The nation’s education system currently faces a critical shortage of professionally certified teachers, and Northeast Florida is not exempt from the problem.

About 1,400 classroom teachers in the area only have temporary teaching certificates, according to the regional coordinator of the North Florida Personel Development Partnership who founded a program aimed to do something about it.

Dr. Kathryn Krudwig started the Educator Preparation Institute at UNF last November to help alleviate the problem in the local school districts.

UNF offers many surprises to its students on a daily basis: free T-shirts on the Green, free scantrons in the Student Government office and no classes on a Tuesday in honor of Veterans Day. But not all of its surprises are pleasing, including the holds on students’ accounts that appear just hours before registration.

It never fails. Students check their accounts a week before and are in good standing for registration. They check it again, just to make sure, and still are set to register. Hours before they’re scheduled to add classes, a hold is placed on their accounts for failing to pay a late library book fine or to release emergency information for the Code Red system.

They don’t find out until it’s too late.

Excitement is circulating across the country with the recent election of a new president, but as the days in November continue to unfold, Americans need to stop and take a minute to recognize what makes the nation so great.

Thanksgiving is Nov. 27, and the United States has come a long way since the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Even though the nation is in a time of uncertainty – with the rollercoaster economy and war in Iraq – the American people still have plenty to be grateful for.

America is better off than most nations around the world.

Electric plug-in cars, diesel hybrids and flex-fuel burners are all modern catch-phrases used to prematurely sell the concept of efficient vehicles. Yet various gasoline combustion engine layouts continue to dominate the design of cars on the road today.

While a greener future in the automotive industry seems to be the call for action, getting the manufacturers to flip the switch and start plugging in batteries will take more than the lobbying of environmentalists and consumers who are tired of being squeezed at the pump.

American auto manufacturers have ignored the technology around them for too long – technology that could have been emulated long ago to produce more efficient and powerful, naturally-aspirated motors.

Every so often, the Green is littered with religious zealots who loudly proclaim their teachings – specifically what becomes of heretics, whoever they might be.

These preachers can be seen in straw hats, holding eye-catching signs visible from great distances.

And they are never far away from the hoards of students who surround them and urge them to go home and never return.

Dear Editor,
While I understand it was published in the Discourse section of the Spinnaker, the article “Election not truly a landslide” must be questioned.

As a Libertarian who believes in many Republican ideals such as free market economy and limited government, it shames me to see the College Republican president’s article. He claims President-elect Barack Obama is the first Democrat to win “with a convincing majority” since LBJ. But in 1996, Clinton defeated Bob Dole by a margin of 8.5 percent, versus the 7 percent by which Obama defeated Sen. John McCain.

Dear Editor,
A thank you is in order for the copy editor of the Spinnaker who wrote about the public making a mockery of the American military uniform in the Oct. 22 issue.

I just got back from four months of military duty. And after returning to the area and walking around Jacksonville and UNF the last couple days, I am amused and slightly saddened at the general public wearing fake military shirts and random bits of uniforms.

As military personnel, we are not really supposed to wear our BDUS, dogtags or other gear off base, but there is this new trend with teens today.

Dear Editor,
Last week an article titled “All religions similar, equal” was published. I am tired of hearing these arguments from the “coexist” flock about how all religions are basically the same.

The most ignorant statement circulating is that “Judaism, Christianity and Islam follow the same God.”

This universalist perspective ignores all maxims of religions except the most based shared tenets and has been too often posed as an urbane enlightened posture when really it is as patronizing as it is insulting.