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  • Seeing Like a Student

    By Dean Dad October 14, 2009 9:38 pm

    This in IHE contains a lot, and is well worth pondering. It has several posts' worth of material, actually, but for today, I'll just focus on this:

    To better promote success, it appears that not only do particular student support services need to be in place — including in-depth orientations, proactive advising, early warning systems, and well-organized tutoring and other academic supports — but those services must be well coordinated among themselves and with academic programs. Seamless integration of programs and services from the student’s perspective and collaboration among faculty, staff, and administration are what seem to contribute most to student success. (emphasis added)

    It sounds obvious, but it's incredibly hard to implement.

    Like most large organizations, colleges are organized into silos. Each silo has its own function and its own imperatives. Although that sounds obviously perverse, it actually makes sense; each area has its own specialization, and the idea is that the gains from a division of labor will accrue to everyone involved. The physics department doesn't package financial aid, and the facilities department doesn't grade papers. That's not because those functions are unimportant; it's because they're complicated. Specializing allows for considerable expertise in each area, without expecting anyone to be superhuman. (Of course, with recent budget cuts forcing job consolidations, that's becoming less true in some areas. But the basic idea hasn't changed.)

    But the students don't experience silos. They get everything as a big, messy whole.

    I remember noticing that in my first semester teaching at PU. A number of students, including some relatively good ones, asked if I'd mind if they left class twenty minutes early every day to catch the bus. They explained that the next bus wouldn't come for two more hours. (I later found out they were telling the truth.) I objected, of course, and even took some offense at the question. But from their perspective, there was something to it; they were looking at total time on campus, rather than time in class, and they judged the cost of twenty more minutes of class to be out of line. In that case, the local bus schedule was drawn up without an eye to our class schedule, and it put all of us in a series of no-win situations.

    In administration, of course, silos are the bane of my existence. It's one thing to meet enrollment demand by running more class sections at non-traditional times; it's quite another to get the financial aid office, counseling, tutoring, and the other areas to stay open in support of those times. This is especially true when the number of sections at a non-traditional time is relatively low. The marginal cost of adding a section balloons if you suddenly have to add staff hours in the various support roles, but if you don't, some students will be left marooned.

    Even if you have the money, though, it isn't that easy. In a unionized environment, "terms and conditions" of employment can only be changed through bargaining. That means that anything that materially affects somebody's work environment -- reporting lines, hours, etc. -- can't just be changed because it's a good idea. The speed bump undoubtedly prevents some lousy ideas, but it prevents some helpful ones, too. And don't underestimate the resistance of an employee who has maximized her corner-cutting in her current role. Those folks will trot out every argument under the sun to protect their sinecures, and will usually go on offense when they don't have a good defense. All of that internal energy then gets diverted from actually helping students.

    In a for-profit setting, there's a relatively straightforward rationale for organizing the enterprise around the student's perspective. Dollars follow students, so if students don't get what they want, the dollars walk out the door with them. But in a nonprofit setting, where the mission is diffuse and the funding complex, that kind of clarity is harder to maintain. That's especially true when students come and go, but employees stay for decades.

    Still, if we don't take the students' perspectives seriously, others will. And there's something to be said for remembering why we're here.

    Wise and worldly readers, have you seen ways for efforts to 'see like a student' actually succeed at your campus? I'd love to steal an idea or two...

Go to comments (5) »
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Comments on Seeing Like a Student

  • Posted by WTF on October 15, 2009 at 5:00am EDT

  • Dollars follow students, so if students don't get what they want, the dollars walk out the door with them.

    I simply do not believe this. At least not in a holistic sense.

    Yes, if a school totally screws is students, they may walk. But, there's a whole lot of crap going on around the US in colleges and universities that are expanding enrollment, not dealing with contracting enrollment.

    This pandering to the student consumer has been the downfall of American higher ed.

  • Seeing like a student
  • Posted by Lil Johnny on October 15, 2009 at 5:30am EDT

  • Dear DD,

    One of the most effective ways I have ever seen of depicting what things are like for a student came from a Dean of Enrollment Management. That Dean basically laid out the numerous steps it took for a typical student to actually get to class on the first day fully prepared. It sounded something like this.

