<p>According to the Washington Post, some students at the Santa Fe campus got together to criticize certain administrative actions at both campuses of the college. They started stjohnsforum.com, and multiple points of view are expressed on the forum. While all colleges have problems, this may give an insight into the particular problems present at this college.</p>
<p>thanks for the tip. It seems like most of these posts are concerning the annapolis campus. What is the santa fe campus like in comparison to annapolis. Are they having similar cocain investigations? how is drug use punished there?</p>
<p>At the beginning of the school year, the Santa Fe administration sent notices to all the students warning them that what happened in Annapolis (the cocaine investigation) could happen in Santa Fe. The school has gotten such bad press about the whole cocaine incident that I would hope that they do not try anything similar on the Santa Fe campus. The administrations of both campuses take a similar approach to drug use; there is a certain capriciousness about how drug use is punished. If the administration likes a student, they will frequently turn a blind eye to his drug use, even if it is substantial. On the other hand, if the administration does not like a student, they can kick a student out for a minor drug infraction. You just never know if you'll have to pay a fine, do community service, or get expelled. Despite the possibility of punishment, many students do use drugs. People say that marijuana is more common in Santa Fe and cocaine is more common in Annapolis. I don't know if this is accurate, but many Santa Fe students have smoked marijuana and eaten mushrooms; I know Santa Fe students who have used cocaine and LSD as well.</p>
<p>gulliver's posts are full of exaggeration and misrepresentation. The stjohnsforum.com website is almost entirely the work of one individual with a major ax to grind. Indeed, I suspect that "gulliver" is the same individual who, posting under the two screen names "tumnus" and "moderator" is responsible for 49 posts on the stjohnsforum.com site (as of now). Other posters on the site have only made 30 posts, most of them quite short.</p>
<p>The extent of the press the college received on the cocaine discipline was one Washington Post article, printed in the Anne Arundel section of the paper, which did not really cast the college in a bad light.</p>
<p>People going to college (whether St. John's or any other American college) should be aware that the drug and alcohol policies in effect on college campuses have been almost entirely mandated by the US Congress, and college administrations are not free to change them or to fail to enforce them. The consequence of a failure to institute the mandated policies or to enforce them is the loss of any federal funds given to the college. In the case of St. John's (and any other college) that would mean that students would not be eligible for federally guaranteed student loans, which would mean that the college would be forced to shut down.</p>
<p>The drug and alcohol policies at both St. John's campuses are clearly laid out in the student handbooks for the campuses. No college administrator wants to discipline students, and at St. John's -- given the smallness of the community -- this is even more so. Nevertheless, students are given adequate warning of the rules and the consequences of violating them, and if students are caught violating the rules they will be disciplined. This is equally true on both campuses, and no one should make a decision between Annapolis and Santa Fe on the basis of drug policy enforcement.</p>
<p>Finally, both student disciplinary matters and personnel matters are kept in strict confidence by St. John's College. This is so both as a matter of good policy and as a matter of law. The individual behind the stjohnsforum.com website has been recklessly publicizing the names of students who he claims were unfairly disciplined and former employees who he claims were terminated under bad circumstances. The college cannot respond to these allegations because it cannot comment on student discipline or personnel actions without violating the confidentiality of the individuals involved. It is almost certainly the case that not all of the individuals who are named on stjohnsforum.com have consented to have their privacy invaded in this manner. Because of the reckless disregard for the confidentiality of innocent third parties, any allegations contained on stjohnsforum.com should be utterly disregarded as baseless and motivated by animus.</p>
<p>Ptolemy has attacked me on both the Annapolis and Santa Fe threads, so I felt that it was appropriate to respond in both. I havent started a disinformation program. Ive stated my opinions on the college administration, and Ive repeated facts that are included on the forum. I know a fair amount about most of what is asserted on the forum; far from being exaggerations, if people knew many of the details, they would be even more shocked. All but two of the items mentioned on the forum refer to people involved who can be contacted easily to verify the claims. The former athletic director cannot be contacted on this matter, as he signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of the settlement of his lawsuit; the site does not mention where the information about him comes from. The site also does not mention who claims to have overheard the conversation between the psychiatrist and the assistant dean. Without such information, it is impossible for these claims to be verified; people have to decide for themselves whether to trust an anonymous source. Ptolemy says that the disregard for confidentiality proves that the charges are baseless. While the decision to publish names of people associated with alleged administration misconduct may or may not be misguided, it adds more weight to the charges truthfulness; it does not prove them untrue as ptolemy suggests. The decision not to publish the sources for these two stories suggests either that the forum does not recklessly publish every name available or that these stories are fictional. Based on my knowledge of some of the people involved, I believe the former, but I understand why others may not.</p>
