculty member and should be considered a moral and ethical black mark upon the institution to allow this practice to go forward and not award the person full time status.

Administrator
A) An administrator may be a person who is usually learning on the job. Being a good administrator is a darn hard job and few do it well. So, for this reason alone, most administrators are still learning if they have not reached their Peter Principal.
B) Administrator is a person too stupid to understand what is currently working well and leaves it alone but rather is motivated by some insecure self image and thus wants to make change to promote a better self image to their boss.
C) Resume Bumper. An administrator might be a person who failed at his or her job at another university and the people from that university will not indicate to anyone the errors and falsehoods on the candidates resume or past work performance when background checks are conducted by the new hiring university. Failure to share information with the hiring institution, about a candidate, is done so they can get rid of the SOB.

Note: There is a floating population of PHD’s that apply for jobs as administers. They float from one campus to the next. This group, one can put forth, may be considered at various level of being failures from holding previous campus administration positions. One would have to guess that these people have figured out that it takes about two years or more to be discovered as incompetent or lacking but can possibly profit from state retirement and Social Security benefits which are calculated from highest pay. Also, with each new successful employment a half intelligent person just might learn something new and achieve a threshold of competence with each new employment. Also, with any luck, they might last longer in their new position. This would be true if the campus administration is distracted or fails to care about a particular department or the staff are so intimidated so as to quash any up the chain reporting.

D) The Mouth. Some administrators got their job because they have orator skills with or without any supporting intellectual skills. Funny thing about humane beings, they are taken in by command of speech. Just look at our political leaders for this example. It does not matter much if the meaning of what they say does not make too much sense. We just tend to follow people that have a commanding voice. Just sit in a meeting with a group of administrators and try to pin the appropriate tag to each as to how they got the job and are keeping it.

Note: I attended a management training opportunity on our campus. We broke into small units, of about 5 to 8 people, to formulate a hypothetical policy. The group needed a scribe, someone to write up the results of what we decided. A woman, middle level administrator volunteered. She took our ideas and put a bureaucratic spin on the simple concepts we had agreed upon to such an extent that I could barely recognize our work. I sat back in utter amazement at her ability to completely take a simple idea and remove clarity and replace with an academic bovine spin. It did sound important and pumped up when she read it before the whole room of people, I felt she should find work at the IRS document section.


E) The 80% Solution. Some administrators can settle for a fair even good not great or best outcome. Compromise between what is best and what will get by is always a factor in our lives. It takes a savvy astute administrator to make the best decisions to achieve the best outcome. Some administrators will not revisit a problem but will use the words “ it works for me”. Some administrators get by, fly under the radar of detecting incompetence, this way.

F) Some administrators actually are positively functional for the institution by exhibiting many of the following traits.

  • Have an open door policy to better detect problems.

Remember that a boss is basically a troubleshooter and problem solver. A supervisor should know when and where the unit has a problem. If an administrator did not detect a problem that person failed, will be found out as having failed, and will be replaced.

  • Encourage communication. Communication is the main factor working for a university that is using the military model.
  • Value new and well thought out ideas and plans.
  • Level headed, meaning they don’t go off wasting resources and time.
  • Understands the mission of the work unit.
  • Have a good solid game plan for carrying out the mission and will not come up with a new plan if an old one works perfectly.
  • Do not dictate but bring in staff for collaborative meetings to address problems and find solutions.
  • Respect others and give credit for first, work performed above a set norm and second, for giving ideas toward fixing problems.
  • Are willing to work collaboratively with other departments and allow staff to independently collaborate outside the unit when it makes sense to do so.
  • Continually measure, as accurately as possible, the units performance and progress especially when implementing any new program.
  • Give direction and training to staff that need mentoring so that each staff member can reach a high level of productivity and professionalism.

