Given the implications of his findings, you might think that the student engagement world would have given Robert Putnam's recent work on friendship and religious congregations some attention. In it, Putman and his co-author Chaeyoon Lim find that the more friends an active member of a religious congregation has in the congregation, the happier that person is. Neither the number of non-church friends a religious person has, nor that person's religiosity have the same effect on the person's sense of well-being. For this reason Putnam's advice to religious leaders is to pay more attention to church suppers than to the sermons offered before those suppers.
Putnam and Lim do not offer a hypothesis for why church friendships are "super-charged friendships" for actively religious people. But it would be simple to theorize two explanations: friendships cement one's feeling that one's chosen religious setting is the right one' and friendship reinforces the teaching in all major religions that loving relationships between humans exemplify the loving relationship between humans and their gods. These theories also explain why friendships and religious practice have much less influence on well-being for people who are only moderately religious.
I read about Putnam's study the same day I got a series of texts from one of my daughters saying how lonely she is at college. For her, the absence of meaningful friendships exacerbates the uncertainty she feels about her majors, the goals of her education, or the course of her future life. When you are uncertain about the path ahead and feel like you have few friends, loneliness is an impediment to learning.
Colleges and universities talk frequently about the interaction between people in different roles, but we pay almost no attention to the connections between friendship and learning. We tout, for example, small class sizes, the student/faculty ratio, research assistantships, group work, learning communities, as if interaction leads to learning and well-being. But interaction and friendship are not the same thing. Interactions are exchanges in one form or another--faculty member X shares information with student Y, who uses it in her research. But friendships are characterized not by interactions but by a certain sort of emotional connection--common interests, empathy, patience, humility, unguardedness, forgiveness.
We know relatively little about how those emotional connections relate to learning and well-being. But Putnam's study suggests that we ought to care. For there are meaningful relationships between being in the "right" place, friendship, and well-being. For educators who are concerned about retention, student engagement, learning, the discovery of vocation, and the creation of meaning in the lives of students, the question of how to identify, foster, and prolong friendships ought to be an important question indeed.
Showing posts with label retention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retention. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
The right questions about cutting tuition
Mount Holyoke announced recently that it would not raise tuition for the 2012-2013 academic year. The announcement drew the typical coverage--some meandering thoughts about college cost and boilerplate assurances from the institution itself that it is dedicated to responding to rising college costs and making its brand of education accessible to a broader public.
That is all well and good, but if we are going to take the cost of college seriously, then the institutions who freeze or cut tuition and the people who write about them need to get much more serious about explaining the contexts and purposes of their decisions (as do the people who raise tuition, but that is for another post).
At the very least, any reporter covering the announcement of a tuition freeze or cut should ask the following:
That is all well and good, but if we are going to take the cost of college seriously, then the institutions who freeze or cut tuition and the people who write about them need to get much more serious about explaining the contexts and purposes of their decisions (as do the people who raise tuition, but that is for another post).
At the very least, any reporter covering the announcement of a tuition freeze or cut should ask the following:
- Is the reduction in tuition costs accompanied by reductions in institutional aid?
- Is it accompanied by changes in enrollment goals, or put another way, are you making up the difference by enrolling more students?
- How do you expect the reduction of tuition to effect the school's revenue in the coming year?
- Are you reducing expenditures in the coming year? If so, which ones? What are you doing with faculty and staff salaries?
- Do you really believe that a reduction in tuition makes your school accessible to students who would not otherwise be able to afford it? What evidence do you have?
- What steps are you taking to ensure that the quality of the education you provide improves?
- Why cut tuition instead of doing other things to reduce costs to students--i.e. speeding up time to graduation, reducing room and board costs, enrolling more transfer students from community colleges, increasing funding for students to work on campus?
Friday, July 15, 2011
The role of consultants and vendors in enrollment management
One of the major differences between enrollment management and other parts of colleges is that enrollment management relies heavily on consultants and vendors to do its work. We develop prospects with help from one vendor, analyze data with another, use a third to develop our publications, and employ several others for smaller parts of our work. Consultants help shape our strategy, test our messages, and improve our workflow. And a great enrollment management consultant, Ian Symmonds, is my guide and mentor as I learn my way into this work.
