| Wayland Baptist University — My Alma Mater. Where should I begin? Should I begin when I was trying to apply to this school and they kept losing my application, were very unprofessional and left my mother saying if it wasn’t her Alma Mater she wouldn’t want me attending? Or should I begin with when as an elected member of senate I tried to help a staff member out because there were some rumors going around about her that I thought were untrue and sponsored a resolution to let the truth be know and dissolve all rumors, only to be accused of calling her a thief causing my name to be tarnished to this day over a year and a half later? Or should I begin with the numerous times I have been compelled to yell at staff members in the various offices around campus because they were either incompetent, liars, or just generally screwing me? Maybe I should tell the story of Zach Crook and Jim Landtroop. I believe I will begin with the last straw, being screwed out of giving the graduation address. I believe this encompasses several of the before mentioned areas.
The senior class had a meeting where they were to decide on, among other things, who the graduation speaker would be. I had heard from several people that they wanted me to be speaker, and that they would nominate me at the meeting. When we got to the meeting the senior class advisor, Dean Tipton’s secretary Marilyn was acting very buddy buddy with a guy I had never seen before in my life. When it came time to decide who was going to be speaker, Richard the senior class president said that Seth wanted to be speaker, asked if anyone else did and started to move on. I said I wanted to be, and five other people vocalized that they wanted me to be the speaker as well. There were eleven people there. That meant when they voted, I would have won the vote. Remember the guy Marilyn was acting buddy buddy with, it was Seth. Seth Andrews. The name sounded familiar to me, because several times in the past few years when even I have been in a group of people that involved girls, we often times had to go out of our way to avoid him because they were uncomfortable around him for one reason or another. This is when it became apparent that Marilyn and Richard had promised Seth the speech and did not want me to do it, so they started to find ways to decide the speaker and make sure it wasn’t me. First, Marilyn said there would be a vote, but based on our speeches, and she wanted us to give them then. Obviously, I did not have a speech written because it was over a month away and they hadn’t decided on a speaker yet. Seth had a speech. But still guess who had to tell what there speech would be about first, me. Not only that I had to give my feelings about Wayland. I said I liked it, because as I said this incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and if it hadn’t have happened, I probably would have felt pride in the Wayland diploma I received today.
Anyway, after I said my sentiments about Wayland and what my speech would be like, Marilyn left the meeting, not asking Seth to give his speech (which he had in his hands) then came back and said Dean Tipton would hear both our speeches and he would make the decision. That would work with me. Then she gave me less than an hour to come in. So I left and went right to work writing the speech. I began talking about the degree of difference at Wayland, what it meant, and how the university went beyond that with personal care for the students and blah blah blah. Then I closed the speech by saying how we would make Wayland an ebenezer, a place that whenever we came by it it would remind us to stop and praise God for what he has done in our lives. It was the best piece of fiction I had ever written. As I was getting ready to go see Dean Tipton, one of my best friends called me and said that he had received a message from Marilyn not to come give the speech to Dean Tipton. Apparently, Marilyn did not know the difference between me and Zach Crook, but that still makes sense in this story, because he is hated around the staff for the exact same incident I am.
The next day Marilyn called me (after I wrote the speech, which I will say, was very good. I am not arrogant, I am just a good judge of my own writing. Heck, I have been a published writer ever since I was 14 and had an article published in Archie Comics. I am a mere few weeks away from having a novel distributed throughout three counties on two continents. I can write a good speech if I need to.) to tell me that I will not be allowed to give the speech because it was apparent by the fact that I did not have one prepared for the meeting that I didn’t care. I won’t lie to you, I yelled at her. I was so furious. It took everything I had to keep my language clean while talking to her and explaining how asinine it would be to expect someone to have a speech already written before he was even nominated to give it.
So they said they would have a vote for the speaker. The two times I tried to vote, however, they could not find the ballots to let me vote. On woman I know went to vote for me and before she could Marilyn told her all the reasons she should vote against me. Not the reasons why she should vote for Seth, why she should vote against me. To this day I was never told I was not the one giving the speech. I assumed I wasn’t because no one made me show it to them to have it preapproved (because I have never been allowed a microphone on stage at Harral without being threatened within an inch of my life and told they will not hesitate to jerk it out of my hands) and also, the fact that the speech has been given and I didn’t do it let me know that I was not the speaker. Was I given a fair shot at being the speaker? No. Should I have been the speaker? Yes. A majority of the people at the meeting where it was to be decided said they wanted me to speak. I should have.
Now I will explain why my name (along with Zach Crook’s) is Mudd around the staff at the school. Fall semester of 2004 I was in Senate and many people were concerned with what seemed to be misuse of funds coming from one organization, and many people asked Zach Crook and me to do something about it. We could not believe that the funds were really being misused to the extent that the allegations suggested, so together we penned a senate resolution to clear the water, and let it be known where the funds came from. Both of us honestly believed that there were no misused funds, and we thought that this resolution would clear up the issue. Before the bill even passed we were told that we had accused to very trustworthy women of stealing, and we apologized profusely and explained that was not our purpose, but it was no use. They didn’t believe us. To this day many many people on staff still tell me and Zach that they cannot believe what we did to (fill in the names) and how we are horrible people and so on and so forth. Last time I try to help someone out. I am convinced that this at least impart had to do with why I was not allowed to give the speech. It sounds ridiculous, but honestly, you do not understand the repercussions that Zach and I still face concerning this.
And I hate dealing with the offices at Wayland anyway. Just this week I had to deal with them twice. One time was because I had to get my ACT test scores sent to one of my teachers. I had asked them to do this for me over a month ago when it was due, but they didn’t. I went back and asked them to do it, and they said just leave my name and they would do it for me. I explained that I needed it right this second because I was graduating and my grades were due, and she blew me off. I asked if she could write them down for me and she said that it was illegal to give me my own grades. (But apparently it is legal for her to give them to one of my teachers that has no business having them.) All I needed her to do was write them down, and I could have told them to her, because I know them because it was the only standardized test I took and I only took it once and my memory is not that bad. 27, 28, 31, 34. Those were my scores. All I needed was for her to write them down or send them to my professor ASAP but she wouldn’t, and I could not afford to wait another month for her to get around to it again.
I went to my teacher to ask her what I needed to do, and before I even got to talk to her the lady I had talked to had already called her to tell on me for being mean. Grow up and do your job.
Then I went to the business office to pay off a library fine so I could get my diploma. But I knew I had a $99 credit in my account. I still had to pay the fine because financial aid had zeroed out my account. They felt that I didn’t need all the scholarships I was given, so they took away part of my Pioneer Scholarship to even it out. You had no right to do that. If you had to take away some of my scholarships, you should have taken it away from my BGCT scholarship, because I would rather them have the money back than you. They do a lot more useful things, and are way better stewards of their money. Next time before you zero out someone’s account to give yourself money, ask them who they would want to have it.
This is already way to long for a blog entry, so I will stop, but believe me, I have a lot more bitterness in me than I have spoken. However, you will never hear my say anything negative about the professors. Especially Dr. Don Cook, Dr. Arch Mayfield, Dr. Steven Michael, Dr. Glyndle Feagin, Dr. Gary Manning, Dr. Paul Sadler, Dr. Fred Meeks and Dr. Carolyn Ratcliffe. You would not believe the impact these eight people had on me. Having to do it all over again, I would because of what I have received from these people. |
