[1604] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
RE: [Mit-talk] Chronicle of Higher Education: An Alternative to the
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Belcher)
Mon Sep 12 14:23:34 2005
From: "John Belcher" <jbelcher@mit.edu>
To: <mit-talk@mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 14:23:07 -0400
In-Reply-To: <b82503c90509120737476da6f6@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
Hi Jeff
I think this is a good idea. Question is how to advertise it so that it
gets significant readership. And who runs it? But there are a lot of
articles out there on higher ed, and about mit, etc. that could use a
central clearing house and easy availability (the faculty newsletter comes
to mind as sometimes having articles that alum's and students would be
interested in, see
http://web.mit.edu/fnl/
but I would image that site gets very little traffic).
John Belcher
-----Original Message-----
From: mit-talk-bounces@MIT.EDU [mailto:mit-talk-bounces@MIT.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jeff Roberts
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 10:38 AM
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
Subject: [Mit-talk] Chronicle of Higher Education: An Alternative to the
Campus as Club Med
Does anyone else think there should be something set up expressly for
posting news articles relating to MIT, higher ed. campus issues, &c.?
I know that there are a lot of current students not subscribed to "the
talk", and I bet a number of those students (particularly those who
deal with administrators, who are reading these types of articles
every day) would be interested in reading stories like the one posted
below, but would prefer not to hear the pointless rantings and ravings
of alums like myself ...
Anyway, once again, it looks like MIT is ahead of the curve but
doesn't know it ...
http://chronicle.com/temp/email.php?id=a9x6somzmw62an22tri2chzl8xl7xrch
Text included below (with nod to jhawk).
---
An Alternative to the Campus as Club Med
By ADAM WEINBERG
Jacuzzis and multimedia theaters, juice bars and hot tubs, sports
centers and coffee shops -- they are increasingly part of the college
landscape as higher-education institutions seek to attract more
students by offering ever-fancier facilities and frills. But in our
relentless quest to woo undergraduates, are we creating climates in
which our academic programs can thrive and our students can learn? Or
are our campuses becoming simply mini-versions of Club Med?
Colleges could significantly increase the depth and breadth of student
learning if they dropped out of the amenities arms race and instead
became more intent on capturing the educational moments that take
place outside the classroom. We need to ask some tough questions about
the student-affairs programs on our campuses.
Before the 1970s, "student affairs" consisted of some athletics
programs and a few administrators who essentially acted as surrogate
parents, enforcing rules and order. In the late 1960s, however, as
institutions struggled to confront race relations, sexual violence,
drug and alcohol abuse, and other controversial issues, they hired
professional administrators to deal with those concerns. By the 1990s,
that trend had led to an explosion of student-affairs offices and
departments, charged with managing programs, residential units,
cultural centers, campus safety, career services, and virtually all
other nonacademic aspects of campus life.
The student-services model has allowed colleges to become more open
and welcoming to students from all backgrounds and helped us cope with
the increase of students arriving on campus with learning
disabilities, emotional and social problems, and psychological
disorders. But that model has many drawbacks, as well.
Too many colleges have become obsessed with providing the newest and
most-lavish services and amenities to keep up with the competition,
diverting resources away from other, more valuable educational
programs. In addition, by hiring so many trained professionals, we
have robbed students of opportunities to learn through their own
problem solving. We have encouraged a sense of entitlement among them,
so that they increasingly view themselves as clients that our
institutions are obliged to serve -- isolated individuals with
problems to be fixed -- rather than members of a community who work
together to develop solutions.
Yet some colleges are experimenting with new residential models that
focus on educating students. They are creating entrepreneurial
cultures where students think of themselves as innovators and problem
solvers, as opposed to cynical consumers mired in needs. For example,
the University of Illinois at Chicago, borrowing from a model
developed by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, is shifting
control of its residential units away from trained professionals.
Students run their own dormitories through "consensus agreements" and
work together to set standards, hold one another accountable, and make
decisions about daily life. Their experience differs significantly
from students who check into residential halls that look and feel like
hotels.
Living-learning communities have emerged at a wide range of
institutions. Wright State University, for instance, offers first-year
students on its main campus the opportunity to take three classes
together while living on the same floor. At St. Lawrence University,
every freshman lives in one of 18 residential colleges and takes the
same interdisciplinary course during the first semester as the rest of
the students in the same college. At Colgate University, we have built
on those models by reframing our student-affairs program around the
notion of "residential education," to take advantage of learning
opportunities that occur outside classes.
