I’ve read almost everything that Joethesworn has said through these forums and others and honestly I think he’s full of it. I’d like to skype with you Joe to prove you are infact a teacher and are teaching about cryptos. Could you please provide the university name, phone number, and maybe contact information for the dean you are meeting with? I would like to call the dean and express my support for your program if it truly does exist.
The difficulty has gotten quite high, it would be best to switch to pooled mining. You can still get a decent amount of coins for your hash power. Around 84 Feathercoin a day. Use one of the pools in the post linked below.
http://forum.feathercoin.com/index.php?topic=3.0
With something like minerd you would need to use the -t option and set it to the number of processors you have.
What miner are you using and what does your config look like?
Let me know how you get on.