Welcome to the first true God Blogging post of 2010. (An earlier brief post re: this doesn’t count.) It’s hard to believe an entire year has gone by since journalism as I knew it was blown to smithereens, via a business agreement between two media giants that resulted in Arizona’s oldest daily newspaper being replaced by this blog site cum citizen journalism venture. Like millions of other laid off workers in this country, I’m remaking myself at mid-life, plowing through a federally subsidized teacher certification program after finally accepting (most days) that there is Life After Journalism.

Which brings us to this blog. I neglected it in the latter months of 2009 because of an internal battle over my former identity (professional – read: paid – journalist) and my current writing options (unpaid blogging; barely-paid and unpredictable freelance reporting; better paid but sporadic and tedious PR writing). I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say I’ve come to an understanding with myself that, in spite of being unpaid, blogging aides my sanity while wrestling with school papers demanding MLA citations. This was the first insight I got when reading the just-published The Happiness Project, which author Gretchen Rubin defines as an approach to changing your life:

“First is the preparation stage, when you identify what brings you joy, satisfaction, and engagement, and also what brings you guilt, anger, boredom, and remorse. Second is the making of resolutions, when you identify the concrete actions that will boost your happiness. Then comes the interesting part: keeping your resolutions.”

I have yet to identify all might bring me joy, etc., or all that brings me guilt, etc., but I know that one joy builder is

Another joy builder is playing in the Flagstaff snow

blogging, so I’m resolving to do more of it, the short details of which you can read about here in the newly updated “About Me and God Blogging.”(Regular readers will recall that I tried to get a virtual Happiness Project group started last year but didn’t follow through. This year, I will blog my way through Gretchen’s book, which is a more reasonable goal for me considering my school requirements. I’m very much into setting reasonable goals this year.)

So, as promised in the “About” link, here’s some thoughts on God (and more) news of late: First, perhaps you heard that FOX News’ Brit Hume thinks Tiger Woods needs Jesus to stop philandering. I won’t add much to the cacophony, except to point you to Rabbi Brad Hirschfield’s interesting take over at Beliefnet and then, for LOL religious disrespect all around, John Stewart’s video on it here. (Yes, I do believe God has a sense of humor.)

Second, if you are interested in contributing to charities who do good out in the world, consider adding GoodSearch to your browser. In a few minutes, you can add it to your toolbar and then every time you use it to search the Web, money is donated to a charity of your choice. FAQs are here, but it seems a fairly painless way to get someone else’s money directed to good works in what sometimes seems like a hostile, selfish world.

And speaking of good, way back in September, Washington Monthly came out with college rankings of a different sort: They ranked 258 national universities for the amount of “public good” they provided based on three categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). University of Arizona got an overall score of 51 out of 100, with a ranking of 160 (out of the 258) in Social Mobility, 18 (!) in research expenditures and 36 in the “faculty in national academies” area (both part of the “Research” category), and a ranking of 97 in the number of graduates who head off to the Peace Corps. ASU, by comparison, got an overall score of 33 out of 100 in the rankings. For full detail, check out the interactive rating scale here.

If you’re interested in what one of the major go-to religion sites has to say about the top religion stories of the decade (including the rise and fall of the Religious Right and the rise of the New Atheists), check out Beliefnet’s multimedia article on that here, written by a reporter from Religion News Service. There is a great “related features” page at the end of the slides/article.

Finally, there are a couple of changes in the sidebars of God Blogging (and more). I deleted the “What I’m Reading” because, seriously, who really cares? I’ve added a “Let Us Pray” because at least some of the people who read this blog practice prayer and I wanted to offer the option for those wanting to share prayer needs a place to do that locally. Send your requests via the “Contact Me” button over on the right sidebar. And please, if you don’t practice or believe in prayer, practice kindness and don’t harass those who do. As This American Muslim says in his bio, if you don’t like what you read, close the browser.

