Arts & Life — The Clarion — November 18,2005 Student Spotlight: Junior Molly Carlson ready for winter break Molly Carlson, 20, of Pittsboro, North Carolina is an art major here at Brevard Col lege. Carlson is also a junior. She enjoys painting, riding horses, drinking coffee, riding her bike around town, and people watch ing. How did you hear about Brevard and what's made you stay here so long? I found Brevard online after taking a test to match me with schools I would like. I have stayed because I like the art department, I have made great friends and I feel like I should commit to one place. Recently you had to deal with some personal vandalism on campus, can you tell me what happened? I had my car parked along with about 5 others in front of the gym. it looked like someone had come through with a bat and smashed all the mirrors off the cars. Some people had windows smashed out. Do you feel the school should be held accountable? Yes! 1 pay money every year to park here. Part of my tuition pays security. I would assume that security could catch a huge disturbance in central part of campus. Furthermore, if the col lege knows who did it, those stu dents should be accountable. I am not fortunate enough to have insurance on my car so I had to pay those damages out of pocket. iVhat do you feel are some strengths and weaknesses of Brevard College? The strength of Brevard College is in it’s faculty We have amazing instructors here that actually care. They are edu cated, interesting people that will go the extra mile to help us learn. The weaknesses lie in certain staff departments. I have had too many experiences with nonre- sponsive, and condescending staff. Also why is it so easy to get away with murder here? Isn’t it their job to make Brevard a better place for the students? How are you feeling now that exams are right around the cor ner? I am so relieved. I can’t wait to have a break. For once 1 have gotten work done ahead of time so I am not too stressed out right now. What did you do over winter break? I spent time with my family near Boston, for Christmas. I was home for a short amount of time, with my mom and brother. But most of my time was spent in Chicago with my boyfriend Ryan. What classes are you looking forward to next semester? Painting IV and hopefully 1 will get into Intro to Film What s the last song you played in your car? Grandaddy, “Now It’s On”. ~ Matt's Take Reading essential to the future of our country by Matt Rutherford Arts & Life Editor How many books, maga zines, or newspapers have you read lately? I hear from quite a few of the people in our age group that they haven’t read a full novel since high school. Writing and, more importantly, reading to our generation seems to be one of the more underappreciated arts and pas times. The benefits of reading are pretty obvious: you’ll build a strong vocabulary, you won’t be “that choppy reader” in class, and, overall, you will in crease your abilities in writing and intelligence. The intelli gence bit should make you guys at least pick up a newspa per. According to Americasdebate.com, over 70% of the women in the United States alone feel that intelligence is attractive. So picking up some piece of literature will not only increase your knowledge, but also you might just be lucky enough to snag that hottie in your English class. On a more serious note, Americans as a whole simply do not read enough. Our reading skills are in a great decline be cause of this fact. Here are some statistics from about reading in America: more than 17.5% of the nation’s chil dren—about 10 million chil- ‘li'en—will encounter reading problems in the crucial first three years of their schooling, accord ing to the National Reading Panel Progress Report in 2000; approximately 75% of students identified with reading problems in the third grade are still read ing disabled in the 9th grade; students in the bottom 25% of the reading continuum have a trajectory of progress that di verges early from their peers who have learned to read suc cessfully; proficient readers re main a minority; 50% of 4th grade students whose parents graduated from college were proficient / advanced compared to only 10% of 4th graders whose parents did not finish high school; lower income and minority students lose signifi cantly greater literacy skills in the summer than students from higher income families. All of these statistics come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This situation is both sad and dangerous. Not to sound cliche but our children are the future, and if their educa tional, speaking, and reading skills are not up to par, what is our country going to be re duced to? We are in desperate need of some type of rectification to this problem. So if you hear someone younger than your self complaining about read ing, remind them of why it is important, and who they will become: our future.