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  • From: Akka Homestead <akkabhomestead AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Homestead List <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Palin's college years
  • Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:40:21 -0700 (PDT)

Today I spent some time looking at Sarah Palin.  I saw a CNN program on
her that kind of bothered me.  They interviewed her sisters about her
college transfers.  Before that program, I had no idea that she had
attended so many colleges, and like most, I was almost instantly
repelled by that notion-red flags went flying.  Did she fail, I
wondered?  It was my first thought.  My second thought was , well, at
least she stuck it out and finished her degree.  I recall a comment by
one of her sisters that struck home with me, and that was "We were all
told that we would be responsible for our own college education".  I had
been told the same thing, and I told my kids the same thing.  I guess
that is why I decided to look into this further.

I looked at several different sources to get the following timeline:

Fall of 1982:     U of HI at Hilo, according to her bio, left this school
after 3 weeks due to constant rain.  They have no record of her
matriculation, but we will still count this as School #1.  If it were my
bio, I would not count it, but just to be hard, I gonna.. She probably
withdrew with all her money even..no harm no foul.

Fall of 1982 HI Pac U        School #2 spent one quarter or semester(not
clear
which one)
I personally believe-no proof whatsoever- that because she started 3
weeks late and was probably the typical unfocused college freshman, she
probably failed some if not all of her classes.  For someone like Palin,
it was probably a wake up call.

Note: I was in college during this time as well.  Most schools were in
the process of changing from the quarter system to the semester system.
 In every semester system I have ever seen, the second semester is
called the Spring Semester, so I am making the assumption that Spring of
83 would mean from like Jan to May or whenever the semester started and
ended for that year.   Either way, there is no real gap between HPU and
North Idaho

Spring 1983 and Fall of 1983    North ID College    School #3
Palin spent the equivalent of one year here.

I am making the assumption that Palin started over here...it makes sense
to scale back if you have flunked out of a 4 year school to go to a 2
year school for a while to get back on your feet.
I will call this her Freshman year.

After the Fall of 1983, which would have been in the winter of 1984,
early 1984, Palin was not in school.  There is a gap in her education
here until the Fall of 1984.   At first I suspected that perhaps she had
personal issues, maybe even a pregnancy, but I discounted that after
learning the following.  During that time is when she entered the beauty
pageants to obtain scholarships.  By all accounts this is the sole
reason she did so because she was not the "pageant type" according to
her friends and family on the CNN interview.  They were all shocked by
the pageant thing, but she did get a scholarship-I don't know how much.

Fall of 1984  and Spring of 1985      U of ID     School #4
This would have been her Sophomore year.

Fall of 1985 brings Sarah back to Alaska
    Matanuska-Susitna College, 14 miles from home    School #5
She apparently only spent half a year here, the first half of her junior
year.  This, for me, begs the question of why she went home-was it
because of Todd or some other family issue...WHY?

Spring 1986, Fall 1986, Spring 1987 U of ID  return to School #4, not #6
This would have been the second half of her junior year and her senior
year.  She graduated, in effect, on time in the Spring of 1987.

With all of that, we can pretty much rule out that she flunked out of
college after college.  I do believe she probably flunked out in HI.
However, there is no way she could have graduated if she had flunked
more than that.  Her grades may have been marginal.  I don't look at
grades to judge ability because I, too, worked my way through college,
and even with scholarships, many times I worked 3 jobs to do it.  My
grades suffered, but I passed.  What I believe is that she kept
transferring primarily due to money issues. She may have taken a wobbly
course, but it is more on track than it would appear when you see
headlines like "6 colleges in 6 years".
(http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hjGaAjQoUCE3VQ4N3M852LEdOVtwD9307GG00)
For one, 1982-1987 is 5 years, not 6, and most articles of this type
seem to count Univ of Idaho twice, even though it was the same school,
same college, same major.
If I were counting, if it were my resume, I would say that I went to 4
schools over a 5 year period.  I guess, though, if she said that, she
would technically be lying.  I dunno.  I just thought I would pass on
what I did and discovered. It was actually better than I thought.  After I
sat and looked at it, I did not get that "wishy washy feel", nor did I get a
"she was a screw off" feel.  It actually made me 'like' her more, but I do
realize I made some assumptions that may not have been true.  But assuming
money was the problem, she actually did stick it out, and was creative in the
way she got money for school.  All of that does not earn a vote, but I guess
it does go to character.
I also looked at the change of major thing.  She started in Hawaii as a
business major, but it is a rare thing for a freshman to later graduate with
the same major he/she started off with.  If she did flunk out there, then it
would make sense that her major was listed as general studies at the next
college.  Of course, she ended up as a journalism major.  I saw comments that
questioned why she never worked on the newspaper or other typical
journalistic extracurricular activity.  To me, it was obvious.  I never had
time to do anything fun when I worked my way through college.  I never had
time for anything extracurricular.  Again, I am making an assumption that
might not be true, but it is a possible explanation.
 Make of it what you will.
I seriously doubt Palin will be VP.  I think Obama has this one wrapped up,
but I don't think we have heard the last from Palin.  I think she will turn
up again in a few years.  Time will tell.

Akka B



>From genegerue AT ruralize.com Thu Sep 18 21:59:10 2008
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On Sep 18, 2008, at 5:31 PM, Jerry B wrote:

> Now this I would call big news ... success at manufacturing cement
> with
> no CO2 emissions ( present source of 5-10% human added CO2) by
> removing
> CO2 from smokestacks of power plants and passing it through seawater.
>
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/01/MNGD12936I.DTL&feed=rss.news

Big news indeed. If this proves to work as it seems, he will be Saint
Constantz.





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