"Symbols that are meant to include can inadvertently exclude. Action meant to set expectations for excellence can chafe against student expectations of adult freedom and independence" (Manning, 2013, p. 98).
In this week's readings, Chapter 8 of Manning's text discussed cultural perspectives of higher education institutional organizations. She examined what all goes into shaping this culture, and she pointed out the flaws of a corporate culture approach to higher education. In such institutions, Manning wrote that culture is formed by all the people within the organization, the long-standing conflicting goals within such settings, and the numerous subcultures existing among stakeholders. She highlighted the values and assumptions, history and traditions, priests and storytellers, language, and architecture that shape cultures of higher education institutions. What stood out to me the most, however, was the section on symbols, specifically the excerpt that began this blog post. While symbols are important parts of any culture, they are always up for interpretation. As the text said, a statue of the institution's founder may reflect tradition and excellence and service and entrepreneurship to one person, while simultaneously reflecting outdated notions and values to another person. I believe such controversial symbols are becoming more and more prominent in today's systems of higher education. We must carefully consider how such symbols can be perceived and what they are intended to represent. However, intention alone cannot justify continued support of a symbol that is perceived as exclusionary or gentrifying. It can be a tough territory to navigate; symbols are important in creating culture and instilling pride, but they can also cause controversy. Which, leads us right into the readings from Bolman and Deal (2013) for this week. These readings continued last week's introduction to conflict in organizations and looked deeper into the political framework of organizational structures. My favorite section from this reading was about the political skills a manager must possess: agenda-setting, mapping the political terrain, networking and building coalitions, and bargaining and negotiating. The bargaining and negotiating skill is something I get to practice in my job right now, in a much more explicit form than in the sense Bolman and Deal are meaning it to be. Working with Student Center Programs, I am often contracting outside vendors and trying to negotiate with them about the services they'll provide and the price we will pay them. Although this is somewhat different than what a manager must do in leading an organization, many of the same practices are still in place. For example, I must strive to understand what exactly the vendor is wanting and how I can help them get that while still getting what I want and need. This works best when I follow the steps described by Bolman and Deal. The first step is to separate people from the problem. Many of our vendors are sole proprietors and their business is their whole livelihood; this makes it much more difficult to separate the people from the deal than it is when we're working with large booking agencies. The second strategy is focusing on interests, not positions. It's not a matter of taking sides or being opposition; it's a matter of us and the vendor both trying to maximize our interests. The third strategy is to invent options for mutual gain instead of locking in on the first alternative that comes to mind. Sometimes we do this by creating bundle packages with more items, making the vendor's trip more worthwhile and our price-per-item lower. Finally, the last strategy is to insist on objective criteria - standards of fairness for both substance and procedure. I view this as maintaining realistic expectations; like I wouldn't expect a vendor to do any event below-cost. Overall, understanding this part of the political framework among others can help an administrator be more effective in navigating conflict and maximizing the results of the organization and its individuals.
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This week, I really enjoyed the readings from Bolman and Deal (2013). To begin, I want to zero in on my favorite part of it, Exhibit 6.1 Models of Motivation at Work on page 121. This seems to be an element often overlooked by new leaders and managers when trying to consider how to increase the performance of their team. In my assistantship and practicum, I am responsible for advising several student leaders. Quite often, they will come to me with frustrations about their organization members under-performing or issues with membership retention. When this happens, I will engage them in a conversation about what their members are seeking through this involvement and how the organization is meeting those needs and desires. We talk about how to help organization members pursue their own goals and motivations in a way that also aligns with the needs and goals of the organization. Additionally, we will discuss little ways in which to increase their motivation, such as providing them with greater ownership of their work, sharing results of their efforts, and acknowledging their work with gratitude.