President
A university president is the person who wears a number of hats. One hat is that of being a figure head an icon that stands in for what the university represents to the community, state and even to other nations. That means he or she will be seen as the embodiment of the university. Another hat is the necessary self promotion which is part of the image perversion where we humane’s tie a CEO reputation with the company reputation. As a result, this self promotion may seem at times to get more importance, take up more president’s time at the expense of wearing other hats. Gaining good press coverage is necessary as educational institutions are in competition with one another for students in general and high caliber student in particular. To survive, a university president must be seen as being an important force on the campus and in the community, even capable of creating change for the betterment of both groups. Another hat is chief administrator. Delegation is a necessary component of being a good administrator but not delegate too much and loose touch of what the campus is about is very important. Most important is making good solid department head hires and weeding out department heads that are not functioning at a high level of competence. Both are difficult to do as most department heads try hard to endure themselves at a personal level with the president. A president must be able to see through the bovine and weed out incompetence.

University presidents typically need to leave a legacy if they hold their job for some time. Typically this is a building with their name on it.

Provost
This is the head administrative officer of a college. While the president of the university is out looking for endowments this person is running the farm.

Dean
Dean is a necessary evil part of the educational bureaucracy. They claim to organize a number of academic departments under their control. If not held in check by a strong president, they can become a medieval lord. As a university power factor, they are evil because they add another layer to the step ladder of the power structure thereby making the front line more distant from the chief administrator. They will act in competition for resources, land and money to carve out their medieval fiefdom. Guess who pays for the 100 year old Scotch in their office, the tax payer. At this level of the ladder begins the legacy factor. A dean that holds his or her job for a long time begins to look around to find out ways to still be remembered long after they leave the university. I guess this is just another “all about me” ego thing.

Aside: The clash of these black wrap horned titans is one of the job perks the staff get to hear about from other staff members prior too and after meetings and during lunch breaks.

Associate Dean
Associate Dean is the bad cop, the henchman or women that does the dirty work for the dean. They can really muck things up when they are delegated power over media stemming from being incompetent in their knowledge of technology. Some associate deans hold very little power and are given very little responsibility while others are the Dick Chaney of the particular college, the power behind the throne. It is very smart to scope out who is the more powerful, the dean or associate dean before interfacing with either.

VP
Vice President’s typically parcel out the money and space. Space is power. Money is power. Just another level of the militaristic model that can degenerate into cronyism, favoritism and cherry wood paneling and over stuffed furniture for the feudal lords. Good VP’s are indispensable in the militaristic framework. When they are really good at what they do they move on to become presidents or otherwise move on for more benefits and pay at a “better” university.

DOD
Term: DOD stands for Director of Development. It is their task to go out and raise money. Problem is, many do not cover their salaries. Many are seat warmers. A good DOD that can work as a team player with staff can really help build out a media complex but few are allowed to do so by the dean.

Secretary
Secretarial staff, in many departments they serve the department chair primarily and the faculty. For the university, they offer continuity, institutional knowledge and may be the type of individual that cultivates friends in other departments for getting results and work around solutions. For the student, a good secretary can offer advice to the students as to how to get things done in the highly impersonal structured bureaucratic institution. This person can some times help a family make the necessary connections with department staff to take an inside look when touring the university. Typically the campus will have a campus tour office but that will only provide the overview look. A good department secretary will put a family in touch with the department chair person and other staff and even make arrangements for a production facility tour.

IT
Term: IT stands for Information Technology.

With the advent of the IT classification and if that department becomes an important component on a campus, which it should, usually results in an uplifting of respect of all of the technician classifications. This comes about out of a number of factors. One factor is no longer do the faculty and administrators only make up the command structure. The IT department puts in place a vertical pillar component of reporting responsibility into the campus flow chart. The departments and faculty and staff are told or dictated to by the IT department. This is how it is going to be they say and very few can go against their recommendations. The IT department on campus sets campus wide computer system criteria. The faculty can have input but any IT action must be sound, depending upon industry criteria not campus whims. Currently the IT staff get high pay and a very high pay range progression. The IT positions are partly based on certification and degree achievement. Many IT positions are paid at levels higher than tenured faculty. This is quite unfair to other technicians that hold high skill levels but are not recognized as being in fashion during this Internet and computers being vastly important in our lives. Some one should bring a class action lawsuit over this pay discrepancy. Reformulating the technician classifications in a state wide system can be quite expensive.

