Data Mining is “OK”
Facebook is easily the biggest social media platform that exists right now. With over a billion active users, Facebook blows its competition out of the water. Despite the fact that so many individuals use the app, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, has recently had to answer some questions for Congress at a Senate Judiciary Committee and Commerce Committee joint hearing concerning the privacy issues that Facebook users are subject to. While it is not necessarily new information that Facebook gathers data from its users, the extent of the data mining is actually very alarming. Not only is Facebook able to track what users do on the app, it is able to see what you do when you leave the website and go throughout your daily business on the internet. Although Facebook has been collecting user data since its inception in...
Read MoreKlingensmith named Interim VP and Dean of Students
Dan Klingensmith, professor of history and humanities division chair began the 2017-2018 school year thinking it would be similar to the 20 previous years he has been teaching here at Maryville College. As it turned out, this year has been anything but normal for Klingensmith. In October of last year, former Vice President and Dean of Students, Barbara Wells, announced her decision to retire following the 2018 spring semester. The news of Wells’s retirement was a surprise to many, but thankfully there was plenty of time between October and the end of the spring semester for a successor to be found. President Bogart explained that he would like to hire someone who has been tenured at the school for the interim position, enter Klingensmith. Klingensmith began the year with no expectations of leaving his job as a professor, in...
Read MoreMaryville College play to bring awareness to autism
Autism is extremely prevalent in the modern world. Recent studies show that as many as one out of every 68 Americans is on the autism spectrum. Despite the fact that there are so many individuals with autism, many people still do not fully understand autism. While neurotypical people may never understand what an individual diagnosed with autism deals with, Jennings Kelley’s senior project hopes to shine some light on just that. For her senior thesis project, Kelley is directing the play titled “The Other Room” by Ariana Blayde. “The Other Room” is a short play that was written in 2012 depicting an average day for Austin, a 16 year old with autism who has difficulty engaging in conversations with his peers. Kelley picked this play with the hope of showing just how important it is to get rid of...
Read MoreSports perspective: NFL players deserve more
The salaries of professional athletes is a bone of contention for many individuals. The NFL is no exception to this hot topic of debate. Although many NFL players are making millions of dollars a year, they are actually criminally underpaid, and actively being taken advantage of by team owners and NFL executives. This is due to the fact that NFL contracts are not guaranteed (something unheard of in every other professional league), NFL players have a shorter career span than all other professional athletes, and the team owners continuously take steps to make sure that the players’ contracts are voided (ie: trading the player or waiving him). NFL players have a lower average salary than players in the NHL, NBA, and MLB, despite the fact that the NFL brings in more money than all three of these organizations on...
Read More
Professor Scott Steele runs second Kiawah Island Marathon
Many of you may know Scott Steele as a freshman composition and speech professor or as an advisor. Steele graduated from Maryville College in 1990 and returned to the college to begin teaching in 2000. Since that time, he has been a trusted advisor to many students and a friend to many professors. Something that you might not know about Steele is that he is a two-time finisher of the Kiawah Island Marathon in Kiawah, South Carolina. “It’s because Kiawah is nice and flat,” he said with a laugh when asked why he chose to run both of his marathons in Kiawah. Steele began his journey to Kiawah long before the actual race, though. He first began thinking about running a marathon in 2013 while participating in Crossfit in Knoxville. He was a member of an endurance group within...
Read More