Greetings-

A new election season is upon us at Madison College. We are tasked as Student Senate candidates to pick a topic and campaign. The topic is a variable from my honors literature review where my supervising professor misled me into believing I would get an “A” and was doing a fantastic job.

Then, she notified me she was stepping back halfway through the contract and began the broken record response communication style without the intent to show me how to finish the job she was tasked to do. I spoke up and spoke out for public comment at a Student Senate meeting, finished the paper I wanted to write and then, after taking a determined approach, overcame the impossibility of accepting an incomplete honors project and received an “A.”

Determination takes guts. No guts no glory. As your senator pledge, I have faced another unruly professor whom I shall bring forward to Student Senate again in the upcoming weeks to discuss shared governance policies regarding the poor leadership model my marketing professor demonstrates. The professor scoffs and laughs about past students and we need our administrators to act.

One of those administrators is Dr. Brian Short, who tolerates unruly proctoring methods and did so as the oversight of my honors literature review. For the upcoming election, I hope to restore civility on campus starting with the classroom through egomania awareness, which is a variable from my honors literature review inhibiting student veteran and servicemember success.

The VA teaches veterans we must quell and stop egomania from manifesting if we wish to live purposeful lives. Egomania is a sign of late-stage mental illness and untreated trauma. Sadly, those who manifest ego cannot see their wrongs. For this reason, many veterans lose the readjustment and reintegration fight who take their own life instead of facing stigma and accept help.

Madison College was the beacon seven years ago that opened its door to veterans like me, who receive treatment and stay in the fight. Some of us just go back to school to exercise our hard-earned benefit with no intention to pursue a doctorate degree and as a result, unruly professors make examples of us during lectures. I am one of many who enter the G.I. bill benefit system only to awaken to the reality disabled veterans cannot compete with traditional classed students in the job market and seek change.

Now, seven years after receiving Cognitive Processing Therapy and accepting help there is hope. Through my honors research gonzo diary method, the VA has received a new method to teach veterans how to develop their treatment into becoming an honors student and return them to their dignity and military mind, along with their moral compass.

The Madison College honors society tried to stop me and failed miserably. After staying in the fight, veterans now stand a chance to compete academically through this new self-monitoring method. Unfortunately, treatment only goes so far. Treatment does not protect us from those who have untreated egomania.

There is no victory for veterans with disabilities in the college classroom. Unruly professors are the barriers to our success. We must report them and call them out. I will as your Student Senate candidate. I plan to build a Survey Monkey qualitative panel and petition our administrators to act. We are a protected class and deserve to be treated fairly.

Sadly, treatment does not protect us from those who are predators in the veteran community we protected and defended and their labeling us in the college classroom as the problem. The problem is egomania, and I will not hesitate to distance myself from those who do not discipline their egomania manifestation to stay the course to treat my own. Recovery is a thankless job.

Having a grateful heart is a gift of God-reliance and thank God each day for my recovery from a hopeless state of mind and body through creative nonfiction writing, which helped stay the course and finish treatment as a result.

Outpost 422 will always be the student veteran and nontraditional free service for all who deal with unruly professors and their academic hazing. As your pledge to Student Senate, we will overcome the impossibility of nontraditional stigma and academic abuse.

Respectfully submitted,

###OP422