NAVFAC [Public domain]
Second-semester students come into their classrooms as jaded veterans knowing exactly what their status is. They know that the teachers of their core curriculum courses (normally, all that they are taking, this year) are, for the most part, either untried graduate students, adjuncts so harried they have no time for their students, first-year probationers, or burned-out cases whose upper-level offerings are studiously avoided. The students know that nobody on the faculty is really interested in teaching their courses or is interested in them—and won’t be, not until they reach their third or fourth year and are embarked on a major.
Even their advisement, at this early point in their college careers, is often removed from the faculty—and will be, until they are firmly enfolded in that major. Faculty offices, after all, when faculty have them (ask an adjunct about that), are intimidating places, almost as though designed to keep students away. Computer screens and piles of books take precedence over the little chair, often having to be cleared off, offered to the student. There are signs of work everywhere, making the humble undergraduate feel like an intruder impinging on august undertakings.
Or, in an adjunct warren, people are running in and out, students and teachers, everyone looking rushed and harried. There is no space for a real discussion or honest confession. No time to explain to the teacher ‘just why.’ The professor is likely packing up, anyway, ready to head for another campus and a different class.
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One of the biggest rallying cries of college administrators today is “Retention!” They put forward all sorts of programs to keep students from dropping out, developing support programs and hiring counselors and conducting surveys. None of this adding to the bureaucracy, however, addresses the core problem: Aside from the catastrophes of non-campus life, the main reason students drop out is that they have been abandoned in the classroom. No amount of external support can counter that.
Only faculty can.
But doing that demands a real change in faculty culture and a type of self-examination we are loathe to undertake.
First, we need to start giving respect to the teaching of required lower-level courses. Too many of us feel we are wasting valuable skills when instructing any but graduate students or, maybe, upper-level undergraduates. ‘Anyone’ can teach the introductory courses; few can handle the specializations. We can change that, and we should.
Second, we must start being proud of all of our students, not just those few in the front row. This means, too, that we stop segregating students into honors programs (where students get special attention as well as special reward) and start paying equal attention to even that student hunched in the back row who clearly doesn’t want to be there. This means reaching students who are avoiding us, not by humiliating them or putting them on the spot in some fashion, but by finding ways of talking with them on their terms and on their ground.
This also means developing much more collaborative support for teaching, including even the most senior of us in group-led development circles where we can talk with each other about classroom events and even visit, in a non-evaluative role, each others’ classrooms. This means that we all makes sure we teach lower-level classes each semester, never reserving ourselves exclusively for only advanced students.
This means arguing forcefully against those who turn up their noses when we enthuse about the joys and challenges of teaching first-year students (which are real, in case you haven’t done it in a while). It means reversing attitudes that assume we are somehow making poor use of our years of study by instructing students whose level is far below our exalted status, as though there are plenty of others not as advanced as we who can adequately do that job. This means recognizing that we can bring our specializations into first-year classrooms, making us even more valuable there than we might be when shepherding the most advanced post-docs in our fields. This means giving high status in hiring, reappointment, promotion, and tenure processes to those making the greatest impact upon core courses in their teaching and even in their scholarship.
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The split between administrators and faculty has become so profound that administrators avoid mention of faculty culture as they try to address problems of retention, hoping against hope that ‘support’ will do what faculty aren’t—looking to the needs of all students from all levels in every department. That doesn’t mean administrators are blameless for contemporary retention problems—they are not. It is they who have promoted a situation where most core classes on many campuses are taught by adjuncts or contingent hires and who promote as ‘top’ faculty those who bring in grants or gain notice in the media. They have contributed even more to the problem and in ways pointless to be enumerated here; it is useless, though, to simply blame administrators and wash our faculty hands of the situation when we can do something about it.
What we can do at the beginning is simple: Start by asking, each semester, to teach a first-year class. Then be proud of what you are doing there. The impact can be greater than in any other teaching any of us will ever do.
And student retention–if we are as good at what we do as we think we are–will improve.
This is absolutely correct. But most regular faculty, tenure-track, do they hear the message? Certainly people in college admissions, who advertise for the colleges, and secondary school college counselors – those who guide students towards applying to these colleges – don’t want to hear it. I have been trying to inform those counselors but they seem to be most interested in getting students accepted.
Thanks, Jane. That’s a part of this I should have been thinking about and certainly is a problem in getting any momentum toward a changed faculty culture.
People who are comfortably employed MUST support others. Unfortunately, this seems to be rare. In terms of colleges, I have worked on all sides – teaching, admissions, and counseling – and over the years I have seen that people can be sympathetic, but don’t actually do anything.
You are so right. When we who are comfortably employed don’t support the others, we ultimately hurt ourselves, too.
I am comfortably retired. No one employs me, and so I can say whatever I like (I do not slander anyone, just tell the truth). But who listens?
Having spent almost 12 months here at the UC on a secondment program from Public Service, working in a growing faculty with constant change, I understand with a passion how this sits and it resonates 100% with me! The enthusiasm of getting in and making a difference has certainly opened my eyes to the barriers and in many cases the similarities that are across government too when aiming to address cultural change and to remove RED TAPE. On a positive note, the academics are growing and transforming their approaches with many collaborations outside of the university being formed and with an interest in growing the support across the voluntary sector of STEM Professional areas with schools and colleges. The considerations of the Future Workforce and the skills gaps in many new and emerging career pathways is a priority for government.
The opportunity to work here with both graduate students who return to the university for a year long (part-time) course whilst starting their careers in government IT departments and with enthusiastic final year students who are coming close to graduating has been a real eye opener for me and which has personally given me so much learning and thinking of how I can change my own approaches to better address the needs in a changing study practice. I thank all those students who came forward and challenged the information they received and those who had forward thinking and deeper reflection calling out respectfully in their conclusions and lessons learned.
Next year will certainly see some new practices from me and I am grateful to have this opportunity to encourage new ideas and innovative ways that will help to change culture in traditional learning environment.