None of this should be surprising. Enrollment management is a results-driven business that relies heavily on data to make decisions. And it is a business that has changed rapidly in the last 20 years. That change has made space in the market for businesses with specific expertise. And if those businesses can demonstrate return on investment, then it makes sense to contract with them, rather than expanding the college's fixed costs by hiring full-time employees to do that work.
One surprising thing about the field, though, is that consultants and vendors are also the source of most of the research about recruiting, admitting, funding, and enrolling students. Compare data about enrollment management with data about the next step in the student's experience--the freshman year--to see the distinction. Data about the views of freshmen comes out of the higher education research institute at UCLA. The epicenter of ideas about curriculum and retention in the first year is the first-year experience project at the University of South Carolina. And learning about the first-year emerges from peer-reviewed journals and academic conferences.
By contrast, summaries of research in enrollment management are more frequently compiled by vendors, as in the case of this report put out by Noel-Levitz. The best-known experts in the field are consultants, be it Symmonds or George Dehne. And the list-servs, best practices, and conferences are sponsored by companies who sell products and services to colleges and universities.
There are several reasons that this is the case. Enrollment management as currently practiced is new--perhaps only 20 years old. Therefore graduate programs that produce researchers in other fields haven't grown up yet in enrollment management. The rapid change in the field makes it possible for individuals or small consultancies to gather and distribute meaningful data. The competitiveness of the field, with dozens of colleges battling for top students makes practitioners less willing to share information among themselves. And the nature of enrollment management--as practice more than discipline or skill--means that campus-based professionals aren't situated in a position to make the sort of generalizations that are the basis of academic research elsewhere in higher ed.
One wonders what this means for the future of enrollment management. Will it eventually become an academic discipline with its own literature, faculty, etc.? Or will it leave the university entirely, and become an outsourced service in the way that food service, bookstores, and security are now?
None of this should be surprising. Enrollment management is a results-driven business that relies heavily on data to make decisions. And it is a business that has changed rapidly in the last 20 years. That change has made space in the market for businesses with specific expertise. And if those businesses can demonstrate return on investment, then it makes sense to contract with them, rather than expanding the college's fixed costs by hiring full-time employees to do that work.
One surprising thing about the field, though, is that consultants and vendors are also the source of most of the research about recruiting, admitting, funding, and enrolling students. Compare data about enrollment management with data about the next step in the student's experience--the freshman year--to see the distinction. Data about the views of freshmen comes out of the higher education research institute at UCLA. The epicenter of ideas about curriculum and retention in the first year is the first-year experience project at the University of South Carolina. And learning about the first-year emerges from peer-reviewed journals and academic conferences.
By contrast, summaries of research in enrollment management are more frequently compiled by vendors, as in the case of this report put out by Noel-Levitz. The best-known experts in the field are consultants, be it Symmonds or George Dehne. And the list-servs, best practices, and conferences are sponsored by companies who sell products and services to colleges and universities.
There are several reasons that this is the case. Enrollment management as currently practiced is new--perhaps only 20 years old. Therefore graduate programs that produce researchers in other fields haven't grown up yet in enrollment management. The rapid change in the field makes it possible for individuals or small consultancies to gather and distribute meaningful data. The competitiveness of the field, with dozens of colleges battling for top students makes practitioners less willing to share information among themselves. And the nature of enrollment management--as practice more than discipline or skill--means that campus-based professionals aren't situated in a position to make the sort of generalizations that are the basis of academic research elsewhere in higher ed.
One wonders what this means for the future of enrollment management. Will it eventually become an academic discipline with its own literature, faculty, etc.? Or will it leave the university entirely, and become an outsourced service in the way that food service, bookstores, and security are now?
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
on-campus work and retention
This year, as every year, our campus is looking at retention. Our institutional retention rate has crept up over the past several years; it was 79% last year, our best number ever. As we break down the data, there are two factors that predict retention more than any others--level of previous academic performance, and working on-campus.
Previous academic performance is no surprise, since it tracks with what we know about success in college--if you have done well in school in the past (which is often a factor of high socio-economic status and family culture) you are likely to do well in the future, and likely to say in school.
But on-campus work is different. It doesn't depend on high SES. (In fact, getting a job on campus often depends on having a lower-than-average SES). It is a factor that the school itself can control. Compared with the expense of other retention efforts, it may be relatively cheap. And work can, in fact, have a meaningful impact on learning. (Westminster has begun requiring all on-campus jobs to specify how the job helps students achieve the college's learning goals.)
