1-“Professor Anne O’Dwyer taught me about cognitive dissonance – the psychological discomfort which occurs when you’re confronted with a set of facts suggesting that what you’re doing or believing is irrational or stupid. You pay $10 to go to a movie, and the movie is pretty bad. But rather than admit that you wasted $10, there’s a tendency to say it isn’t wasn’t really so bad: the acting was impressive, the special effects looked really realistic – whatever you need to tell yourself to convince yourself that you got your money’s worth. You want to feel like you’re not a sucker. We paper over the cognitive dissonance in much of what we do – the fact that this clearly isn’t the best way to be ordering a society, to be living a life – because we’ve got an awful lot invested in the route we’ve been pursuing. To admit that it’s flawed would be too much dissonance to handle.” Pick an issue which you believe the media has “papered over”. Describe how you figured out you were not getting the whole truth. What was the more complex truth & why was it hidden (or more important who benefits from the partial truth & who loses? )What is the cost to you and what can you do about it?
2011.A.5.O Tobacco Free Campus The use of tobacco and all smoking products is not permitted on any university-owned property, which includes but is not limited to, buildings, university grounds, parking areas, walkways, recreational and sporting facilities and university-owned vehicles.
Tobacco use by definition includes the possession of any lighted tobacco products, or the use of any type of smokeless tobacco.
– The new smoking policy on campus has been “papered over”. I believe there is a further reason to why they made this policy and they are just not telling us. A lot of student and faculty members smoke. Faculty members do not have long enough breaks to go off campus for a cigarette, and neither do students who have fifteen minutes in between classes. As a smoker, a student, and a resident of UMO, this is a big issue for me. Why should people that do not even live on campus have a say in this whatsoever? Better yet, how does the University have the power to ban something completely legal on government grounds and a place where a pay a lot of money to live, eat, and attend class. Also, if you get caught smoking a cigarette on campus, you get a lovely fine and get referred to student affairs for Drugs and Alcohol. Is it fair they treat smokers like criminals? Isn’t smoking legal? It was when I applied and got accepted here. I think our campus is doing this to make them look better, just like the green campus initiative.
2-In what way have you been encouraged to “sit back, relax, and enjoy the show” and how can you “grab the steering wheel before we go over the edge”?
– With the new policy in effect, we are encouraged to sit back and take it. When I returned from break, I noticed they cut down all of the branches on a pine tree where smokers would go to smoke. We use to be hidden and not disturbing people because we were out of the way. Apparently they found the need to chop off all the branches exposing whoever tries to light a cigarette. However, I dug into this a little deeper and found out there is a huge issue with destroying or modifying things like trees on campus. This must have been a huge process with a lot of people agreeing to execute this discussion. For having a green campus, I did not know destroying trees to keep smokers away was green thinking.
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