Equipment Technician
The full range of competence from sleeping on the job to guru and indispensable can be found on any campus. Their duties are typically to make sure the department equipment is fully functional. They are expected to design, fabricate, evaluate, purchase, install, test, and maintain. In some departments these people do the teaching when the instructor of record leaves the room. A big problem for media classes is that the instructor of record is only obligated to show up for classroom and office hours. This is an inherent deficiency of the university process where publishing and research carries weight and not teaching outside of the proscribed classroom times. Projects are typically required and a staff member some times steps in to teach and troubleshoot a project’s problems. In the areas of photography, graphics, video and IT, the staff often times are better instructors than the instructor of record but get no extra pay, another cause for a lawsuit.

Student
A) Student has a range of meanings. The faculty mail room is full of definitions, some are not suitable for print. Students obviously have varying level of competence or how well they are prepared to take and properly function in college. The range in competence, to some degree, fits with the rating of the institution. At the state college and university level they typically are not high achievers as compared with private institutions or highly rated public colleges. The better schools attract better students. The massive bulk of students come directly from high school. Most think a college is nothing more than getting away from mom and dad and attend the next level of schooling. Some students come to class with an immature attitude. They often times lack aggressiveness toward their education and lack passion for any subject. Some students attend college with poor writing and comprehension ability. There is a population of students that only want the degree and not the education that proceeds getting that paper.

B) Student when referring to an individual that did not go directly to college from high school but may have had a military career, worked a few years before going to college, is an older aged person, or anyone who has measured life after high school for a while, usually this person is an instructor’s delight. The motivation is there to learn and they are aggressive in wanting to learn more and beyond what the course offers. A student that does not come directly from high school should be considered as possibly being more mature and given some added points for acceptance into any university.

C) Student can be a continuum of passion. For example, in film production there is a range of understanding about film making. At one end is the state student who has very little knowledge of some famous film directors while at the private college like USC the students have such a passion for “their” art form that they can identify most if not all of the lesser known directors of film. Guess who wins the best jobs in Hollywood?

D) Just about any student can be a sleeper, a joker, a wild card individual that shows very little to the staff that they are above average and capable beyond being a Walmart greeter. For some unknown reason, every now and then a student pulls it all together at some point to excel in the real world. This is very unnerving for the staff because we can not predict this result. We do know that the just about any numbskull, we deal with, could be a star in a few years so we try to treat all students with respect and care.

Note: If you are a student who is not getting B grades or higher in (high school) college and obviously reading definition “D” above and dreaming that you will excel later in life, that you are this late bloomer category, think again. The time to excel is NOW, not later. Most of our teenagers put off everything, cleaning their room, doing their chores. Never dream of what will be later, get to work NOW, study hard, do the required readings in advance, do more than expected, prepare for every test well ahead, put together study groups and ask questions. Be aggressive toward your education. Lead the self disciplined life!

Is RTVF Better Suited For Trade School or College?

Is RTVF Better Suited For Trade School or College?

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An argument prevails that Radio TV and Film Departments brings down a “real” college reputation by being perceived as more suited for a junior college or trade school. Let us take a look at some of the issues and try to determine any possible resolution to this reoccurring debate.
First lets take a look at who is making the claim that RTVF is at the level of trade school to see if the people that talk down RTVF are doing so for personal gain or out of a rational concern to keep college level classes free from providing lower ranking trades school courses.

