President Hodge is a man on a mission, a mission for change. In his annual address, he immediately started talking about his plans for improving Miami by making it into a more “entrepreneurial” school environment. He has started this process by making this year at Miami, “the year of the arts.” It is time for the school to promote and show the art talent that is prevalent on the campus, and this will greatly help to get the word out. President Hodge described the way that he wants Miami and its students to be perceived. He talked about the Miami student that is, “obsessed with opportunity and committed to excellence.” Many steps have already been taken in Hodge’s plan for Miami, for which we are in year five. Evidence of this progress is seen in the new freshman class which was stated as the biggest that Miami has seen yet. More and more people are wanting to attend this university because of the work that Hodge has been doing. When I spoke with Miami University sophomore Dan Steinkerchner, he said that the reason that he attended was because, “Miami is a school on the rise. Each year you see that they are moving up in the ranks for the top schools in America. Students here have a work hard, play hard mentality as well, which I love. We know how we want this school to be perceived and I think that Hodge is doing a great job of improving Miami.
Francis,
ReplyDeleteI surmise this is an analysis, so I'll address my comments that way.
You pick a good focus here - Dr. Hodge talking about the need for an "entrepreneurial" approach to the coming year. But you don't follow up with some of the examples that he used: A Farmer School professor's entrepreneurial work, a student-designed app that saves Miami on energy $$, the study-abroad emphasis to prepare students for a global world.
So, organizationally, your analysis would be stronger if marshaled around the singular focus.
Even in an analysis, you'd want to give the facts of WHEN the speech took place, where and who was there.
Good job gathering appropriate and meaningful quotes from Hodge and from Steinkerchner. But to show that you seek the truth in what you write, you should have checked Steinkerchner's comments against the facts: Miami's general rankings have, in fact, been dropping. You could have noted that, but also pointed out we are ranked near the top for teaching, and for our business school.
Lastly, news and analysis journalistic pieces should not use first person.