Students who work on campus at Westminster as freshmen are 6 to 10 percent more likely to be retained than students as a whole. On-campus work isn't a panacea. Schools in the Work Colleges Consortium (where all students work) have retention rates that range from 36% to 82%. But a campus interested in investing in retention would be wise to put its money in student jobs.
Previous academic performance is no surprise, since it tracks with what we know about success in college--if you have done well in school in the past (which is often a factor of high socio-economic status and family culture) you are likely to do well in the future, and likely to say in school.
But on-campus work is different. It doesn't depend on high SES. (In fact, getting a job on campus often depends on having a lower-than-average SES). It is a factor that the school itself can control. Compared with the expense of other retention efforts, it may be relatively cheap. And work can, in fact, have a meaningful impact on learning. (Westminster has begun requiring all on-campus jobs to specify how the job helps students achieve the college's learning goals.)
Students who work on campus at Westminster as freshmen are 6 to 10 percent more likely to be retained than students as a whole. On-campus work isn't a panacea. Schools in the Work Colleges Consortium (where all students work) have retention rates that range from 36% to 82%. But a campus interested in investing in retention would be wise to put its money in student jobs.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
What if we learned from the decline in studying outside of class?
I heard a presentation today from Charles Blaich of Wabash College. He leads the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, an effort to determine which practices lead students to develop the skills and orientations traditionally associated with a liberal arts education.
In his presentation Blaich pointed out a fact that we all recognize--students rarely spend 2 or 3 hours studying for every hour they spend in class. At best it is 1 to 1; in many instances less.
We all have our favorite explanations for this fact. Students just aren't committed to learning, or the rigor of higher education has declined, or student's lives are more complicated so they don't have as much time to spend outside of class, etc. etc. Whatever the explanation, though, we treat this fact as something to be denied or railed against. I know of no effort in higher ed to reflect the fact of declining outside-of-class studying in the practices or curriculum of a school.
This is interesting in part because there is a healthy backlash against homework in the K-12 system. Parents and educators argue that students spend enough time in school during the day, and that for ambitious students their homework routinely stretches into the wee hours of the morning, all with little evidence for improved learning.
So if it is the case that homework does not radically improve learning in K-12, and if it is the case that students spend less time doing it in college than we expect, perhaps we ought to begin to redesign learning with that fact in mind. Such a redesign might in fact support some of the things we know lead to better student engagement and improved learning. The critical change would be to have students spend more time in class than they currently do, while expecting that they spend less time outside of class studying. (This is by the way one of the side effects of the extended school day concept at many high achieving schools.)
What would be the result of this move?
1. Students could graduate more quickly because they could enroll in a larger number of classes (or preferably in the same number of classes but which bear more credits each). If the minimum number of credits to be considered full-time shifted from 12 to 15 hours, students would complete a 120-hour degree in 8 rather than 10 semesters. Where there is quicker graduation there is less cost to the student.
2. Students and faculty would spend more time together. It is clear that student/faculty interaction is an important determinant of student learning and retention, though its impact varies across race, class, and SES. It is also clear, though, that students are less likely to engage with faculty outside of the classroom than they are inside.
3. There would be more time for facilitated learning. Many faculty turn towards lectures not because they are the best way of teaching but because they feel that lectures are the most efficient way of imparting information. More can be said in 50 minutes than can be learned, the thinking goes. So instead we move some difficult ways of learning outside of the classroom, ensuring that students have to do them on their own time. More time in the classroom means more time for time-intensive and facilitation-needy pedagogies--reflection, group projects, student peer criticism, service-learning, mentoring, etc--in the classroom.
4. Learning might improve. Time on task is a key predictor of learning. How might faculty ensure that students spend quality time on task? By having them learn in front of or with the faculty member.
5. A greater portion of faculty educational time would be spent leading learning rather than preparing to teach. Let's stipulate that a shift to more time in the classroom does not mean more hours at work for faculty (just as it does not mean more hours "doing school" than is already expected of students). Currently faculty spend a tremendous amount of time preparing for class, and grading outside of class. In a more class time model, faculty would devote more of their attention to the relationships and interactions that lead to learning, rather than in the before and after of learning.
I know it is not a panacea, but if it is a given that students will not spend the time outside of class studying in a way that leads to learning, then spending more time in the classroom is a reasonable response.
