College puts students to work for free education
Kevin Murphy
Issue date: 3/26/03 Section: News
The school has its own fire station, where nine student firefighters sleep in case of night alarms. There is a motel, restaurant, print shop, airport and hospital, staffed mostly by students.
The campus is a tourist attraction, especially its museum, where admirers of the school have donated scores of antiques, art, guns, trophy animals and even the original jalopy used in “The Beverly Hillbillies” television show.
At campus stores, students make crafts, stained glass items, jellies, fruitcake and other products that generate revenue for the school.
Finding jobs for 1,500 students falls to the school’s dean of work, Mayburn Davidson. Work is graded and students are subject to removal from school for repeated absenteeism or bad performance.
Rules are plentiful at College of the Ozarks. The student handbook states in bold letters that the college can deny an education because of conduct, attitude or appearance “it regards as undesirable.”
Rules prohibit “excessive display of affection in public.” Clothes must not be too revealing. Men are barred from wearing earrings, ponytails or hair below the shoulder.
“We have a long tradition here of neat, hard-working students,” Davis said. “You’re not going to find students with blue and green-spiked hair and earrings hanging out on every part. That doesn’t cut it here.”
The campus is a tourist attraction, especially its museum, where admirers of the school have donated scores of antiques, art, guns, trophy animals and even the original jalopy used in “The Beverly Hillbillies” television show.
At campus stores, students make crafts, stained glass items, jellies, fruitcake and other products that generate revenue for the school.
Finding jobs for 1,500 students falls to the school’s dean of work, Mayburn Davidson. Work is graded and students are subject to removal from school for repeated absenteeism or bad performance.
Rules are plentiful at College of the Ozarks. The student handbook states in bold letters that the college can deny an education because of conduct, attitude or appearance “it regards as undesirable.”
Rules prohibit “excessive display of affection in public.” Clothes must not be too revealing. Men are barred from wearing earrings, ponytails or hair below the shoulder.
“We have a long tradition here of neat, hard-working students,” Davis said. “You’re not going to find students with blue and green-spiked hair and earrings hanging out on every part. That doesn’t cut it here.”