Keeper of the flame types do walk the campus halls looking to purify the college experience.   These types range from blatant self serving PHD’s looking to pump up the campus perception and thus their own to the ouside world.,  Some individuals thinks a college should emulate the Catholic priesthood and put to the flame any disbeliever who is perceived tarnishing the image.  Keeper of the flame individuals are all fluff and puff and RTVF is anything but that (FOX TV is the exception). The priest types love the academic regalia, the ivy on the walls, gargoyle on the roofs.   They do not understand and are aghast at seeing “On The Air” warning lights flashing over doors or red rotating lights on hallway ceilings throwing out apparent death rays of red sweeping beams of warning light in front of stage entrances. They don’t relate to technology very well and find it difficult to see how TV cameras, video tape recorders, character generators, teleprompters  properly fits in with white boards, text books and term papers.

Department heads and faculty from other departments might look upon RTVF departments as a treat and this attitude might lead to putting RTVF programs down when votes are cast for disbursement of money.   RTVF costs a lot of denar thus being perceived as taking more money out of the university family funds.  RTVF also, naturally, gets more publicity, naturally more attractive to young people, easily promoted in all the advertisement methods and thus becomes attractive, can be a vehicle for positive PR for the administration.   Other department heads might view the RTVF department as requiring more institutional support at the expense of all the other departments.

Second point, let us examine at a top down, god like view, of this discipline and pick out factors that support, on one hand trade school and on the other college level work as being better suited for RTVF.

When done well RTVF is an art form not unlike theater arts. Just look at the Emmy and Academy Award programs for proof of this point.

In TV and Video there is the concept of above and below the line. One could make the point that above the line is college level because this is where the decisions are made for show creation. Creativity has often times been accepted in colleges as important and sought after. Below the line might be at the trade school level courses because they are a more mechanical almost repetitious duty devoid of the creativity element (actually not true).

Electrical.
Lighting.
Camera.
Audio.

The problem with this division, above and below the line, is that some of what below the line people do comes close to being an art form. It is not uncommon to hear of a camera person, a lighting designer, an audio designer, getting recognition for achieving an artist level ability. An artist who creates with paint, chalk, pen, pencil etc, does not conceptualize a project and then tells another person how to put the art drawing together on a canvas. The artist conceptualizes the piece and then carries out the task to a finish. It is true that some artists, especially very famous ones do conceptualize and to some extent turn over a painting for the finish work but that is not the norm and most artists do all or most of the work themselves.  The RTVF programs, not always, but usually necessitate group effort art and the totality of that art comes from BOTH above the line and below the line efforts.

When a production works really well is when the team members come up with solutions that are unique to the production. In other words the crew pulls out of their knowledge pool what they think is the best solution for that particular script and what the director and producer want for a finished product. The lighting designer looks over the script and understands the mood of the show and thus how the lighting should be done to best propel that mood to the screen. The camera person during run through or blocking might suggest an arc, dolly or rack focus if the director is stuck with a blocking problem. The camera person’s framing, when done well is arty. The audio person might suggest a reverb on a microphone in one shot to enhance the suggestion that the shot takes place in a hard surfaced room such as a bathroom or prison cell. Talent is having a hard time reading the teleprompter script on a camera too far away. The teleprompter operator might increase font size as a solution. The video engineer picks up high white value from jewelry worn by talent and decided to send these into the camera clipping and not iris down and make the shot look poor. The point here is even though many of the crew positions are below the line supporting what the director and producer is doing, they work together as a team to make the whole, the production what it is. The director may take the credit for a good show but one must remember it was a collaborative effort. How does one dice up collaborative effort in a college course? How can you say that lighting, audio, camera, TD, teleprompter, CG is diminished or less in importance when they are all recipe ingredients for making a show.