Perhaps an experiment is in order--give two groups of students the same schedule. Have one group spend 12 hours a week in the classroom and try to get them to spend an additional 18 outside of class studying. Have the second spend 18 hours a week in class and 12 outside studying. Give both groups the same test at the beginning and end of the semester. Hold the faculty constant. Which group of students will learn more? Which group is more likely to come back the next semester?
In his presentation Blaich pointed out a fact that we all recognize--students rarely spend 2 or 3 hours studying for every hour they spend in class. At best it is 1 to 1; in many instances less.
We all have our favorite explanations for this fact. Students just aren't committed to learning, or the rigor of higher education has declined, or student's lives are more complicated so they don't have as much time to spend outside of class, etc. etc. Whatever the explanation, though, we treat this fact as something to be denied or railed against. I know of no effort in higher ed to reflect the fact of declining outside-of-class studying in the practices or curriculum of a school.
This is interesting in part because there is a healthy backlash against homework in the K-12 system. Parents and educators argue that students spend enough time in school during the day, and that for ambitious students their homework routinely stretches into the wee hours of the morning, all with little evidence for improved learning.
So if it is the case that homework does not radically improve learning in K-12, and if it is the case that students spend less time doing it in college than we expect, perhaps we ought to begin to redesign learning with that fact in mind. Such a redesign might in fact support some of the things we know lead to better student engagement and improved learning. The critical change would be to have students spend more time in class than they currently do, while expecting that they spend less time outside of class studying. (This is by the way one of the side effects of the extended school day concept at many high achieving schools.)
What would be the result of this move?
1. Students could graduate more quickly because they could enroll in a larger number of classes (or preferably in the same number of classes but which bear more credits each). If the minimum number of credits to be considered full-time shifted from 12 to 15 hours, students would complete a 120-hour degree in 8 rather than 10 semesters. Where there is quicker graduation there is less cost to the student.
2. Students and faculty would spend more time together. It is clear that student/faculty interaction is an important determinant of student learning and retention, though its impact varies across race, class, and SES. It is also clear, though, that students are less likely to engage with faculty outside of the classroom than they are inside.
3. There would be more time for facilitated learning. Many faculty turn towards lectures not because they are the best way of teaching but because they feel that lectures are the most efficient way of imparting information. More can be said in 50 minutes than can be learned, the thinking goes. So instead we move some difficult ways of learning outside of the classroom, ensuring that students have to do them on their own time. More time in the classroom means more time for time-intensive and facilitation-needy pedagogies--reflection, group projects, student peer criticism, service-learning, mentoring, etc--in the classroom.
4. Learning might improve. Time on task is a key predictor of learning. How might faculty ensure that students spend quality time on task? By having them learn in front of or with the faculty member.
5. A greater portion of faculty educational time would be spent leading learning rather than preparing to teach. Let's stipulate that a shift to more time in the classroom does not mean more hours at work for faculty (just as it does not mean more hours "doing school" than is already expected of students). Currently faculty spend a tremendous amount of time preparing for class, and grading outside of class. In a more class time model, faculty would devote more of their attention to the relationships and interactions that lead to learning, rather than in the before and after of learning.
I know it is not a panacea, but if it is a given that students will not spend the time outside of class studying in a way that leads to learning, then spending more time in the classroom is a reasonable response.
Perhaps an experiment is in order--give two groups of students the same schedule. Have one group spend 12 hours a week in the classroom and try to get them to spend an additional 18 outside of class studying. Have the second spend 18 hours a week in class and 12 outside studying. Give both groups the same test at the beginning and end of the semester. Hold the faculty constant. Which group of students will learn more? Which group is more likely to come back the next semester?
Friday, January 15, 2010
metaphors for disaster--eating the seed corn
Earlier this week University of Utah President Michael Young appeared before a legislative committee considering additional cuts to the higher education budget. Young told committee members that an additional 4% cut to state funding for the U (and the rest of the Utah system) would be akin to "eating our seed corn." "Twenty years from now," he asked, "do we want to have terrific prisons and terrible universities?"
Setting aside the fact that Utah's prisons are about as dismal as prisons in every other state (and that the Department of Corrections faces budget cuts as well), and that systems of higher ed in other states are facing fiscal problems larger than those in Utah, it is worth wondering what Young could have meant when he said that budget cuts would be like "eating the seed corn."