Many classes, job interviews, and initial organization meetings will begin with the same question: “Why are you here?” The goal of this question is to elicit potential opportunities to motivate the members of the class, the job applicant, or organization member. However, people often take it as a test. It seems to, more often than not, spur one of two reactions: eye rolls or an artificial answer that is clearly based on whatever the respondent believes the questioner wants to hear. Yet, when these answers are given, there is a missed opportunity to demonstrate what could help a respondent have a great experience. We need to start considering this question more thoughtfully and answer it honestly. Okay, back to the readings…how am I 300 words into this reflection and haven’t even really discussed the readings?! I guess Exhibit 6.1 just ignited several thoughts for me. In this graphic, models of motivation are shared. From Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Pink’s three drives, several different elements of needs are shared. However, they are all based on the same premise: people have needs, and they are motivated by trying to meet those needs. I especially like the models by McClelland and Pink. McClellands addresses people’s three primary needs/motivators: achievement, power, affiliation. Everyone wants to accomplish something and see the results of their efforts, they want to gain authority to spread influence, and they want to have groups with which they can identify and feel a sense of belonging. Pink highlights three “drives”: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. For me, purpose is always a significant driving force. Whenever I feel burnt out or discouraged with my work, I refocus on my purpose of serving others to power through the challenge. Additionally, I want to have control over my work (autonomy), and I want to always continue improving at what I do (mastery). Seeing these different models and the times of their development makes me wonder: do people’s needs and motivators change over time? I’m not talking about an individual’s needs. I’m talking about needs common to a whole generation. Can such research and models persist, or will there be continuous generational changes? Which needs are so core to being a human that will always be applicable? As we seek to be leaders and managers, these are the questions we should taken into consideration. Throwback to junior year of undergrad! That leadership and management class that I loved covered many of the same topics discussed by Bolman and Deal (2013) in this week's readings. Unlike that class though, the management and leadership styles of Frederick W. Taylor and Max Weber were presented in somewhat of a positive light in the text. Of course, such rigid and highly mechanized organizational structures have their drawbacks, but Bolman and Deal presented a much more balanced look at the potential benefits of such a structure.
Many of this week's readings made me think of our organizational chart project in EDHI 698, as we were tasked with re-ordering the Division of Student Affairs at our undergraduate institutions. Much of the knowledge shared in this week's readings could have helped create more effective organizational charts. I think what stood out to me the most, however, were the sections on the difficulties of restructuring. As you see so many higher education administrators come into new positions and try to restructure, it's interesting to see how difficult this can be. I also appreciated the structural dilemmas presented in the Bolman and Deal text, talking about differentiation versus integration, gap versus overlap, etc. One thing I've personally seen is underuse versus overload, having come from a small institution where nearly everyone was overworked and then coming to a larger institution where some people are definitely underworked. In the Schloss and Cragg (2013) text, I enjoyed the overview of so many systems of self-governance and university committees. I have served on university-wide committees before, and I intend to continue doing so throughout my career. I was interested in the part where the text talks about balancing committee responsibilities with individual position responsibilities, as this is an area of potential conflict in all such roles. In particular, I would like to serve on a planning and budget committee. Such committees rely heavily on assessment to guide evidence-based decision-making, which would blend many of my interests in assessment and budgeting. Surprisingly, the readings I liked the best were from Manning (2013). Generally, I have not really appreciated this book, as it seems to reiterate much of what we learned in EDHI 698. However, I liked viewing higher education through the perspective of faculty. I have always been one to be frustrated by tenure and not really understand academic freedom, but this reading brought greater clarity to both topics for me. Additionally, the following quote really stood out to me: "Academic capitalism is objectionable because it erodes the belief that higher education and education in general is a public good. As higher education institutions adopt the practices of the corporate world and reject the practices of nonprofits, arguments for higher education as a private good, one that should be paid for solely by the individuals, are strengthened" (Manning, 2013, p. 49). Coming from a conservative family that has always viewed higher education as a private good, this is a concept that I have struggled to fully understand. However, this excerpt explicitly described the logic against academic capitalism and clarified it to me in a way it never has been before. It makes sense, of course, that an educated society is a better society. Therefore, all people should want and support the education of individuals. This week's readings covered everything from frames of organizations to organized anarchy structures of educational institutions. I especially enjoyed the Bolman and Deal (2013) reading about various frameworks for organizations and common fallacies in explaining organizational problems. The fallacy that stuck out the most to me was the tendency to blame people whenever something goes wrong. I believe we see this in so many different contexts and with so many different organizations. Rather than focusing on fixing an issue, everyone often looks for someone to point the finger at when thing go awry. When this happens, time is wasted and opportunities to move forward are left unseized. I think we see this most often through the firing of upper-level administrators. When a university has significant issues (e.g. declining enrollment, major sexual assault scandals, extremely poor-performing sports teams, etc.), governing bodies or chief officers look for someone to fire. University presidents, vice presidents, deans, athletic directors, and head coaches have all been made scapegoats in situations such as these. However, if an institution is ineffective in further addressing the issue after firing someone, nothing at all will be accomplished. This directly ties into the reading from Schloss and Cragg (2013), which talks about key leadership positions and expectations. Expectations exist for these leaders to perform well, resolve issues, and help an institution advance its mission.