Another reason that above and below the line utterly fails to offer any convenient demarcation between what is trade school and college work is that some of the above the line positions are filled from below the line people who moved up. The point being is that to attain above the line status one some times must start below the line. A very famous film director started out being a scene designer. Writers can become directors. Lighting people move to camera. Camera operators can become directors. Directors can become producers and visa versa. Electric can move to lighting. Carpenter can move to set design. Another point is that to get a position above the line one must work their way up from a lower position unless mom or dad have connections. There are exceptions to this pattern. Some individuals do take an immediate position into being a director or producer but this is construed by many as unfair and is often times comes about by cronyism.
The education process is one of learning and learning more gets you more and you have more to offer society if you have learned more and raised to a position that can offer more. It is a natural progression then to start with teaching below the line tasks and through this process of showing and teaching all the various tasks then introduce the above the line education. This is typically what most college departments do. They start out teaching the grunt work of audio, lighting, camera, TD, CG, teleprompter, floor manager, and then progress to scripting, blocking, directing, producing. This is a practical method for many reasons which why it is the model for instruction at most colleges. But one should realize that in this process of showing all the pieces of doing a production, we offer the student an insight to most of the jobs and some times a student discovers that he or she likes a particular job which is a wonderful celebratory event. From a god’s perspective it would be a shame if any student goes through life not fining the best occupation match.

An argument is often made by faculty that above the line training should include below the line training so a director or producer will better understand what is and is not possible. In other words what the crew is capable of performing or not is better detected. I do think that is a bit insulting that a director and producer can detect the level of competence of each crew position because it implies a very high level of understanding and competence in many areas. I am sure there are individuals that do have this level of knowledge but is this that important? I think this is a weak argument compared to the above points because in the motion picture and TV industry anything is possible now with digital technology.

A good home computer, high definition camera and added small pieces of equipment puts high quality video projects within easy reach of most everyone. This fact alone makes a case that very fewer people are necessary to put together a good creative product. But fewer people means that those same individuals must understand more of the total process, they work above and below the line, jumping back and forth when needed. The melding of tasks requires all tasks to be taught. A college can not, before and now, cherry pick what they courses they will offer. All the basics classes must be offered, if a college wants to stay relevant with the new personal high quality production capability we now enjoy.

Disney World, Florida, Internet Service.

Disney World, Florida, Internet Service.

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Disney World, Florida, Internet service, some notes.

I am about to tell you of a little trick. I do not guarantee this will work for you. I can only share with you a situation that we experienced.

Disney World in Florida at the time-share facilities offers Internet service as follows. The cost is about $9.95 for 24 hours contiguous. This means that as soon as you start the service the clock never stops until the 24 hours are up. If you shut down your laptop, the clock is still running. The service charges goes to the final bill for the room. It would be very wise to choose to start your Internet service at a time when you would get the maximum utilization out of it.

We could not find more than one Ethernet port in our apartment. We found our Ethernet wall port next to the kitchen, behind the dining room table along the wall in the bar section, while staying at Old Key West. In All Star Music, we found the port located on the desk in the form of a plastic box. Our apartment offered a single Ethernet cable. Make sure you leave that cable when you check out, as you will be billed for it if it is missing.

Getting the service turned on is quite clever and easy. Just plug your laptop into the room port using the Ethernet cable provided. Open a web browser and up pops a Disney offer to subscribe to the Internet. If the correct web page fails to open, close the Internet browser and then open it up again. You just might have to delete the previous chosen home page from your preference setup so your laptop will better find the Disney logon page. I did not have to do that but I did have to launch my browser twice to get one of my sessions started.

My research of Internet connectivity for the Disney resorts failed to answer all my questions. The Internet sites failed to tell me how the service worked. I decided to take a gamble and take with me, on this vacation, an Ethernet hub with support cables (one short from port to hub and two long cables from hub to laptops). One day on our vacation I decided to subscribe to Disney’s Internet service but before I did, I hooked up the hub to service my laptop and my son’s laptop. After I completed the subscription logon using my laptop, both my son and I experienced good Internet service on the two machines. We figured that this little trick saved us money and this trick rocks when you take into account that there was only one port implying only one computer normally could gain internet connectivity at a time. Evidently, the subscription opens the port to the room and not the individual computer. I just could not believe my luck. Thus, one can save money by hooking up a hub or switch to add service to more than one device from each wall port. Including a port, or switch into your luggage will increase space and weight. Try to find a small lightweight hub. When we returned home, we found that my luggage was over weight. At the Delta check in, I had to quickly move some items out of my suitcase and into my son’s case to avoid a $25 penalty charge for being over 50 pounds.