    1) Decide you want to attend the local college.
    2) Take 30 minutes to an hour filling out an application for the institution. Turn it into the the admissions building. Wait a week or two to see if you have been admitted.
    3) Take the placement test, which can take several hours. BTW... This placement testing occurs in a building that is not exactly close to the admissions building you are most familiar with from your previous trip to campus. Thus, you have to locate and discover an entire new part of campus.
    4) Wait a week or two and get your placement results. Try to understand what the results indicate.
    5) Find out who your advisor is.
    6) Go sign up for an appointment with you advisor who is in another building half way across campus. "Damn! My advisor is booked solid until late next week. I'll just have to wait another week or two."
    7) Meet with advisor. Advisor tells you what to take and clears you for registration.
    8) You go home, or go to yet another new building, to self-register for classes.
    9) Pay for your classes online... or at yet another building on campus.
    10) Realize that college is not cheap... Go to the financial aid office, which is located in yet another building, and fill out the FAFSA for next year or next semester. Wait months for the results.
    11) Go to the book store, which is located in yet another building, and purchase books for 4-5 different courses.
    12) Go to public safety, which is in yet another buidling, to get your student ID.
    13) Get up and go to class on the first day. At the end of the school day, return to your car to discover that you have received a parking ticket. Go to the cashier's office to pay it off. Atleast the cashier's office is located near the admissions building and you are familiar with it.
    14) Return to public saftey to get a parking decal. Why didn't they tell you that you needed a parking decal when they gave you your student ID???
    15) Next semester or next year... Go through many of the same steps, all over again.

    The presentation of those steps was followed by some effective questions by the Dean.
    1) Does that sound like a reasonable number of steps or locations to go to, just to start courses at a community college?
    2) How many of you would have been frustrated being schuffled from place to place, and waiting for weeks at a time for the processes to be completed?
    3) How can we make this process better for our students?

    The was the single best presentation I have ever seen that was marginally effective at teaching some degree of empathy for our students. It helped us realize that those student who do show up on day one, ready to go, are indeed committed to getting their education. It helped us realize how crazy our process was from the eyes of the student. Despite the effectiveness of that presentation, little has changed since that Dean discussed all those steps more than 2 years ago. However, some progress was made. We have tried to put many of the administrative functions related to admissions closer together. Students still have to discover several buildings in the amdissions process.

    I am afraid the only other method I have found to be effective at getting people to view things from a student perspective is for them to return to college as a student themselves, and have to go through all of the steps. Alternatively, if you are an involved parent, having a child in college who has to go through all of the steps can be similarly effective at openings ones eyes to the process and how frustrating it can all be.

  • Don't just see like a student, be one
  • Posted by Carol L. on October 15, 2009 at 8:15am EDT

  • I have been teaching "non-traditional" students for almost twenty years and doing administrative duties for the last ten. I did not realize how little I understood my students until I went back to school for myself three years ago. For all of us busy teachers and administrators: Do it. Be a student. Not just for a day. Not just for a course. Go try to get a degree when you have a full time job!

    No amount of reading professional literature, thinking, talking with colleagues or attending conferences can replace what I learned by being a student. Trust me. It is a lot tougher than we think to actually be a student. There is no guarantee that we will become a better teacher or administrator. But I guarantee that we won't be a clueless one.

  • "Everybody knows ... (fill in the blank)"
  • Posted by Bob , Executive Director, International Programs at Ashland University on October 15, 2009 at 9:15am EDT

  • Some years ago I worked at a state university where many of the employees had been working for decades. There were essentially no signs identifying any of the buildings. My students were all new international students still learning English and who had a hard time finding their way. I suggested we post signs on the buildings.

    "We don't need any signs. Everybody knows which buildings are which. If your students can't find someplace, they can ask somebody," was the response to my suggestion from a person in Admissions.

    Later that year I attended a meeting at a neighboring school with this same person. We had the name of the building where the meeting was being held but, alas, no building signs were visible. "Somebody ought to put signs on these buildings!" declared my companion.

    "Welcome to my world" was all I could say.

  • Through the looking glass ...
  • Posted by Alice on October 15, 2009 at 11:30am EDT

  • I have to say: This line of thinking scares me a little, and it's because I'm in my second year at a small, private college that puts retention above all other priorities. From an administrative perspective, of course, streamlining admissions and campus services makes sense. However, at my institution, a "student-oriented" approach hits faculty the hardest of anybody. We are expected to attend recruitment events, meet with prospective students, hold conferences with incoming students' families, register students for classes, monitor our advisees' personal well-being with an online software program, facilitate student bonding, etc., while teaching a 4/4 load with rising class sizes, serving on committees, bringing speakers to campus, going to conferences, and producing research.

    It seems the "we're all in this together" ethos only applies to the work done by admissions and student development. When I have 30 papers and 50 exams to grade, no one from admissions stops by my office to help. No one helps me with research, or helps me prepare for a presentation. Junior faculty feel as if our specialization, as you called it, is neither respected nor appreciated. To make matters worse, our academic decisions are frequently overturned (failing a paper for plagiarism, for instance) if there is any risk of losing a student's tuition.

    I am beginning to feel that we are not serving our students, and we are not serving society. Students leave here with unrealistic expectations of what the world is like, and we do not provide the best education we can. Instead, we take their money for four years and hope they'll donate more later. Education is not the point -- money is. I would hate to see non-profit institutions go that same route.

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