The other blog change is that I’ve winnowed out links listed under “Stalking,” deleting those that have died or haven’t been updated for two months, and I added a couple new ones. I don’t agree with what is written on all of them, but think they make for a well-rounded short list of faith and religion writers (this being, after all, primarily a God blog), so check them out if you’re so inclined.

The exceptions to “religion-blog-only” standard are three: Rubin’s Happiness Project; my personal blog about studying for teacher certification; and The Desert Lamp because the UA students who write it are intelligent, witty, ask questions about Arizona higher education that no one else appears to think of. For instance, check out this post noting that the “as nearly free as possible” chant re: state funding of education refers only to instruction, not the fancy-schmancy dorms and other accouterments University leaders

Our just-graduated mechanical engineer son (right) with one of his ME professors at NAU's December graduation ceremonies. No more tuition hikes for him, and our UA daughter has less than two years until graduation.

say they must have to attract students. Evan Lisull (he of chalking controversy) and co-blogger Conor Mendenhall follow the money and break it down for all to see. (They are damn good reporters, and neither is a j. major.) They should pair up with Arizona Board of Regents’ President Ernest Calderón in his look-see at UA/ASU athletics spending (and maybe ask why can’t UA’s estimated $2 million bowl take go to fund, oh, a break in yet another tuition hike?)

So, thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, Happy New Year and Happy Epiphany! Talk w/ you tomorrow.

A college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison doing what college students do with chalk.

A handful of University of Arizona faculty have taken up the cause of Jacob Miller and Evan Lisull, posting on open letter to UA President Robert N. Shelton asking him to drop “administrative action” against the two UA students who were charged with criminal damage for writing with sidewalk chalk on the UA campus last week.

The letter is posted at Chalk is Speech and is signed by eleven faculty hailing from the new School of Government and Public Policy and the departments of Gender and Women’s Studies, Geography and Development, Spanish and Portuguese and UA’s world-renowned Creative Writing Program, which, just an aside, rejected yours truly when she applied for the MFA program a couple years ago. (Not that I’m bitter or anything.)

The open letter compliments Shelton for dropping the criminal charges against the UA students, but says he’s making a further mistake by referring their cases to the Dean of Students office. The letter claims that transferring the case to DOS actually increases “the jeopardy faced by the students” for what the faculty argue is a  rightful expression of free speech.

Under the criminal system, the University would be required to present evidence and witnesses for rebuttal and would be required to meet the threshold of proving the guilt of these students “beyond a reasonable doubt.” To date, UAPD has demonstrated no evidence that even approaches this threshold. (As of yet, no evidence beyond “unnamed sources” as been presented to actually tie these students to said infractions.) We note that the standard of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” does not exist for those charged in a Academic Code of Conduct hearing. Instead, the Dean of Students must merely determine that “it is more likely than not that a violation of a Student Code of Conduct has occurred” (5-403 (C) 6), and the students have no right during this procedure to challenge the purported witness(es) who are said to have contacted UAPD.

The whole problem with this chalking case is that the consequence has been meted out inconsistently. Prior chalking events, i.e., social and religious clubs announcing their events in chalk, have never resulted in disciplinary action. Ergo, this appears – maybe ’tisn’t, maybe ’tis – to be a case of retribution for specific chalking. To wit: Miller and Lisull were complaining that not only the Legislature, but Shelton, is destroying the university with budget cuts and layoffs.

“It was selective,” said Roger Hartley, an associate professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and one of the eleven who signed the online open letter. “Other students have written messages in chalk on campus, be it to advertise an event in a dorm or whatever, but these students are the only ones who have been charged for what is, essentially, political speech. If they wrote on the walls, fine, give them a warning, make them clean it up, maybe even send them to the student judiciary if it was clear they violated the rules with impunity. But that isn’t clear at all.”