<p>I did not design the website, so I cant comment on why the site has a look similar to the colleges website except to say that it is different enough and includes a disclaimer stating that it is not the official college website that I would think that people would be unlikely to be confused, although appollodorus did make the mistake of falsely believing the site to be the official forum of the college. It doesnt seem to me to be a valid argument that the style of the site proves its content false. People who disagree with its content use this as a way of attacking the site when they would really attack the site regardless of its style.</p>
<p>The Washington Post article says that several students put the site together; the one person known to be involved has been punished, so it is reasonable to assume that the others have good reason to keep their role secret, especially if they are current students at St. Johns. Fifty people have registered for the site; as registration is necessary only to post to the site, not to view the site, it is reasonable to assume that most of those who registered without leaving comments did so to express support for the site. There are a number of people who oppose administration policies but feel that the website is an inappropriate means of expressing discontent. Some have written letters to the administration; others publicly gripe about it; many others do nothing.</p>
<p>It is true, as ptolemy says, that the founders of St. Johns Forum have a major ax to grind. The actions of the St. Johns administration have nurtured resentment for such a long time in a sufficiently large number of students that it is inevitable that such resentment would ultimately spill out in public. It is worth noting that St. Johns Forum is not the first website to be critical of St. Johns, only the most prominent.</p>
<p>I have read the Washington Post article, and it is impossible to see how one can honestly say that it does not put the college in a bad light. Ptolemy implies that all American colleges have no choice in how they apply their drug policy. This is patently false. Some colleges aggressively enforce their anti-drug policy; in other colleges, illegal drug use is tolerated to a much higher extent. Three things make the St. Johns College drug probe so sinister: first, the college harshly interrogated students, many of whom never did drugs. The administration denies this in the Washington Post article, but there are many students in Annapolis who confirm that this is true. Second, the college delayed by a year the issuance of three seniors degrees. After working very hard for four years and paying the college an enormous amount of money, the college decided to hurt them for no apparent reason save for pure maliciousness. If the students have loans, they may spend years paying off their debt to the college. The college admits denying the seniors their hard-earned degrees, but gives no reason for this action save for an obligation to enforce their anti-drug policy. The college did not seem to feel that they owed these students anything. Third, the college seemingly haphazardly chose whom to punish and whom not to. When seniors complained in mass to alumni at Annapolis Homecoming about the cocaine investigation, Jeff Bishop, the Annapolis vice president, in clear violation of the students privacy rights that the administration claims to value, explained to alumni that the college only kicked out immature students. Jeff Bishop gave as an example students who talked during lecture. Many alumni were present when Jeff Bishop talked about this. While the administrations actions are shocking, I am not exaggerating, and I resent claims that I am doing so.</p>
<p>Ptolemy is correct that the forums contributors, especially the major contributor, are obsessed bloggers, and St. Johns is the object of their obsession. I was not denying this; I was only making an analogy between the forum and news media. When Woodward and Bernstein started out reporting on the Watergate scandal, many felt that they were obsessed with a story that wasnt there. The media considers the affairs of a small college to be largely beneath their attention. The internet is useful because no story is so small that someone is not interested in pursuing it. Many of the stories are presented on the forum in short bullet-like paragraphs, in which the facts are concisely presented.</p>
<p>While credits from St. Johns are transferable, private colleges generally have a two-year residency requirement. Even if a student has completed three years at St. Johns, he will still have to spend at least two years at the college he is transferring to. Most St. Johns classes have no parallel at other colleges, so they transfer as elective classes. A student will likely have to complete all the course work of a major (unless, perhaps, he chooses to study philosophy) as well as fulfilling the general education requirements (although another college may be willing to waive some or all of them). As many majors require basic classes to be completed as prerequisites before more advanced classes can be taken and sometimes at small colleges a necessary class is only offered once a year or (rarely) once every other year, a student may find it difficult, but not impossible, to complete a degree in many fields in two years.</p>
<p>I clearly have a great deal of affinity for the St. Johns Forum, which is why I thought it important to mention it here. While I believe there are some legitimate criticisms of the forum, I do not agree with those who claim that the college has no problems. I also believe that a wonderful educational opportunity exists at St. Johns College, and prospective students should carefully weigh the pros of the education against the cons of the current administration.</p>