Corruption – it is a living organism at the heart of any political body, from the Capital, to a state, to a nation, to a city, to a university. In this case, the corruption is a program that takes the freedoms, money, and opportunity for the future from students, dressed in the guise of a rehabilitation program giving an alternative to misguided young adults.
The Back on Trac program is a program that is supposed to be designed to help students who have had run-ins with the law, usually relating to a drug problem or an incidence in which the student is at risk for drug problems.
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Through a series of interviews, The Rocky Mountain Collegian was able to speak to some students about their experience in the program and their feelings about it. To clarify, I was not at these interviews, nor do I have first-hand knowledge of the program.
These students were in the program for a variety of reasons, from claiming to be guilty by association to other incidents of confirmed interaction. While the reasons for their attendance may differ, there is one thing in common. Each of the individuals that was interviewed found the program to be an abuse of power, a detriment to their education and a scheme for more money.
To me, it seems that this program is simply a money ploy created by the university to gain more funding at the expense of the student body.
If the program were not in place, would there be negative effects? Yes, but you also have to consider that the program itself is going to be ruining these students’ chances at a higher education and a chance to further themselves academically.
In most cases these students are in the program as a required alternative to suspension. While I am not saying that the program has no redeeming qualities, and in some cases I am sure it helps, the way the program is purportedly working is interfering instead of helping students.
According to one source, the program made her grades drop due to her inability to attend classes, it took up all of her free time and cost her more than it gave back.
Again, do not misconstrue what I am saying. I am not saying that these students should be suspended, or that they should have no alternative than going directly into the state judicial system, but this program isn’t the answer.
Unlike in science, in the case of dealing with people’s lives, negative results are not results that can be settled on.
The system has allowed for mediocrity and corruption to affect the lives of students and to take away, in some cases unjustifiably, the chance at an education.
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So perhaps we need to consider this: the college as a community, is spending millions of dollars on various programs that are a frivolous waste of money. We are allowing the goals of the community to change away from the student body and towards a goal of sheer money making.
By doing this, we as a community are a part of a center for learning – something that should be an incorruptible establishment that goes beyond the bounds of the mediocrity of today’s society and the idiocy that governs this corrupt nation, and should be shaping the minds of the next generation. Instead we dump them into a program that puts forth the façade of care and concern and in reality is sucking them dry emotionally, monetarily, and educationally.
When the needs of the students are at risk, shouldn’t we be working on funding programs that will truly help the student body and the community as a whole?
Let us focus on making existing programs work, funded to the full extent that they need to be, and then we can deal with the money making aspect of bureaucracy. Create a new program, using the money from the unneeded programs, and take care of the students. Let us work towards a better, less corrupt society.
Isaac Morley is a sophomore business and English Education double major. In his free time he wonders what having free time is like. Follow him on Twitter @Isaac_Morley – letters, feedback, complaints and guest columns can be sent in to letters@collegian.com
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