The most literal reading would be that by cutting budgets now, the university will starve in seasons to come. Read more liberally, a short-term solution, like cutting budgets, would push today's problem into the future. The question is whether by either of these readings, Young accurately describes the potential impact of this year's budget cuts.
The answer has to be no, for two reasons. From one perspective, Utah ate the seed corn long ago (or never had any at all). By many measures, the state of Utah already faces an education crisis. Most campuses are full to capacity, first- to second-year retention rates are between 43% (at UVU) to 83% (at the University of Utah) for four-year institutions (these data are from before the economic downturn), and a large portion of high school graduates never go to college at all. While a 4% cut may make things marginally worse, from an access to education perspective, things are already bad.
At the same time, a view from the outside suggests that a budget cut doesn't necessarily doom an institution for the long-term. City, county, and state governments have already sustained such cuts, but we don't hear anyone suggesting that Salt Lake City faces a long, bleak future because of those cuts. Businesses regularly face decreases in income and respond.
So this comes around to a more fundamental question--are institutions of higher education unlike other institutions, in that they cannot adapt to vagaries in funding? If so, why? And, more importantly, is greater funding necessary in order not just to maintain the status quo, but to actually reach those thousands of students who don't have access to higher ed in Utah?
Setting aside the fact that Utah's prisons are about as dismal as prisons in every other state (and that the Department of Corrections faces budget cuts as well), and that systems of higher ed in other states are facing fiscal problems larger than those in Utah, it is worth wondering what Young could have meant when he said that budget cuts would be like "eating the seed corn."
The most literal reading would be that by cutting budgets now, the university will starve in seasons to come. Read more liberally, a short-term solution, like cutting budgets, would push today's problem into the future. The question is whether by either of these readings, Young accurately describes the potential impact of this year's budget cuts.
The answer has to be no, for two reasons. From one perspective, Utah ate the seed corn long ago (or never had any at all). By many measures, the state of Utah already faces an education crisis. Most campuses are full to capacity, first- to second-year retention rates are between 43% (at UVU) to 83% (at the University of Utah) for four-year institutions (these data are from before the economic downturn), and a large portion of high school graduates never go to college at all. While a 4% cut may make things marginally worse, from an access to education perspective, things are already bad.
At the same time, a view from the outside suggests that a budget cut doesn't necessarily doom an institution for the long-term. City, county, and state governments have already sustained such cuts, but we don't hear anyone suggesting that Salt Lake City faces a long, bleak future because of those cuts. Businesses regularly face decreases in income and respond.
So this comes around to a more fundamental question--are institutions of higher education unlike other institutions, in that they cannot adapt to vagaries in funding? If so, why? And, more importantly, is greater funding necessary in order not just to maintain the status quo, but to actually reach those thousands of students who don't have access to higher ed in Utah?
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
What do we lose when we overlook the stories of students?
It is not a wise thing to make meaning out of coincidence. I'll do it here.
My daughter, about whose struggles I have written off and on, got home from her first semester at college the same day I turned in grades for my freshman seminar (about which I have written as well). My daughter's first semester grades were quite good, and after a difficult semester--for her emotions, her connections with others, and her sense of self--she got home with a bit of hope.
The day she got home I gave 3 failing grades in my seminar. They were for students who never attended or completed work, and who did not respond to my efforts (or those of others) to reach out to them. Those students, and the rest in my class, though, are registered for next semester. And so, they may stay at the college (I would bet against it). I can't know what their visits home were like.
My daughter and the students in my seminar have been, for the time being, retained. That fact will be recorded in the retention data we keep, and over which we puzzle. And that fact will be publicized, especially when the retention numbers are high. (The President of my daughter's college, in a letter at the beginning of his annual report, noted that 96.6% of undergraduates returned in the last year for which they have statistics.)
But having experienced my daughter's first semester so intensely, and having some insight into the experiences of my students, I can't help but feel the loss when those experiences are folded into "retention data."
Perhaps I have been too much influenced by my training as a historian, or my fondness for the writing of Wendell Berry and its reminder to tell local stories. And as I have been thinking about this post, a few lines from Zbigniew Herbert's "Mr. Cogito on the Need for Precision" keep coming to mind.