Manning (2013) talked about organizations that follow an organized anarchy structure. This concept was hard for me to fathom, as the metaphor of “anarchy” is so strong. However, as I came to better understand it, the concept of organized anarchy certainly grew on me. I have always valued smaller institutions because of the opportunities afforded for collaboration and for each individual to have a greater voice in university proceedings. I believe organized anarchy structures would be most successful at smaller institutions because of this. The best parts of this structure, in my opinion, are the opportunities to think critically and creatively and to create change. Along these lines, one quote in particular resonated with me: “While institutions constrain action they also provide sources of agency and change. The contradictions inherent in the differentiated set of institutional logics provide individuals, groups, and organizations with cultural resources for transforming individual identities, organizations, and society” (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p.101 as seen in Manning, 2013, p. 21). This all relates back to Bolman and Deal’s (2013) peculiarities of organizations, which have slight implications of organized anarchy structures. They identified complexity, surprising happenings, deceptiveness, and ambiguity as features of organizations. Within this section, I was struck by the quote, “The solution to yesterday’s problems often create future obstacles” (Bolman & Deal, 2013, p. 30). This is something I believe we will run into time and time again throughout this class as well as throughout our careers. It is a never-ending cycle, where we pride ourselves in being innovative only to learn we are creating more problems. A negative response to this would be to question whether attempts at innovation and solving problems are actually worth it. However, I remain optimistic that, although a solution may bring about new problems, there is at least a little lasting progress with each turn of this cycle. Well, it is now semester two of my three-semester graduate program in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education. It is time to once again write some reaction papers to class readings, so I figure I will stick to what I love: modern-day journaling, a.k.a. blogging. This time, the class is Administration and Finance in Higher Education, and I can not wait to get started.
Overall, this week’s three readings reminded me of readings from EDHI 698: Principles and Practices, which was a class I really enjoyed. Much of the first reading, from Organization and Administration in Higher Education by Schloss and Cragg (2013), was repeated information from EDHI 698. However, it really got me thinking about private vs. public control of universities. Ball State is the first public school I have ever attended, and I have become fascinated about the differences in how this affects an institution. Most interesting to me was how different states have different authoritative bodies determining tuition. Whereas private universities always have control over setting their tuition, public universities may not have that ability. I can foresee this being both a blessing and a curse. Learning that Indiana allows individual institutions set tuition helped me put in perspective my seminar from last semester about out-of-state tuition discount programs specific to Ball State. At the time, I had struggled to understand why one public institution would be granted the ability to launch so many discount programs when other ones within the state were not; this reading helped me better understand that. I LOVED the reading from Reframing Organizations by Bolman and Deal (2013) – and not just because it cited Malcolm Gladwell (#bae). How an organization’s structure influences its performance is something I have always been interested in, since I was in student leadership positions and restructured my own organization until recently when I just completed the EDHI 698 organization chart project. This reading also had me thinking about leadership philosophies. I cannot pinpoint exactly what part spurred my reflection on this, but the reading made me consider an experience I had advising a student organization last spring. The student organization was struggling with member attendance at meetings and events. The president wanted to fix this. Prior to me stepping in as advisor, she implemented several attendance policies. For example, she required every member to attend at least 12 meetings and 8 events per semester; failure to do so would result in a warning, then a meeting with the president, then dismissal from the organization. When I became the advisor, attendance was still an issue, so I challenged the president to consider other ways to address it. Together with her executive board, they decided to take an incentivizing approach rather than a disciplinary one. Minor improvements were made. When a new person became president, her and I talked at length about trying to create more meaningful experiences for members that would benefit them just as much as the organization so that they were more motivated to attend meetings and events. Within just one year, this organization saw three pretty different styles of leadership. Throughout this course, I am excited to learn more about the effectiveness of various leadership styles and how changes in leadership can affect an organization. The last reading, from Organizational Theory in Higher Education by Manning (2013), discussed many of the same things as the second reading but applied them specifically to higher education. I really enjoyed reflecting on the historical and current tensions in higher education as listed on page 2. I am an advocate for a liberal arts education, so I knew right away which way I lean on the conflict of specialization versus integration. Additionally, coming from a small school with limited human resources that necessitated widespread collaboration, I also know I lean more toward collaborative approaches rather than competitive ones. However, throughout this course, I am positive I my preferences will be challenged and I will learn that certain situations may call for an approach of which I am not fond. I am looking forward to being challenged in this way. This week, we're wrapping up all of our readings. The first set of readings was Chapter 7 and the Conclusion of Educating a Diverse Nation, which focused on best practices for working with today's diverse student populations and common themes among the ways Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) work. Here's a brief look at the best practices:
