The essence of university education University in Latin; universitas magistrorum et scholarium (community of teachers and scholars) refers to an institution in which divers opinions, ideals, and reasoning are aired in the Socratic method between colleagues for critique, assimilation, comparisons and judgments. This means that university is a place where open criticisms as well as strong, weak, interesting, absurd, pleasant and unpleasant opinions, different from our personal opinions and our faculty deliberations must come to play. Our ability to contain, entertain and tolerate these diversities make us mature for university education. But rather sadly, there many students in this institution whose physical ages makes them deserve university education but their psychological, emotional and mental faculties are still below primary school level studies. I understand and accept the fact that many people will not agree with my sharp and strong viewpoints on issues, nevertheless, that is not a license for any oppositionist to think of me as a chattel to please himself in acts of gross disrespect to my personality and dignity as a human being on any ground he holds. I do not need anyone to be convinced by my perspectives or support my arguments yet, my freedom of speech is guaranteed in the laws of this land on which I live and should not be seized from me. In order not to allow someone to question me the reason behind my scribbling of this lengthy script, I would like to state it emphatically in bold characters that I was displeased and grossly unhappy about the way some of my colleagues behaved in class which has repeated itself many times other than twice. Such behaviours I believe if tolerated would put the faith, dignity and reputation of the University of Tsukuba in Jeopardy and hence I have decided to take this issue up till the very last end. In a civilized society such as an academic discourse community, such behaviours are needless to be encouraged. It is disgusting, disgraceful and extremely abhorring to The acts henceforth I refer to; include my personal experiences in both the classroom and on open campus. These include individuals who have nothing to add to any academic discussion and debates simply because they have no idea of the discussions or because they cannot decipher the meaning of the issues on the discussion table. They are rather not good at keeping quiet but are excellent in heckling other students who make comments and contribute to fruitful class activities. These acts of heckling are as a result mere simplicity and ignorant sentimentalism. I take this opportunity to challenge such folks to make meaningful arguments in the classroom or if they please, accept a public debate in the central forecourts of the University for Us to showcase our academic capital and or liability for the university community to judge. I believe that this is the best ground for them to gain popularity. As I always put it, in the academic community, there are only two ways by which people gain popularity; some from great works and others from mere attacks on the diligent and honorable personalities and I believe these people belong to the latter. But, since reputation is not built in a day, I will seek redress to serve as a lesson for both our generation and for posterity. I want it to be vivid in the minds of comrades that I seek not to please my own egocentric gains but to make sure that justice is put forth when it deserves to be revoked. Not everyone can stand up to their rights but that does not call for such rights to be trampled upon. We cannot allow the academic tradition to be woefully shattered by some few cowards. I will end by apologizing to my lovely friend who advised me to forget about it and treat it as a mere issue for not heeding their admonition. I could not follow the popular chorus “let it go” because I am concerned about other people who might be affected by similar situations and I need to set a precedent. By: Adjepong Eric Kwarteng College of International Studies University of Tsukuba
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 23:26:12 +0000
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