Lisull is a double major in poli sci and economics and kick-butt blogger who analysis data on everything from crime statistics to the uses of the Student Fee. I’m not sure if Hartley knows Lisull is a great blogger, but he did find out that Lisull was “one of ours” in the School of Government and Political Science and that was part of the reason he signed on to the open letter.

“If I can teach about free speech and law and then have one of my students arrested for political speech, I should be willing to stand up for him the way he is standing up for us at the university regarding the Legislature and the budget cuts,” he said.

This chalking issue continues to gain steam because of (wait for it …) a lack of effective communication by the administration. That ineffective communication was one of the big complaints that was raised in last week’s faculty poll. There’s a pattern here, folks.

So maybe what needs to happen is Shelton et. al, should find out exactly what happened on the days of the chalking and find out how it got so blown out of proportion. Then, hat in hand, he should admit the obvious – that mistakes were made – and stop the referral of Lisull and Miller to the Dean of Students. No other students have ever been slapped on the wrist so harshly for chalking … only the two who criticized the administration in chalk. It’s bad, bad PR for a university in desperate need of some good PR. How could Shelton turn this around? Let me offer a humble suggestion:

“Hey,” he could say, “I support free speech on a university campus as much as the next guy. I was gone when these incidents happened or it never would have gotten this far. We made some mistakes because, frankly, we’re all a little freaked out about the continual slice-and-dice procedure being demanded of us by the Legislature and, well, there’s that pesky faculty confidence issue as well. So, we’re going to start fresh and Mr. Lisull and Mr. Miller have agreed to offer free art lessons to kids on the south side for three hours this Saturday in lieu of going to see the Dean of Students. And from henceforth and forevermore, here are the rules about chalking. You can do this, this and this, but never this. If you do the latter, you will get sent to the Dean of Students. End of story. Now go back to class, you little ankle biters.”

Part of the reason Shelton needs to do this is for good will – there’s just not enough of it on campus right now. But the other reason he should do this is because Shelton needs Lisull. Stick with me.

I don’t know Miller outside of the one interview I did with him, so I can’t comment on his brainiac creds, but I’ve spent some concentrated time with Lisull. When I first met him to talk about blogging/reporting projects, I had three thoughts: 1. He must never sleep; 2. He is the poster child for why the “soft sciences” should get funding at UA because he’s evidence majors outside the College of Science also produce deep, critical thinkers, and; 3. I wonder if he’d be interested in meeting my daughter. (You know us mothers and our matchmaking.)

The guy is thoughtful, witty, energetic, polite and really, really, really intelligent. He is definitely not cut out of the typical college cloth. (For one thing, I’m pretty sure he’s a Libertarian. For another, he’s already won $10,000 in a national college blogging contest for his in-depth reporting.) He’s an out-of-the-box thinker that could be used to help save the university.

Instead of sending him to be spanked at the Dean of Students’ office; Shelton should pick his brain about possible solutions to UA’s budget problems and/or send him up to lobby the Legislature. Just an idea, but I think its one Shelton should consider.

University of Arizona Facilities Management said this afternoon that the actual cost of cleaning up the chalk from the UA protests on budget cuts was $354.73. Cleanup costs had originally been estimated at $1,000. Christopher Kopach, associate director of Facilities Management said that the report on the chalking indicated that at least 80 areas had chalk put on them, including the sides of buildings.

UA employees took care of the first incidents outside of the bookstore, but because this was considered vandalism, UA has a contract with five local vendors through state-required insurance to take care of vandalism cleanup.

There is some great reporting from Arizona Desert Lamp regarding past chalk incidents at UA — go see the list and note that no one was ever arrested in those events, which makes one wonder: Why Jacob Miller? POSTSCRIPT: The ADS is reporting that ADL blogger Evan Lisull was cited today for criminal damage for using chalk on sidewalks. According to the report, police say Lisull was chalking the base of a statue, but Lisull said he only chalked the sidewalk and was doing it in direct protest of Miller’s arrest last week.