The common themes among MSIs included:
The next reading was about community colleges. My first thought when I saw this was, "Oh Dr. Latz, you're just trying to get us hooked so we take your other classes!" (Don't worry, we didn't need this reading to get us hooked...) Seriously though, I was excited to read this one. I have not sought out much information on community colleges, so my knowledge is very limited. Even this one article alone helped me consider community colleges from a whole new perspective. I was struck by the sentence, "Community colleges are a uniquely American contribution to higher education" (p. 2). In our other classes, we talk about how our university system is based largely on German and other European models. It made me proud to learn that we are responsible for community colleges rather than just looking to others for guidance. We talked in class about community college's ability to respond to the community and their responsibility to boost the economy around them, so that part of this reading just reinforced our discussion. The small class sizes and - more importantly - the focus on instruction really stood out to me. The article says community college professors/instructors are not required to do research or publish, allowing them more opportunity to focus on teaching. It made me consider the following questions:
The last reading was about adult learners. I was surprised this reading was not with the readings from Week 8 that focused on adult learners. However, I felt like it still presented new information and insights about adult learners. I appreciated the article highlighting the convergence between adult education and higher education. Additionally, I was struck by the reminder that learning is even more of a focus for adult learners than learners straight out of high school; often times, adult learners aren't really at college for the traditional experience of higher education but rather to learn what they need to, develop relationships with faculty, and earn their degree. This shifts how we must try to engage them and support their success. And so concludes the weekly readings for this semester. It's been a fun ride, folks. This week, I read two chapters from Educating a Diverse Nation. Chapter 4 focused on Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and ways they are trying to ensure student success. At the beginning of the chapter, the author wrote, "HSIs are responding to the needs of students from diverse cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds while at the same time ensuring that an HSI education leads somewhere - to living wages or to more education" (p.93). This quote really stuck out to me because I believe the latter part is applicable to all institutions, but the quote as a whole is specific to HSIs because so many of their students are coming to college unprepared and with limited support in terms of family understanding and knowledge of the process. One institution, La Sierra University, began connecting their students with personal and academic coaches as part of their first year experience. These coaches help students acclimate to campus, understand policies and processes, and get connected with resources. Most importantly, they fuel self-reliance and self-efficacy among their students so that they are empowered to take ownership of their collegiate journey. This program made me consider the following questions:
Chapter 5 of Educating a Diverse Nation described the familial atmospheres of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Members of HBCU communities - faculty, staff, students, alumni - are often extremely loyal to their institutions, describe highly supportive systems, and protect each other and their family name (in this case, their institution). At Morehouse College, an HBCU, the institution's mission and environment empowers their students to "understand and believe in their potential and ability to act and lead" (p. 155). I think this really speaks to the impact of peer role modeling, as several students talked about how seeing others similar to them succeed fueled their own ambitions. Another feature of Morehouse's program that stood out to me was the stress placed on providing access to faculty. Time and time again, we see mentoring and personal relationships playing a critical role in student success in college. It seems that many HBCUs really excel in this aspect. At Norfolk State University, students benefit from a strong partnership between student affairs and academic affairs, that truly unites personal and academic support. This made me wonder if such partnerships are often stronger at HBCUs, and if so, why this sort of relationship does not transcend to PWIs. Finally, the last part that really stuck out to me from this chapter was the "We over Me" slogan at Paul Quinn College, which was implemented by the President. He broke it down to four values:
The next reading was titled "Student Affairs Capitalism and Early-Career Student Affairs Professionals." This study discussed how new student affairs practitioners are faced with pressure from their institutions to generate revenues through their functional units. Overall, they viewed this as conflicting with their professional values and ethics, demanding entrepreneurial skills, and exploiting undergraduate and graduate students. I really appreciated reading this article, as I feel like this is a problem I've already begun to face and will only continue to encounter. During undergrad, I was vice chairperson of our student fee allocation board and chairperson of our club sports fee allocation board. With the club sports board, our Director of Campus Recreation often pushed us to use the fees to buy equipment that could be used by teams but also rented by individuals - a direct violation of our constitution and policies regarding student fee money. While he was focused on seizing opportunities to generate revenue, we were focused on upholding our responsibilities of being good stewards of student money. I can imagine the stakes would only be raised when the relationship shifts from student leader-advisor to employee-supervisor. As I begin my job search next semester, I will try to evaluate office's attitudes toward such a practice so I can avoid being blindsided by entrepreneurial responsibilities. When I first started reading this week's article from the New York Times, I got a little annoyed. I figured it was just another article about student loan debt. During a pretty bad week, I didn't want another article that was redundant to others and would just bring me down even more because of the subject matter. However, this article was really insightful, more in depth than what I typically read about the costs of college, and overall just a great and engaging piece of writing. I appreciated the comparison between student loan debt and the mortgage crisis, as I believe that puts it into perspective for many people. Something that really stuck out to me was how much more significantly tuition and fees increased for public institutions than private institutions over the past decade. Also, an argument I hadn't really heard before was that state funding cuts were due primarily to the fact the lawmakers came to believe state schools were one of the few parts of government that could raise the money on their own - by raising tuition. As for misleading acceptance letters and marketing attempts to hide the true costs of college - I totally get that. I went to a private institution for undergrad, and it often employed marketing strategies similar to those mentioned in the article (i.e. "focus on the value and quality of education..."). Even with the SAAHE program here at Ball State, the costs were very vague; we were always told we would be responsible for a "portion of tuition," but never were able to be told a specific amount, even when we inquired. We did not learn the true cost until the Bursar billed us. I can only imagine what a shock it must be to first-year undergrads who are responsible for a much greater amount of tuition - and even more so for recent grads or dropouts that have to start making loan payments. This feature from Mother Jones provided an overview of the student loan debt crisis through graphic charts. This was more like what I was expecting from the prior article, in the sense that it gave a general overview of how debt has worsened over time. It's important for us to keep in mind what our students are facing in terms of rising college costs and also for us to use our roles to advocate for our students' need for lessened financial burden. Of course, many of us and our colleagues face this issue head-on, so it's not one we're likely to forget when working with our students. The student loan debt crisis scares me greatly; my optimistic attitude wants me to believe everything will end up working out okay, but it's hard to see that now. The final reading for this week was not a reading but rather an interactive website designed by The Chronicle to help students determine the potential value of the education they want. The site is broken down into three functions: determining true cost of college, examining graduation rates of colleges, and understanding the balance of debt repayments and potential earnings. I'm actually shocked I have never encountered this website before, as it seems to be exactly what people considering a degree of higher education need. I think this effectively highlights the issues of knowledge and information gaps; several resources like this exist, but people do not know about them and cannot make effective use of them. This week's readings discussed adult and online learners. The first reading by Crawley, "Profile of Online Students," gave an overview of adult learners, who is taking online courses, and why they have chosen to learn that way. Overall, adult learners and online students tend to be adult learners, looking to earn a degree at their own pace and at flexible times. They're often balancing many other roles (jobs, families, etc.) and do not really have the time to be full-time students. They are looking fore efficient, cost-effective ways to earn a degree, often as a means to an end; they believe they need this degree to get a specific job they want. I found it interesting - but logical - that adult learners' top four criteria in choosing a school are cost, scheduling, reputation, and class size (the last two were the most surprising). Most important from this reading was the list of recommendations of what institutions can do to support these students, such as addressing students' career and life goals early on in their college career, define knowledge acquired by students through previous college or work experience, and promoting an array of payment options.
