By Professor
Doom
In times past, faculty interacted with
(undergraduate) students in two ways. The most common way was in the classroom,
and we still have that.
The other way has rather disappeared,
although it used to be the very first significant interaction between students
and faculty: advisors. Before a student could register for classes, he had to
go to a faculty advisor, who would review what classes the student had already
taken, what the student needed to graduate, and then advise the student what
classes to take next. The student couldn’t even register for classes until he
had a signature from the advisor approving the schedule. Faculty served well in
this capacity—we’ve all gone through higher education, have devoted our lives
to education, and so we know quite well what needs to be done to get through
the system. Nowadays professional administrators with weird, non-academic
Ph.D.s “advise” students, quite often to their detriment.
Now, I grant this was long before
computers were everywhere, and the “old days” also involved long, long, lines
of students waiting to sign up for their classes, unlike today where everyone
just signs in online and gets their courses in a few seconds. Not all change is
bad.
Faculty advising is absent from many campuses
now, so there’s no guidance towards getting a degree. Students just sign up for
whatever—it’s another factor in why we can have average course grades of A-, while still only a minute minority of students
graduate on time.
I can’t help but suspect getting rid of
faculty advising was approved by admin because it helps so much with keeping
students on campus. The whole business model of college, especially the fake
community colleges littering the educational landscape, is to trap students on
campus until the money runs out, then toss them…give ‘em good grades all you
want, just don’t let them graduate.
I digress, but the fact remains Admin
doesn’t want faculty helping students. Admin sure doesn’t mind using faculty
for something requiring very little knowledge of education: move-in day.
Move-in day is a nasty day on a university
campus, it’s when the students (freshmen, mostly) all move into their dorms.
Again, in times past, this meant a few hundred, a thousand perhaps, students
would show up on the same day, flooding the local streets. Now that many of our
campuses have grown to ridiculous size, ten thousand or more students might
show up on the same hour, causing traffic jams miles away from campus.
We have tons of administrators but…they
could always use more help. So they ask faculty to show up on move-in day and
help carry boxes. I see I’m not the only one who wonders if carrying boxes is
really the best way academics can help out students:
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing
against volunteering, and I’ve even done my share of this (because, even though
it’s an inferior way to do it, it’s still helping students). Of course, back
then I was seeing a significant number of the incoming students on move-in day,
so my help was relevant, even if I had some doubts. Now with swarms of
students, it’s mostly pack-mule work, there’s no time for interaction, the odds
are 1000 to 1 any student I help will ever take a class with me, and so (along
with advancing age) I have reason to generally pass on what administration
tries to sell me as an “opportunity.”
The above author points out some other reasons
why we should reconsider what we’re using our scholars for:
“It’s not just that the heat index is 112 in the shade here
in South Carolina, or that I get the occasional twinge in my lower back at
age 47, or that I recently had surgery…”
“…this ain’t summer camp. And faculty members aren’t managing
a bed-and-breakfast, where the responsibility is to help new guests shlep in
their worldly possessions. Oh, but maybe that’s what this is turning into,
since, after all, come April, we’ll get the emails asking us to come cook and
serve pancakes at 9 p.m. to hungry and stressed students before finals
week…”
Noting that higher education is devoting ever more time to student as customer initiatives, the
author points out how much the dynamic on campus has changed. We no longer attract
students primarily interested in education. Instead our typical incoming
freshman is here for the checks, is here for the “place to go after high
school,” and is far more likely to take these gestures of aid by faculty as no
different than a waiter bringing you water in a restaurant, or the bellhop
taking your baggage at a hotel.
Like me, the author reminisces of what higher education used to be and
wonders at the difference between student’s first interaction with faculty then
and now:
Twenty-nine years ago, my parents helped me move into a dorm
at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Some resident assistants and
upperclassmen were helping to direct the flow of traffic -- the cars, the
people and the dollies of stuff. Back then, class registration happened in
person -- you had to run around that enormous campus to get signatures and
scramble for desired classes and professors. When I got a seat in an extremely
popular class, I felt like I had gotten backstage passes to hear a rock star…
Bottom line, students are supposed to be
coming to campus to learn from the finest minds, and instead see those minds
lugging boxes around…it does take a bit off the magic of higher education.
Showing students, on their very first day on campus, that even the faculty are
there to serve at their beck and call is probably not the way to inspire them
to study and learn what we have to offer.
Heck, I don’t even blame students for
getting the wrong impression; if I went to a 5 star restaurant and saw the head
chef scrubbing toilets (honorable work, to be sure), I might have doubts about
the eating there and probably wouldn’t be in the best frame of mind for some
fancy food.
One comment had me laugh out loud,
because something very similar happened at a campus I was at, years ago:
And
then the President drives up in a golf cart, carries in a single box, poses for
seven PR photos, and drives off waving at parents and students alike.
The other
comments are not so one-sided, so I can
see I’m not alone in my ambivalence about faculty being used in this manner,
and I can understand admin not really wanting to hire extra help for what is
admittedly one busy day.
On other hand,
I still think we should bring back that advising, because, honest, if admin
thinks academics are good at hauling boxes, they should see us when it comes to
academics.
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