Stephan Pennington

He said that students don’t care about faculty when looking for their undergrad institution. They assume if the school is ranked well in the US News and World Report the teaching will be good. So they look to extracurriculars to decide where to go.

So if they want the best students, they need to spend the money on the lawns and the rock wall and the fancy dorms and sports team and so on because that is what the students care about. They don’t care about faculty until after their first year. I was skeptical about this.

So I asked my students if this was true. They all basically said yes. The yes’s were all different, with different logics. There were students who said they didn’t care at all about the education, they wanted the paper, so they chose solely on reputation.

Lots of students said what the admissions officer said, they assume the education is equally good at all the top schools, so they look to things like if there is a good party scene or good music scene or frats or lack of frats or a quidditch team, etc.

There was also a third group of students. They told me that they would have cared about faculty, but they had no idea how do judge faculty...because no one talks them about how to do that. And the faculty aren’t emphasized in the recruitment process in any specific way.

Here at Tufts faculty can volunteer to teach a mock class for visiting prospective students (I haven’t done that recently and I should). But I always open up my lecture courses for visiting high school students...so I suppose Tufts gives a bit more than some other places.

But I remember taking tours of campuses and there really wasn’t anything that specific about academics other than popular majors. Anyway, what is the point of this conversation? Students saying they shouldn’t have to pay tuition for remote classes.

When I first read that I thought...but I’m still teaching, and I’m working hard to make my online classes just as substantive and just as much a community and learning experience. I’m doing more work not less. Should I not get paid for my labor? Don’t you value what I do?

But then I realized...no. A lot of students don’t value what I do, because that isn’t why they chose the school they chose in the first place. Now, my seniors are always very appreciative and I feel very valued by them. But mostly, I get students a few years after graduation.

They come back and tell me how much my classes meant and how transformative they were and how they still think about them and they didn’t fully appreciate them until a few years later. Which is really nice!

But I keep thinking about the call saying I shouldn’t get paid, and adjuncts should get treated even worse than they do now. I know they don’t realize that is what they are saying. I always try to educate my students on how universities function and what faculty and adjuncts do.

How the finances work...the business of the university. But I can’t help but think they should be better informed about colleges and universities and trade schools in high school. Not just that they exist, but how they work and how to assess them. Why they matter.

And look, I was the same as an undergrad. I had no framework on how to assess academics. I chose my undergrad because of their Nagasaki history of activism, because they gave me good financial aid, they had a large non-traditional aged contingent, the admissions officer helped me

I didn’t know how to assess academics. I lucked out and went to a great small liberal arts college. But I could have easily ended up somewhere not great for me because I wasn’t educated on education.

I was taught that for grad school applications...but I think high school students also need this education. I think it is in the best interest of everyone...well...maybe not rock wall makers.