Testimony 092110

While I have not been a student in the Southwestern program, I did host students for the summer of 2010, and since I have this to say:

I was very excited about the opportunity to host 3 students from out of the country. 2 from Scotland and 1 from England.  I arrived at the airport (an hours drive each way) on the day they were to arrive to find two of the students there and the  3rd (the student manager) MIA. As it turns out, he decided he did not want to leave Nashville at 5am and moved his plane ticket back to arrive in my state at 6pm. (I was at the airport at 8am to pick them up.

That first day here I got the students home, drove them around town to give them some landmarks to know, get them to a bank and get to know them a bit. I would later that day make another road trip to and from the airport to pick up the student manager and bring him home with the rest of the group. We had a fun weekend together, showing them the sights, cooking out etc., but I soon realized that after that weekend, the fun times were to end.

My first student, who I will call “Jim” for the purpose on anonymity, was assaulted by a customer the 2nd day, requiring medical attention. When the student manager found out he went to the hospital instead of staying on the book field, he was scolded and warned that he would fail if he did not continue. I walked into the argument taking place in my kitchen and found myself being the refuge and the “safe” one to be around.

Jim left two weeks into the program. After the assault and in the same week, he and his roommate who I will call “John” were left by the student manager in the downtown area of a nearby city. Their manager had decided to go to a city about 120 miles away for a day of fun with a female student manager from another group of SW students.

They called and asked if I could come pick them up, as they had been expected to walk home the 12 mile distance to my house. ( I live in the country side and there are no taxis, busses or trains). When I arrived at their location, I found them standing against a building, fear in their faces and starving. They had made no money, and had been told to pack a light lunch as to not exert much energy toting it with them all day.

The relationship between John and the student manager also continued to decrease and John left four weeks into the program. It was about this time that I wanted to ask the manager to leave my house as well, but technically he was upholding his part of the bargain with me and that was paying his rent.

The Manager asked to bring another student into the residence, and for whatever dumb reason I was thinking, I agreed. This lasted a week when a 3rd student was brought in. Jim and John had been wonderful guests in my house. If they made a mess it would be cleaned up. If the trash needed taking out, they did so and put in a new trash bag.

However, it has been a struggle with the others to get them to do anything. There are always clothes laying in the bathroom as well as all of their toiletries, dirty dishes abound in the kitchen sink and there is always something left on the stove needing to be put in the fridge or cheese wrappers and half loaves of bread sitting on the kitchen counter. Nothing I have attempted to do to correct the problems with them has worked. In hindsight, being as its always 20/20, I should have asked the manager to leave when I Jim and John left and also should have had everyone in the house sign a contract on their duties of being responsible and accountable to each other and to me.

I won’t be hosting again, at least not for this program.