College of the Ozarks

Date: Mar 05 2013
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
This school is good at what it focuses on, and poor at anything else. I recommend you research your interests and compare them to the school's success rates.

I was only a student for two years before transferring out. I found the artistic department to be divided against itself, contending for student workers' time to complete personal projects on behalf of the teachers. The teachers placed emphasis on artistic design and less on technical proficiency. This became apparent as i delivered my coursework for the PAR board (the four art teachers, only three of which could attend). I had chosen work i thought would showcase my best talents and skill level in the direction of my interest. The result was their hesitance to allow me to continue in the art program, but allowed me to on the condition that i explore a certain subjective concept, as my work had not met their unspoken and undefined expectations. One teacher, Mr. Cummings, became nearly irate, wild eyed, and raised his voice at me. I assume his unprofessional behavior was due in part to my choice to not include certain coursework from his classes. The head of the department, Dr. Allman was rather snarky with several students and was known to cuss at them to get her point across. Mrs. Burchett was nice, but not well organized. Mr. Johnston was also nice, but taught sculpture and Three Dimensional art, which was not my area of interest. Mr. Cummings allowed his graphic design classroom to be laid back and set a generally unprofessional tone, but then would berate the students for following that habit when a guest was invited to the room. He would often show up late for classes, yet expected us to be there. He also once used class time for a student to read "Green Eggs and Ham", which was distracting for the student doing the read aloud, as well as the rest of the class. He commonly used negative terms when praising students, and showed preference for female students over male students, criticizing them less harshly and even doing his best to endear the female students to him. He once sent a private email to a classmate of mine, insulting him and basically called him delusional. If you take classes from this teacher, beware! The inclusion of unrelated yet required course studies is expected at a liberal arts college. What i did not appreciate was the one sided indoctrination from specific political and denominational points of view. Any opposing view voiced in an essay was given lower grades because it did not match the views of the teachers. I saw this particularly in the American History and Theology courses. During my time there my favorite classes were those not related to my degree, specifically Classical Ideals of Character and Creative Fiction, taught by Dr. Head and Mrs. Weisman respectively.