ESTABLISHED 1856
March 29, 2018
Vol. CXLV, No. 19
Future of Peer Counselors uncertain p. 3 NIKKI ANDERSON
Intro writing classes no longer require samples HELENA WINTERBOTTOM STAFF WRITER
KIM DAVIDSON
50 MVHS students participated in the national walkout commemorating the Parkland, Fla. shooting.
East Knox considers arming teachers; Mount Vernon won’t follow suit EMILY BIRNBAUM AND SOPHIE ALEXANDER NEWS EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER
The East Knox Board of Education passed a resolution this month that gives the superintendent the authority to allow staff members to carry weapons in school. The March 15 vote took place just over a month after 17 people were killed at a school shooting in Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 15. School districts nationwide are tackling the topic of guns in
schools following the March for Our Lives, a demonstration for gun control in Washington, D.C. attended by an estimated 800,000 people. Approximately 450 marches took place that day, putting the estimated participant total at 1.2 million. Mount Vernon City School District and East Knox Local School District, both of which are in Knox County, have engaged in conversations and actions in an effort to protect their students from gun violence, according to
district administrators. While Mount Vernon City School District has no plan to arm school staff, East Knox Local School District has taken steps to do so. East Knox Local School District East Knox Superintendent Steve Larcomb said the East Knox Board of Education has been considering a resolution to page 3
Starting next fall, students interested in creative writing courses will no longer be required to submit a writing sample to intro-level courses. Applications will still be required for 300-level courses. This decision occurs after an almost unanimous agreement from faculty after being proposed at a department meeting this semester. The English department hopes that this change will make Kenyon students feel as if there is no limitation on who is qualified to take introductory creative writing courses. After producing writers like Stephanie Danler and John Green, this is the first major change to the program since its introduction at Kenyon in the late 1980s. Members of the English department explained the reasoning behind the choice in interviews with the Collegian. Faculty members said the application requirement has potentially discouraged people in the past from pursuing a creative writing education. Mainly, professors feared that students may believe that their
level of experience would make them potentially weaker candidates for the program and discourage them from applying altogether. Emma McGorray ’18, a psychology and English double major with a creative writing emphasis, felt that the change makes sense. “People who are really interested in doing creative writing — it’s a way for them to get classes and then develop their writing skills without already having enough writing skills to get in the class in the first place,” she said. “So I think it makes it more fair to people who want to pursue it.” She added that a potential downside is students who really want to pursue creative writing not getting a spot during registration, but that is also the case for all intro-level classes. The general increase in class size from 12 to 15 students will also have an effect on how classes will be conducted. “It’s essentially adding an entire class to the previous count,” Richard L. Thomas Visiting Professor of Creative Writing Katharine Weber said. Professor Weber also noted that the additional spots may result in less writing being page 4
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