Herbert was a Polish poet, and witness to many of the atrocities of totalitarianism. Mr Cogito is his alter ego. Near the end of a long poem on the violence of the 20th century, Mr. Cogito reminds us:
My daughter, about whose struggles I have written off and on, got home from her first semester at college the same day I turned in grades for my freshman seminar (about which I have written as well). My daughter's first semester grades were quite good, and after a difficult semester--for her emotions, her connections with others, and her sense of self--she got home with a bit of hope.
The day she got home I gave 3 failing grades in my seminar. They were for students who never attended or completed work, and who did not respond to my efforts (or those of others) to reach out to them. Those students, and the rest in my class, though, are registered for next semester. And so, they may stay at the college (I would bet against it). I can't know what their visits home were like.
My daughter and the students in my seminar have been, for the time being, retained. That fact will be recorded in the retention data we keep, and over which we puzzle. And that fact will be publicized, especially when the retention numbers are high. (The President of my daughter's college, in a letter at the beginning of his annual report, noted that 96.6% of undergraduates returned in the last year for which they have statistics.)
But having experienced my daughter's first semester so intensely, and having some insight into the experiences of my students, I can't help but feel the loss when those experiences are folded into "retention data."
Perhaps I have been too much influenced by my training as a historian, or my fondness for the writing of Wendell Berry and its reminder to tell local stories. And as I have been thinking about this post, a few lines from Zbigniew Herbert's "Mr. Cogito on the Need for Precision" keep coming to mind.
Herbert was a Polish poet, and witness to many of the atrocities of totalitarianism. Mr Cogito is his alter ego. Near the end of a long poem on the violence of the 20th century, Mr. Cogito reminds us:
[...] in these matters
Accuracy is essential
We must not be wrong
Even by a single one
We are despite everything
The guardians of our brothers
Ignorance about those who have disappeared
Undermines the reality of the world.
I know that staying in college (or not) is nothing like disappearing in Stalin's gulag. But being invisible to people who, for whatever reason, are supposed to be connected to you, is a failure. And if the stories of those students who stay, and those who leave, are lost, then in important ways our systems allow "ignorance about those who have disappeared." If Herbert is right, this is not just a small problem. It is a way of undermining the reality of the world, turning it from concrete to something abstract.
So at the end, here, let me put in a plug for gathering and using stories of retention (or of not-retention). The fact that 78% or 96.6% of our students come back tells us only a little. What will tell us more is if we know our students well enough to say for each one that he or she has stayed (or left) for good reason. And it isn't enough, probably, for student affairs staff, or a professor here or there, to be able to speak to the actual experience of actual students. Their stories need to be told, and remembered, by fellow students, and by administrators, and leaders.
Colleges imagine themselves as communities. We aim to build places where relationships lead to learning. If we are to be communities of learners, we must remember that we are, "despite everything the guardians of our brothers."
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Advisor, mentor, coach, what?
As much change as there has been in faculty roles in the classroom (exemplified (somewhat poorly, I think) by the shift from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side") there have been even greater changes in the roles faculty play outside of the classroom.
As an undergraduate I only went to office hours when I had a course content question. (I still remember the anxiety I felt sitting outside Neil York's office waiting to ask a question about the Compromise of 1850.) When I began teaching I had the same expectations--that students would come to talk about the course.
Over time my expectations, and those of my institutions, have changed. At BYU I became something of an advisor, helping students select courses for the next semester. Now, I and all other Westminster faculty teaching in learning communities are expected to mentor new freshmen. We talk a bit about classes, but our greater interest is in seeing how students are doing--Are they going to classes? Getting on OK with roommates?--and in helping to shape their approach to learning--How do they study? How much? Any difficulties? (BTW, this sort of practice is spreading in higher ed. both because it seems to help with retention and because the NSSE survey asks students how often they talk with faculty outside of the class about non-academic topics.)
Other faculty here are working on developing a coaching role with students in our project-based, competency driven business programs. There, students complete complex projects, with faculty coaching them on how to better do their work.
This week I've been wondering whether these roles are adequate. Here is why.
In my freshman seminar I asked students to write essays about their strengths and weaknesses, and how they expected to grow over the semester. To give shape to the essays, students wrote about the college's learning goals. (i.e. "I feel like I am quite strong at "critial thinking" but need to become better at "leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.") Their essays were good--well-written, complete, and serious about the learning goals and their own growth. Only one of the essays had any real vigor to it though, and in that one the student rejected the whole idea of the value of our particular learning goals.
