November Blog: Honors Olypics

 

Honor’s Olympics

    On Friday, November 18, Stockton’s Honors Program held the Honors Olympics in the I-wing gym. Upon entering the pizza filled gym, we were split into two teams and thrown onto the court for an intense game of knockout. The winner would be the team captain and choose their team. While I was knocked out after three rounds, it was an intense game. We crowned a victor, chose teams, and began.

    The first game was dodgeball. Foam balls were flying across the gymnasium and, in the end, my team won both rounds. We quickly moved on to volleyball with the score 3-0. We used a beach ball and mapped out the borders after much deliberation over the most appropriate bounds. They started with a classic basketball jump, and the other team got the first serve. The rules were simple — no out of bounds, no spiking. The rest was fair game. After thirty minutes of intense play, profanities, and dives we won, pushing us further into the lead.

    Finally, we moved onto the most intense game of all, the hulla hoop. Each team member held hands and attempted to get a hula hoop over their head, past their feet, and onto the next member. The team to drop the hoop on the floor first was the winner. We won the first round easily, however, we dropped the ball on the second, allowing team two their first victory. In the end, we were able to have a ton of fun and we won by a landslide.

 

-Eryn Swineford

Stockton Myths and Legends

 

Stockton Myths and Legends

Thursday, October 6th marked the beginning of University Weekend. Between movies, comedians, parades, and fairs, it was bound to be a busy few days. However, a small event on the crammed schedule caught my eye. Stockton Myths and Legends, hosted by Stockton alumni and staff. Unsure of what it could possibly be, I made my way to the event room. I grabbed a cannoli and sat down quickly in the second row, already late. Seated on the stage before me were people much older than me, talking to each other, fixing their microphones, and playing on their cellphones.

The host walked over to a separate podium and began to speak. He introduced his distinguished guests one by one. Stockton Myths and Legends, he explained, was an event where the first members of Stockton College’s pupils and professors met to speak about what the college was like when it’s doors first opened. One professor left great money in a well established school to teach a liberal arts education to students, he felt, needed it more. Another handed in her application simply because she needed a job.

They described the early days as a combined effort between students and staff to create an education they both agreed on, implementing unorthodox courses such as women’s sexuality, classes in which they created isolation chambers, and others which were extremely unordinary for the time. They created clubs left and right, and the professors even played football alongside their students. It was, as they saw, an opportunity to construct the kind of college they thought the world needed.

While all in attendance agreed that the Stockton they taught at was wonderful and unique, a distinct separation in opinion arose, those who felt the university had strayed from its original platform, and those who felt it was the same place it always was. The perennial optimist of the group argued that the alterations seen were necessary for the University to grow and spread its ideals; his counterpart maintained that Stockton changed for the worse and had already conformed too much.

I like to hope that Stockton is still the place that they called home all those years ago, but who am I to say? The event was hilarious, enlightening, and gave me a whole new love for my school. As I shuffled through the double doors, University Weekend t-shirt in hand, I decided I would certainly be attending next year’s event too.

 

Eryn Swineford

Presidential Debate

Eryn Swineford

 

Presidential Debate

    It was Monday, September 26th. I filed into the small room and glanced around, noticing that the room was much too small for the number of honors kids who pledged their attendance previously. I sat down, dismayed by the fact that we were told to arrive a full hour before the debate was to begin. The giant screen portrayed a panel of people, presumably speaking, however all i could hear was the noise of Stockton students conversing all at once. Food was shoved into our hands and presidential debate bingo. Second Amendment, national security, temperament, child care, all made appearances on the various boards passed about. By the end of the debate, 14 out of my 25 blocks would be filled. I passed the following hour drawing the exit in my notebook and drinking my complimentary Brisk tea as slowly as possible.

    Finally, silence fell and Lester Holt took the stage. He explained that the debate would be comprised of three sections, achieving prosperity, securing america, and america’s direction. After niceties were exchanged, Secretary Clinton, as Donald Trump took such pains to call her, was given the first question. She opened by thanking Hofstra University and diving into a deeply political answer to a seemingly simple question. Accusations were thrown mercilessly throughout the remainder of the debate, most hilariously that Trump “doesn’t do” bad commercials, when I had seen one a few days prior.

    Trump owned his aggressive business tactics and Hillary agreed that her email fiasco was a mistake, but at the end of the debate I could not have been more excited to leave. While it was obvious that Clinton had won, as she seemed extremely well prepared when compared to her republican counterpart, I was terribly disappointed. While I appreciated Stockton’s Political Engagement Project’s snacks and entertaining bingo, I had hoped to hear something new from our candidates. A definitive plan for the future. Something concrete other than lowering taxes and far fetched theories. As I pushed in my chair and shuffled through the double doors, I couldn’t shake the feeling that while I had heard both candidates speaking for an hour, very little had actually been said. Thankfully, I can hear our presidential candidates argue on national television twice more.