Community colleges ban ‘threatening’ students

By William R. Toler

By next spring, prospective students could be shown the door instead of an open door at their local community college.

The NC Board of Community Colleges voted Friday to ban “threatening students” just weeks after a former community college student allegedly attempted to assasinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) at a public event.

Board members told News Carolina 14 that the policy has been in consideration for about a year.

The policy, although adopted, still has to before a rules commission before it can take effect…G-d help us if it does.

Observations of a returning student-Part 1

By William R. Toler

As I walk around campus, I take notice of all the changes that have occured at CCC since my departure in 2005. Some good…some not so much.

There are two new buildings, which I have seen on my visits to the college and am now starting to explore. The bookstore is now housed in the Business and Technolgy building, which also contains the computer labs and other classrooms that used to co-exist with the artsy folks in Orringer Hall. 

While I was dismayed about the decision to hand bookstore operations over to Follet  in 2005, I am pleased with the self-service of selecting your own books and the wide variety of college merchandise. 

Does CCC have double standard?

By William R. Toler

While walking around campus during registration week, a few things caught my eye that seemed to be contrary to college policies.

The first seemingly hypocritical display involves drugs. The Student Organization Handbook includes a prohibition on organizations promoting or impling the use of “alcohol, tobacco or other illegal substance[s].”　

While in the bookstore waiting to purchase my textbook, I noticed several DVDs in a display near the checkout counter. One of them was “PCU”, a comedy about political correctness run amuck on a college campus. The cover features actor Jeremy Piven in a pair of boxer shorts holding a beer mug. Near it was the stoner comedy “How High” starring rappers Redman and Method Man. According to an Amazon.com review, the movie is “destined to become a guilty pleasure of the cannabis crowd.”

Smoking ban leads to art censorship

By William R. Toler

In trying to keep in line with a tobacco-free policy, administrators at Craven Community College removed a decorated auto hood from the student center because it featured a caricature of auto-body instructor Bob Hall smoking a cigar in January, according to the New Bern Sun Journal.

The hood was airbrushed by students of the autobody program for Hall’s drag racing car. Hall told NewsChannel 12 that the students were disappointed. “They’re hurt,” he said, “because the students that worked on it wanted to show their project.”

In a standard public relations move, college flack Sandy Wall said that while the display was a postive project for the students, “I think the depiction of a faculty member or anyone else smoking sends a message that we don’t want to send.”

Less tar, less nicotine, less freedom

By Corey Friedman

Sometimes, explained Sigmund Freud, a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, it’s the First Amendment.

Craven Community College sneaked an unconstitutional prior restraint rule in its tobacco-free campus policy in spring 2009, and administrators appear unwilling to revise the problematic provision.

Included with the college’s ban on cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco on campus property is a declaration that student publications may not publish ads for tobacco products and student groups can’t accept money or gifts from tobacco companies. While this arrangement may sound palatable to some antismoking advocates, it violates students’ First Amendment right to free speech and free association.