The next reading was an article from The Atlantic about the influence of the Internet on our methods of reading and acquiring knowledge. In it, the author argued that the condensed, easily-accessible information online has restructured how we think. We are no longer able to read lengthy articles or books , and there is less need to retain knowledge. He countered Google's belief that people would be better off by having all information available at all times. I tend to side with the author's perspective. I have definitely noticed my own attention span decrease, and I do not often worry about retaining knowledge. My undergraduate degree is in communication, so I have often thought about these influences of new media. Related to student affairs, I believe this trend in knowledge acquisition is something we need to consider when we are trying to educate our students. The readings from Marc Prensky were actually ones I had read in undergrad! My first thoughts on these readings were that they're written for people older than us. I do not really believe I am a "digital immigrant;" I believe I am a "digital native." In my career, this may give me an advantage over my superiors in being able to connect with students because I already speak their technological language. Really, I feel like I have gotten the best of both worlds; although I am a digital native, I have spent quite a bit of time with digital immigrants, allowing me to learn their ways and traditions as well. I think, in my career, it will be my responsibility to help my colleagues understand and see value in the way digital natives live and learn. Part II of these readings focused more on how students' thought processes and brains really have changed, specifically looking at neuroscience. I especially liked the part arguing against the claim that students can no longer pay attention or stay focused; the author stated that they can do this, just not with antiquated methods of teaching. Today's educators should focus on interactivity and stimulation to engage students and keep their attention. The YouTube video about MOOCs really did not present much new information beyond what we have already discussed in this class. Although the video highlighted benefits of MOOCs, I still discount their effectiveness. The video concluded with saying the learning process and measurement of success in MOOCs is the same as in the real world, but I disagree; there are much greater indicators of success in the real world, such as bonuses, promotions, awards, etc. Honestly, I believe MOOCs are a passing fad and are already well on their way to extinction. Laptop U, an article from The New Yorker, further discussed MOOCs. An interesting piece from this article was the student-to-faculty ratio, which reminded me of the arithmetic of engagement as described in How College Works. In this article, the author supported the impressive class sizes of MOOCs because it puts more emphasis on the student taking ownership of their learning, making it more effective. I don't entirely buy into that. However, I do like the grading style for the multiple choice questions because it provides students with feedback about the correct answer; this is something you do not see in many traditional classrooms. Finally, I liked how the author painted the two different pictures of higher education in America: the one of elite universities and the one where students are struggling to get buy and are just working really hard to get some sort of degree. It is important for us to remember these two different systems and to recognize in which one we are working. The Rolling Stone writes excellent ethnographies. Vivid, descriptive, and personal, these narratives provide impressive insight into people's lives. But, I'm starting to not like them. A couple weeks ago, we read "A Rape on Campus," which sought to divulge sexual assault cover-ups and injustices at the University of Virginia. But, this article has been significantly disputed for inaccuracies. I'm afraid this week's reading, "Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Darmouth's Hazing Abuses," may be similar in that sense. This narrative portrayed fraternity life in an absolutely horrible way, and mainly from a singular perspective. It took a look into life at the extremities of fraternities, acting as if that is the norm. At one point, the author even said, "As with all fraternities, drugs were by no means uncommon at SAE." ALL fraternities? Really? What an ignorant generalization. Although I am not affiliated with a sorority or fraternity, I have always respected the Greek life systems for their roles in students' experiences and development. I think it is important to pay attention to some of the concerning trends mentioned in this article - e.g. sexual assault, alcohol and drug usage, etc. - but I think it is unacceptable to give the impression that all fraternities are terrible places.