I do implore everyone not to hook up a wireless unit. That would only call attention to this opportunity to extract improved service and might move Disney to only provide service to individual computers. Let us all keep this little trick a secret – please.

Shootings at Virginia Tech.

Shootings at Virginia Tech.

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Reflection and comments on the shootings at Virginia Tech.

The horrific shootings that took place at Virginia Tech must be studied and some sense made of what happened, if at all possible, and then a progression toward preventing this from occurring again is called for. I have already heard it said that these events just happen and we can not preventing them. Even if that were true, I detest that line of reasoning as it stops all effort at us trying to find some solution. I scarcely have even a good collection of the facts but I have already come to some preliminary conclusions that might be totally off base but I think we need to throw into a pot all the ideas we can come up with and see which ones hold any merit. Here goes. I am trying to figure out why any young man or women would think to participate in any killing especially a mass killing. Let us assume that there was no brain tumor or chemical imbalance in the person but try to target the process, which the young person was brought up, raised just to see if there are any factors that contributed because if this is true, we as a society just might have some control. Here are the “facts” that I have been presented to me. Probably the statement that makes the most sense to me was someone said that the shooter “…was raised as a prince”. Another fact, this young man was a minority, Korean. His family apparently did not have a lot of money but he attended a university that had a lot of children from wealthy homes. He was away from his family and any support group that he might have had. He chose English instead of philosophy, sociology, or psychology, which would have been better choices for a troubled youth. He stalked women and took pictures at one event of the female students in a manner that was inappropriate. Very quickly I have put together the pieces like a puzzle, for me, in my mind, and have come to the following conclusions:

While you read this try to keep in mind and count all the alleged negative factors in this young man’s life. Raised like a prince denotes to me a spoiled child, possibly sheltered and given things that he wanted, maybe not that he earned. I would have to guess that this boy was not active as a younger child in groups such as Boy Scouts, team sports, youth groups, church groups, and summer camps. I have had experience watching boys attend a Boy Scout troop and have seen a couple of fathers intervene in their son’s lives to the extent that the boy is protected in two ways. First, the boy is shown special treatment that he did not deserve so he is thought he was special. Second, the boy is not allowed to get full and complete feedback from the other parents at boards of review and at other events. When parents live their children’s lives and other adults and children cannot file away at the rough edges, the socialization process might not be complete for that child. Parents need to get their children involved in a lot of social groups and only get involved in their child’s activities by taking the child too and from the event and only intervene is there is truly some wrong that has been done. And, otherwise, butt out of the group socializing process.

Troubled youth that have family lives that are troublesome, many times take up psychology in an effort to figure out their own problems in life and if they have been successful in doing so, finding answers to their own problems, they often times have a sensitivity and compassion for other individuals that are leading troubling lives. Sociology is a wonderful discipline to take in high school and college to help explain social interaction problems. For a young person who is trying to figure out what life is about might do well to take up philosophy. The shooter took up English, which for me was probably a self-expression medium for this young man. I would guess this young man needed to express his anger. At the same time he utterly failed to come to the realization that he had a problem that he had to address. That might indicate that his problem was very serious in that he did not see his own responsibility in the feelings that he held. If that is true, the boy was self-delusional and then society must intervene. It is my guess that he thought all his problems were coming from the people around him. Having a new peer group surrounding you and that peer group so socially successful, having good social skills when the shooter was a loner must have been a huge burden for the shooter to fathom, why he was so different and incapable. The shooter looked around him and the students he was immersed in were obviously on track for achieving good employment and had few real life worries. Schools are social gatherings for young people. Beginning with middle school the social skill interaction between boy and girl, generally, picks up. In high school the social interaction is obviously more developed and most families approve dating. The point I want to make is going to college thrusts a whole new collection of individuals together who do not know one another. If a young person does not have the social skills to interact by this level of schooling, it just might be too late. The best one can do is for the people around a shy, reclusive individual is to not force but confront by actively looking out and reaching out to entice the young person to come out of their shell and above all give that person a lot of social skill opportunities. We must become proactive and intervene some times in the lives of people around us. It takes some awareness of others and sensitivity and a lot of common sense to pull this off correctly. The last thing you want to do is try to draw a person out and they discover that is your intent. It must look to be genuine interest in the individual. That is my thoughts at this time. I cannot accept the viewpoint that we just sit by and wait for another event to occur.