To develop more programs along these lines and make campus activities
truly educational, colleges and universities must confront a number of
myths that have long surrounded our approach to student affairs:
Myth 1: More programming is better. The growth of student
organizations with access to large amounts of money generated by
activities fees has led to an explosion of poor-quality
student-affairs programs. A dean at a small New England college
recently confided that his institution has one organization for every
12 students.
Such groups usually plan earnest and well-meaning activities like
lectures and films, but many students are jaded by years of sitting
through such events and find them uninteresting and unhelpful. For
example, when I visited another campus, a student told me,
"Orientation was filled with lectures on race. Lectures on race don't
help me. I need opportunities to meet and talk with people who are
different, and I need somebody to help me learn how." Students often
respond to the overflow of programs by tuning out or by ignoring them
altogether: Attendance at many programs is low, which not only wastes
money but also sends a message to other students that it is not "cool"
to attend such events.
A better approach would be to teach students how to plan fewer,
higher-quality activities. Too often, as they participate in student
organizations, young adults learn poor skills. They get in the habit
of running meetings without agendas, accepting failed events
noncritically, and developing strategies that have little relationship
to the goals of a project. Yet student organizations can be great
educational venues. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for example, has
designed workshops that teach communication skills, team building, and
goal setting to help students learn how to manage their programs.
At Colgate, our focus has also shifted to working with students to
develop the skills they need to run organizations and plan meaningful
events. Previously, with 130 student groups for 2,800 students, we
were overwhelmed with programs that were often poorly attended and
offered few benefits to students or the campus. We now emphasize
creating fewer programs, ones that actually serve educational
purposes.
Breaking Bread, for example, supports student efforts to interact with
peers from different backgrounds and with different views. A student
group can tap into a special college fund only if it sponsors an event
with another group with whom it doesn't normally collaborate. The two
organizations must draft a written proposal for the event over a
dinner for which they must buy food and cook together. Our staff helps
the groups identify what they hope to accomplish, find ways to make
the programs more interactive, and encourage people to attend the
event.
As case in point: The College Republicans and the Rainbow Alliance --
a social and support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
and queer/questioning students -- collaborated to bring Andrew
Sullivan, a conservative gay-rights activist, to speak at Colgate.
They organized a large reception with faculty members before the event
and, afterward, led a reflective conversation during which students
discussed their reactions to Sullivan's remarks.
As a result of our new approach, well-defined events have replaced
poorly planned ones, attendance is up, and we are spending less money.
What's more, students have learned to solve problems, be creative, and
listen actively to other viewpoints.
Myth 2: Alcohol is bad and must be avoided at all cost. When an
institution has many rules prohibiting alcohol, the only people who
sponsor parties are the students who don't mind breaking those rules.
Typically, the object of such parties is consuming as much alcohol as
possible. Colleges should consider how they can provide safe, legal,
and responsible venues for students to develop good lifelong habits.
That requires assuming some risk, entering into more honest
conversations with students, and giving them space to create a social
life.
Hamilton College, for example, has identified particular venues where
students can hold social events with alcohol, ranging from small
lounge areas to large halls. It has also built a new campus pub for
faculty members and students. Bowdoin College has taken a similar
approach by opening social clubs in several free-standing houses. Both
colleges are working with students to help them learn to hold
responsible parties. In the process, the social life at those
institutions is becoming more varied than a huge campuswide beer
blast. More important, students are learning to take responsibility,
hold their peers accountable, and socialize in an environment where
alcohol is present but not the focus.
We have followed a similar course at Colgate. After a year of
structured conversations with various student groups, we reversed a
policy that had banned alcohol in free-standing theme houses (those
for specific groups like athletes or students involved with outdoor
education, for example). Students can even obtain financial support
from the administration for events that include alcohol if they write
a short memo describing what they want to do and how it will enhance
the community. The parameters are simple: Each event has to be safe,
legal, and reasonable, and its focus must be on something other than
alcohol.
Last year the houses organized 127 social events with no problems.
Examples included a Halloween party with a faculty and student band, a
series of debates among faculty members and students, and several
improvisational-theater presentations. In the process, our theme
houses are becoming strong communities that anchor our campus life.
And as many students view the role of alcohol in new and different
ways, the social life on our campus has changed significantly for the
better.
Myth 3: More rules improve behavior. Students may follow the rules,
but that doesn't teach them to think for themselves. It's best to set
high expectations for students, communicate with them clearly, and
support them in creating their own paths to meet those expectations.