The first thing that stuck out to me from The Chronicle's article, "Alcohol's Hold on Campus," was the location - University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. One of my close friends from undergrad now goes to grad school there, and her Snapchat stories certainly reinforce the image of the school as being one with a heavy drinking culture. It was interesting to read about this from the police's perspective, especially about their enforcement of a zero-tolerance policy: only enforcing it with those who are facing significant safety risks. This especially makes the number of annual arrests for drinking offenses incredible - the fact that 1,000 students are deemed to be so drunk that their safety is a concern is unbelievable. The article went on to explain why college's haven't put an end to such binge drinking. Many colleges are launching preventative and counseling efforts to curb usage, but they're doing nothing about availability of cheap and easily-accessible alcohol. Most interesting was the reasoning cited for not being more aggressive in curbing such habits; the reasoning that universities want to treat students as young adults rather than policing them. I was happy to see a portion of this article discuss sexual assault awareness and bystander intervention programs. It is definitely a tricky situation, as discussing the influence of alcohol in sexual assaults may often lead to victim-blaming. The opinion piece on college's not doing their jobs if students have time to drink made a good point about how engaging, challenging, and provoking students can help decrease binge drinking. However, I do not believe there should be an all-out ban on drinking. Finally, The Chronicle's piece had an article called "How to be Intoxicated." In all honesty, this article didn't connect with me very well and was a little too heavy on the Greek-lore. "A Nation of Whimps" highlighted a multitude of issues on today's college campuses, issues that primarily seem to stem from helicopter parenting and a refusal to allow one's children to fail. Grade inflation, requests for excessive accommodations, binge drinking and other partying behaviors, and a deference toward being faced with opposing views were all cited as effects of parental protectionism. What I found most interesting, however, was the author's interpretation of what happens because of frequent parent-student contact: the infantilization of college students. As someone who talks to my parents several times each week (sometimes each day, even), this should make me a feel a bit embarrassed. I did agree with the point about cell phones contributing to a decline in planning; my personal experience with making plans for group meetings or even just hanging out with friends is that very little is planned ahead of time because it is so easy to contact each other last minute. In fact, even if plans are made a week in advance, they usually don't seem to be concrete unless there is follow-up that day via cell phone. I loved how the author concluded with saying while some concern is warranted for certain kids, the majority of students are likely to be a-okay without such hyper-vigilance. I'm always happy whenever I get to read an article from The Atlantic. Even when I may disagree with the entire article, I truly enjoy reading it. This week, we read "Being Gay at Jerry Falwell's University," a story about a student's coming out at Liberty University. This article made me cheer! I was so happy to hear that Brandon had a positive experience coming out at his religiously-affiliated school; the level of support he received is something we may not often see, even from people not tied to religions. Being Catholic, I've often thought about how my religious values align with my personal values of supporting all people in their unique identities. I've long struggled with navigating the conflicts among these values, but I've come to realize that their is one unifying, driving value: the dignity and worth of every single person. To me, it seems that many of Brandon's professors had this same value, which allowed them to genuinely care for and support Brandon as he worked to discover who he was and to love himself. We had another set of readings from The Chronicle this week. They were part of a special feature called "Race on Campus." The first narrative was from a Black professor who spoke of how, no matter how many accolades he earned, he would never be regarded as "good enough" or equal by his White colleagues. This is a sad reality. However, I appreciated his approach to dealing with this, and I especially loved his quote:
The next portion of the feature highlighted the disproportionate amount of mentoring and service-work done by faculty members of color. This served as a reminder of how important it is to have a diverse faculty and also how much students are drawn to faculty or staff they view as being similar to them - whether that is race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. It is sad that this work is so disproportionate among white faculty and faculty of color, but it is admirable how willing so many faculty of color are to take on such work. I was glad to read that students are now advocating for faculty - a seemingly backwards situation - in regard to requesting administrators to hire more faculty of color. Another portion of this segment was about the challenges in creating diversity on campus and retaining members of underrepresented minorities. This quote stuck out to me: "Even these days...a diverse student body or faculty should not be the only end goal. A certain number does not guarantee inclusion." It's so true, and it is something I talked about quite a bit with my former boss, Bradley University's Vice President for Student Affairs. Bradley's graduate school had been recruiting international students pretty heavily, and there were calls for this to extend to undergrads. However, there were very few resources in place on campus to serve such students. My boss began working to create a staff position specifically for working with international students and developing programs that would support them. The article also talked about trying to change a university's atmosphere, which is incredibly tough. It takes a truly collaborative and persistent effort to cause even the slightest shifts. This leads perfectly into the next portion of the segment, which was about the need for collaboration in diversity and inclusion efforts. I liked what the author said about needing to get buy-in from all levels as well as placing it at the front of everyone's mind at all times. The final few portions to this segment discussed how to support students and faculty of color. While reading these, I thought of the following questions for my peers:
The final reading for this week was "Guests in Someone Else's House: Students of Color." This report presented a qualitative study of the experiences of students, faculty, and staff of color at the University of Minnesota. I appreciated how the author broke it down to highlight the differences between the support these campus community members feel in small, isolated areas versus the university environment as a whole. I think this is something that may be observed at many colleges. Often, we find multicultural centers, ethnic studies departments, diversity and inclusion offices, etc. to be extremely supportive to students of color. However, we must strive to extend this level of support to a greater context so that students feel welcomed in all aspects of college life. This week, we wrapped up reading How College Works. The specific chapters I read were Learning, Finishing, and Lessons Learned.