All Star Music at Disney World in Florida.

All Star Music at Disney World in Florida.

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All Star Music, at Disney World in Florida (4-14-07)

This facility is not a time-share but cost per day facility and considered for people on a budget. The cost of our room during spring break of 07, considered high season was expensive at $265 a day for a “suite” (with tax, $299.45). This “suite” is listed as being able to sleep six. We had to move to this facility, our last day, to extend out vacation to ten days. I was somewhat happy we did to see the contrast in facilities and provide more information to you.

Outside view of All Star Music.

The facility did have a music theme but the overall impression was gaudy almost clashing building colors. It was like a child gone crazy with a paint set. The reception area, cafeteria, and most public spaces were harsh, fast food decor, nothing soft in the building presentation. Disney was not going to let you forget that you were in a budget facility because everywhere you looked it was not pleasing to the eye. This was definitely down scale from Old Key West.

Our luggage was waiting for us in our room, which was quite nice. We had five people in our party. Boy this “suite” was tight for this many people. I liken it to being on a cruse ship, that tight. My son remarked that while at Old Key West he liked just hanging out in our apartment and not rushing out to the amusement park areas. Here at All Star Music, I do not think anyone wanted to hang out in the “suite”.

Here is the list of the rooms in our “suite”.

Living room had a very small round table with two chairs. By small I mean two people can use it but no more. To continue, the living room has a large TV housed in a wood enclosure that took up way too much floor space. Disney needs to switch over to flat panel TV’s for these rooms to provide more space in this room. This living room has two sofas, two seats and a three seat, which can be extended out for the use as beds. The two-seat bed was good for one person sleeping and two-person sofa was good for two people sleeping. There was also a chair footstool, an ottoman that can be opened up for another single person bed. Problem is when the two sofas are extended where do you put the ottoman bed? We placed it in the short hallway connecting living room and the kitchen. With the beds extended out fully, the living room is pretty much toast for moving around.

Living room with three beds set up.

A separate bedroom was not very large. It was provided with a door from the rest of the “suite”. Mom and dad would certainly take that separate bedroom and the children would sleep in the fold out beds and ottoman in the living room. This separate bedroom had its own TV housed in a sort of dresser unit.

Separate bedroom.

Separate bedroom TV set and desk.

A small desk was to the side of the TV and there was a row of AC outlets provided, which was nice. This desk offered Internet for a cost of $9.95 for 24 hours contiguous use, meaning the clock ran, non-stop from when you started the service. It was quite easy to use this Internet service. All you had to do is plug an Ethernet cable from a small desk box to your laptop and then start up your computer and launch any web browser. A startup screen would present a Disney screen offering the Internet service for a fee. The bed would sleep two and at both sides are nightstands. Each stand had a lamp and one stand had an alarm clock.

One of the bathrooms.

There are two separate bathrooms next to one another. A sink is just outside of each bathroom and there is a curtain that can be drawn for a dressing area. There was a closet area in each bathroom. The vent fans for both bathrooms were quite noisy. To turn on the light in the bathroom would also turn on the vent fan. One had to practically climb over the toilet to get to the shower, a slight exaggeration.