Nowhere is that better exemplified than with resident assistants,
whose roles are poorly defined and often contradictory. Resident
assistants serve as front-line judicial officers and, at the same
time, mentors and friends to other students. A resident assistant at a
Southern college asked me, "How can I be a mentor they trust when I am
the disciplinary officer who writes them up?" We should train resident
assistants to neither police nor indulge other students but to be
community organizers who encourage innovation and teamwork.
A good example involves roommate conflicts. The vast majority of
incoming students have never shared a room with another person, so we
should not be surprised when difficulties arise. Too often,
residential advisers have approached roommate conflicts as
professional staff members who listen to complaints and then create
rules to deal with them. Yet such problems present opportunities for
students to voice a problem, hear a different view, and learn to get
along. The University of Illinois at Chicago has articulated this well
on its Web site: "The traditional authority figure becomes a person
who helps this process to happen instead of someone who fixes things
for people. If every student lived in perfect isolation, he or she
could conduct him or herself in any way. Since in reality we exist
within a tightly networked society, we all need to learn to work,
live, and learn together."
Certainly, problems can lead to student unrest, upset parents, and
even lawsuits. But problems are inevitable, and instead of trying to
prevent or solve every one, we should use them as opportunities to
learn.
Myth 4: Community service is the only way to conduct civic education.
Civic education is about getting students to do public work. As Harry
Boyte, the co-director at the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at
the University of Minnesota, has noted, "Democracy ... is what happens
when ordinary people get together and make things happen. They do the
public work that revives a park, saves a wetland, starts a church, or
tackles racism in their community."
Community service is one way to accomplish that work, but it attracts
only certain students. Residence halls, on the other hand, are ideal
sites for civic education as they involve a broad range of people. For
example, Broward Community College, Naropa University, Minneapolis
Community and Technical College, and other institutions are
participating in Public Achievement, a program sponsored by Boyte's
center that trains college students to coach elementary and secondary
students to support their local communities.
At Colgate, we are adapting that program for resident assistants and
encouraging them to organize teams of students, which we call
Community Councils, to tackle problems or take advantage of
opportunities to serve the college and the neighboring community. The
program has inspired a surge of civic involvement in our residential
units. For example, in one residence hall, students started a theater
in an empty basement as a way to build community and raise political
ideas on the campus.
Myth 5: Students lack fundamental values on important public issues.
In general, today's students are concerned about the environment,
believe in civil rights, and want to live in a just world. Yet while a
recent National Survey of Student Engagement found that more than half
of all students care about and talk about public-policy issues, far
fewer actually act on their views and values.
For instance, our student groups often bring controversial political
speakers to the campus to speak about issues of race. Although
students have claimed that they want opportunities to discuss racial
concerns with people who hold different views, their actions have
suggested otherwise. Rather than engage, students have held rallies or
protested events.
Last year we started to use such moments to train students in the
skills of civil discourse. As a result students formed the Political
Student Network, which explores ways to encourage more campus debate,
including organizing student-led forums after a controversial speaker
comes to campus. The forums, which involve the group that sponsored
the speaker and those from dissenting groups, provide wonderful
moments of fierce but respectful conversations over issues of race,
class, and public policy.
For example, students in the College Republicans and conservative
faculty members brought Ed Koch to campus last fall. Koch made some
bold comments about the relationship between Islam and terrorism. At
the old Colgate, our Muslim Student Association and the College
Republicans would have spent weeks writing letters in the school
newspaper and trading nasty e-mail messages. With our new model, they
came together and quickly designed a follow-up session that many other
students attended. Led by student leaders from both groups, as well as
conservative and progressive Muslim faculty members, the forum was
framed around how to have an honest but civil conversation about Islam
in the post-September 11 era.
Myth 6: Without the perks and frills, students will not come. Special
entitlements are not the way to attract and retain students or to keep
parents and other groups outside higher education happy. Parents are
concerned about their children's life choices, while people outside
higher education care increasingly about work-force development, civic
education, and other broad societal needs. Since we've refocused our
student-affairs programming, we have had two of our best admissions
and fund-raising years, attracting students and reconnecting with
alumni who have seen purpose and meaning in our new direction.
I don't harbor the fantasy that a new model of residential education
will solve every student-related problem. But we can spend less money
and time on unnecessary programs, be more focused on the outcomes that
we desire, and guide our campuses to become less about catering to
students' whims and more about educating them to contribute to our
society.
Adam Weinberg is dean of the college and an associate professor of
sociology at Colgate University.
--
"I'm a public servant, and not permitted to use my own judgement in any
way."
- Superintendent Chalmers
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