The formality of these essays matches the formality of my first mentoring conversations with students. When they come by my office for a mentoring talk it is almost as if they are reporting on their behavior. Not a bad thing, to be sure. And something likely to lead over time to deeper relationships. But awkward nonetheless, for both parties.
(This year all of our entering freshmen have mentors. If they aren't in learning communities, then their mentors are administrators. The whole senior administrative team is participating. This is a great step forward--every student has someone looking out for them. But many of the administrative mentors find the relationship even more awkward because they don't even have their mentees in a class.)
The same day I graded the essays I got perhaps ten text messages from my daughter who is also a new freshman at a college in California. Those texts and our phone calls were much rawer. She feels isolated socially. And she doesn't feel like anyone--roommates, RAs, or faculty--see that isolation.
Certainly some of my role as a dad is to help her through that isolation. But it left me wondering if I would be able to see those feelings in the students who I mentor. Should I see them? Are they visible to someone who is a "mentor"? We know that a sense of isolation, over the long-term, is a predictor of a student not being retained at a college. And it is especially the case for students who have other risk factors--first-generation, lower income, etc.
What is the role for an employee of a college that makes it possible to see isolation? Can faculty ever do it consistently? Should they? Or are roles themselves the issue? Do they obscure what we might otherwise see if we thought of each other as friends? As part of the same community, regardless of roles? Can the roles fall away even while we maintain the educational purposes that make us a college instead of a club?
As an undergraduate I only went to office hours when I had a course content question. (I still remember the anxiety I felt sitting outside Neil York's office waiting to ask a question about the Compromise of 1850.) When I began teaching I had the same expectations--that students would come to talk about the course.
Over time my expectations, and those of my institutions, have changed. At BYU I became something of an advisor, helping students select courses for the next semester. Now, I and all other Westminster faculty teaching in learning communities are expected to mentor new freshmen. We talk a bit about classes, but our greater interest is in seeing how students are doing--Are they going to classes? Getting on OK with roommates?--and in helping to shape their approach to learning--How do they study? How much? Any difficulties? (BTW, this sort of practice is spreading in higher ed. both because it seems to help with retention and because the NSSE survey asks students how often they talk with faculty outside of the class about non-academic topics.)
Other faculty here are working on developing a coaching role with students in our project-based, competency driven business programs. There, students complete complex projects, with faculty coaching them on how to better do their work.
This week I've been wondering whether these roles are adequate. Here is why.
In my freshman seminar I asked students to write essays about their strengths and weaknesses, and how they expected to grow over the semester. To give shape to the essays, students wrote about the college's learning goals. (i.e. "I feel like I am quite strong at "critial thinking" but need to become better at "leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.") Their essays were good--well-written, complete, and serious about the learning goals and their own growth. Only one of the essays had any real vigor to it though, and in that one the student rejected the whole idea of the value of our particular learning goals.
The formality of these essays matches the formality of my first mentoring conversations with students. When they come by my office for a mentoring talk it is almost as if they are reporting on their behavior. Not a bad thing, to be sure. And something likely to lead over time to deeper relationships. But awkward nonetheless, for both parties.
(This year all of our entering freshmen have mentors. If they aren't in learning communities, then their mentors are administrators. The whole senior administrative team is participating. This is a great step forward--every student has someone looking out for them. But many of the administrative mentors find the relationship even more awkward because they don't even have their mentees in a class.)
The same day I graded the essays I got perhaps ten text messages from my daughter who is also a new freshman at a college in California. Those texts and our phone calls were much rawer. She feels isolated socially. And she doesn't feel like anyone--roommates, RAs, or faculty--see that isolation.
Certainly some of my role as a dad is to help her through that isolation. But it left me wondering if I would be able to see those feelings in the students who I mentor. Should I see them? Are they visible to someone who is a "mentor"? We know that a sense of isolation, over the long-term, is a predictor of a student not being retained at a college. And it is especially the case for students who have other risk factors--first-generation, lower income, etc.
What is the role for an employee of a college that makes it possible to see isolation? Can faculty ever do it consistently? Should they? Or are roles themselves the issue? Do they obscure what we might otherwise see if we thought of each other as friends? As part of the same community, regardless of roles? Can the roles fall away even while we maintain the educational purposes that make us a college instead of a club?
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