The Learning chapter focused on many hallmarks of a liberal arts education: writing, speaking, critical thinking, studying abroad, exploring diverse perspectives, etc. What I particularly liked about this chapter was how it demonstrated the knowledge learned in classes may not always be directly what students expect to learn. For example, when learning to write, students are also learning transferable skills about how to tailor messages to an audience, motivate or persuade people, and other skills often attributed to leaders. It made me consider the following questions:
The Finishing chapter began by highlighting how the biggest challenge for seniors may be simply staying engaged in the present. While I was nearing graduation, I definitely saw this become true. Students call it "senioritis," and it is real. Other points that stood out to me were how students who learn to think critically often come to identify as a certain kind of person, and students also often learn how to win a debate while preserving the underlying relationship. Many of my peers and I would often debate issues, and the challenge of debating and maintaining a relationship was clear. Finally, the importance of relationships rang true with me. At the end of my job with the Vice President for Student Affairs at my undergrad, I did an assessment of seniors' experiences at Bradley. By far, the most positive self-reported influence was the relationships they formed with peers, faculty, and staff. The final chapter, Lessons Learned, began with highlighting some of the limitations of this book, which I believe are important to note. This book took a very positive look at college and was searching for the good; but it is important to remember that not everyone has such a good experience in college. Also early in the chapter, the authors included a sentence that really resonated with me: "The key to improving education in a college, we think, is found less in the organization of programs than in the deployment of people." Then, they shared some concise lists about college. Highlights that stood out to me from each list are included here. How College Works: Basic Principles
Overall, I very much enjoyed reading this book. We had several other readings for this week as well, however. An article by the New York Times, "Sex on Campus: She Can Play that Game Too," talked about the hook-up culture of colleges and how it is not solely male-driven. I thought this was fascinating, as it challenges traditionally perceived gender norms. In fact, just last week in a class, our instructor was talking about how men tend to be more rational and logic-focused, whereas women are more emotional and focused on community-building (don't get me started on this...). I think this article says quite the opposite. And in a strange way, the beginning of this article makes me proud. I celebrate the goal-driven, assertive, independent women who are choosing to put themselves first (at least for now) instead of clinging to a partner. I was also surprised to learn that a lot of this attitude comes from parent suggestion. However, the article does move on to the dangerous side of hookup culture. Sexual violence, unhealthy relationships, and longterm emotional and psychological effects are often a part of this culture. I also think there is a big difference between people who fall into the hookup culture because they're choosing to focus on other personal goals and people who fall into it because they feel like it is necessary. Regardless of why a person is engaging with this culture, we need to ensure we are educating on safe sex practices, consent, and healthy relationships while also encouraging independence. The Chronicle article in response to the NY Times article seemed a bit pointless. Although it calls into question the idea that students are having more sex than previous generations, I thought it missed the point of the NY Times article - that women's attitudes toward the hookup culture have changed. The next reading was "A Rape on Campus," from Rolling Stone. This article gave a very in-depth, personal look at sexual assault on the campus of University of Virginia. Most interesting about this article was how UVA's tradition and school spirit suppresses reports of sexual assault. I had never considered this before. I was surprised to see how much students buy into this culture and are worried about UVA's reputation related to sexual assault. This seems pretty opposite from what I've encountered in my own experience; usually, it seems that students are critical of universities when their actions are based solely on maintaining a positive image. However, this is not the case at UVA. This article made me think about how important it is to foster an environment where victims of sexual assault feel comfortable reporting, can easily be connected with resources, and feel supported by their university community. Schwitzer and Van Brunt (2015) wrote about mental health on campus, providing definitions and an overview of several different mental disabilities students may have. These can be psychological, emotional, social, etc. What I found most interesting from this article was how it talked about the impact of students' mental health issues on the campus community as a whole. For example, it highlighted how a resident's self-harming could effect other students on the floor as well as the RA. When I was in undergrad, I knew many people who struggled with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. I can personally attest to how the impact extends far beyond the person who is facing these issues. Our last reading was another chapter from danah boyd's book, "it's complicated." It talked about bullying, specifically cyberbullying. What I liked about this chapter was what it said about the setting for cyberbullying; having this bullying in a public forum offers more opportunities for interventions. In a profession that often promotes bystander intervention related to sexual assault, we should also ensure we are using our voices and influence to intervene in all situations of wrongdoing. |
Kristin KreherMy happiness comes from meaningful interactions, the outdoors, thrift shops, and saying "thank you." Archives
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