We found that the air condition unit for our bedroom was not as quiet as we would prefer. The sounds from the other units around ours, we did not notice. We could hear people walking up and down the outside second floor balcony walkway but this was not bad just barely noticeable.

Unlike the Old Key West Resort rooms there were very few AC outlets. I had to move the night sand away from the wall to get to plug in my laptop computer. I would strongly suggest that you bring an AC outlet strip if you have any number of technology gadgets that need charging.

An alcove offered a pretty small and very limited kitchen for us. The coffee pot could provide only enough for two cups of coffee. The refrigerator was very small as was the microwave. Only two people could fit into the kitchen area at one time. Some basic utensils were provided. We especially appreciated the corkscrew.

Small kitchen area.

Kitchen area, picture two.

A major problem with this “suite” is there were only two areas that one could use, the living room area and the separate bedroom. A vacation consists of, I believe, being able to escape from other family members when one needs to. At the Old Key West Resort, I counted at least four separate areas for a person to choose and get away from the rest of the family. It appeared to me that most families used the large pool area as an escape from their ‘suite”.

Review conclusions: I am at a loss to figure out why Disney did not try to make this facility more visually and functionally pleasing. They seem to be using a device that fast food establishments use to move customers along, in and out, that being, loud obnoxious colors, huge boring wall surfaces and very little to no acoustical noise reduction treatment. I am guessing but this just might be a sophisticated marketing ploy to get families to sign up for time-share. It is all about money isn’t it for corporate America. Disney does not seem to care about their employees one bit, from conversations we had with employees during out stay, so keep that in mind when looking at the time-share program. Disney just might treat you the way it treats the people working for it. For us, the Disney time-share at Old Key West was at one end of the continuum and this facility was at the other end in a lot of ways. I think this facility is ok for young families that are raising children and are climbing up, hopefully, the ladder of success but cannot yet afford expensive resort prices. The time-share concept is one solution but I have yet to figure out if it makes sense for us and for whom else does it make sense? I would personally look to facilities outside of Disney property before you come here. Use the Internet to compare prices and then decide. If you do choose to come to Disney’s budget facilities, you do get a wonderful, “free” transportation system.

Tip: Once you are inside this park, no one will ask you where you are staying so you can use any Disney bus to take you from one park to another. If you even want to crash a resort, you probably could do so and no one would be the wiser. The resorts have a LOT more for you to do than just a pool.

Chef Mickey at Disney World, Florida.

Chef Mickey at Disney World, Florida.

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Chef Mickey at Disney World, Florida.

Here and at quite a few other restaurants at Disney World, Disney characters make a birthday a very enjoyable and special occasion for the birthday child. The Disney characters make the rounds going from table to table with particular attention paid to children celebrating their birthday. They show special attention toward birthday children like no other restaurant does. If your child has a birthday, this is a must attend restaurant. The Disney characters do a fantastic job. This restaurant does offer family photographs. For the adults, it is way more comfortable than Rainforest. Here is the meal review:

Main meal reviews:
Prime rib was dry, a bit tough and overall just fair.
Ribs were tender but had a slightly odd flavor.
Salmon had a good flavor.
Garlic mashed potatoes were a favorite, excellent flavor. I recommend that when you try these, you do not put any gravy on them but try a small amount to get a pure original flavor experience. The gravy only masks the flavor of this surprise dish.

For the desert reviews:
Mickey moose was very good.
Sugar free brownie was fair. For being free of sugar, I guess it was good.
Cheese cake, nothing special here.
They offer ice cream and devices for laying on top of your desert a whole lot of different sprinkles.

I do not normally mention servers unless they are above average. Melvin was an older gentleman who was excellent. He gave us very good advice throughout the meal.

As parents, we enjoyed this restaurant almost as much as our children.

I warmly recommend this restaurant for your birthday child. As for adult food quality, it was ok.