Hazing, Alcohol, Parents/Family, Diversity (March 10 post)
Generation on a Tightrope (Chapter 4 & 5)
“I need a launching pad. I have so many helicopter parents.” LOL.
In higher education, parents have become increasingly more involved in the student experience. From even before a student enrolls at an institution, the university needs to realize that they are not just selling themselves to the student, but they are also selling themselves to parents. You are no longer getting just the student, it has become a package deal. More than ever, parents want to be a part of this experience. A factor seen as a cause for increase parent involvement revolves around this idea that undergraduates today have “a delayed sense of independence and being a grown up.” I 100% agree. As an undergraduate student and sometimes even know as a graduate student, the family is the first people I call about everything because they are the ones that I know have an unconditional love for me. I think that we see our family/parents as the people that we can always go to because they have always been there. A major piece of this for me was dealing with financial aid. I always made my grandmother call and take care of it for me because “I didn’t know what I was doing” and “That is something adults do and I wasn’t ready for that”. It is interesting that reading this book helps me to relive some of my undergraduate experiences.
For some more laughs: Lawnmower parents because they roll over everything in their paths to “defend” their cubs.
LOLOLOL: Stealth parents because they swoop in to “protect” their offspring.
I think what makes these so ridiculous is that they are so true and I have experience each and every one of them. My grandma at one point was on the phone with me and said “Well I will be calling the school because they shouldn’t be talking to you like that. I’ll give them a piece of my mind”. Our parents eventually need to realize we have to grow up and be independent of them.
Completing College (Chapter 1 & 2): Tinto ends his introduction with the conditions for student success which I think are the important piece of this chapter. The conditions he says are important for a student to succeed in higher education are: expectations, support, assessment/feedback, and involvement. A student’s experience is shaped my self-expectations as well as expectations of the institution and the peer groups the student has. I agree when Tinto says that high expectations are a condition for student success. In order to reach these high expectations, the student needs to have support. This support came come in variety: academic, social, financial, physical, etc. Each of these is important in different ways for the student to succeed at college. However, the support is coupled with assessment and feedback on their performance at college. I think an important piece is for the student to know how they are doing and how they are achieving. This will allow for the support given to them to be directed in the places that are more needed. However, for me, Tinto hits the nail on the head by stating that INVOLVEMENT is the most important condition for student success. If students are engaged at the institution, they are going to feel a connection to the institution and hopefully to fellow peers which will help to retain them year-to-year.
How College Works (Chapter 4 & 5): Looking at this idea of the arithmetic of engagement, it is important to take note of the different factors that go into this “equation”. The factors can include student-faculty ratio, average number of classes taught by a professor, and the average number of classes each student is taking. I think the most important factor however is the student-faculty ratio because of that relationship piece that students are looking for. I think with the small sizer classes, professors are able to know each and every student in their classes. At my undergraduate institution, my classes were never larger than 25 students and this made all the different for me. I felt as though my students actually knew who I was and cared about my educational experiences. I can’t say that this would have been the same in a lecture class of 100+ students. At some point, a student becomes a number and not a person. Additionally, I appreciate this layout of four conditions for belonging or what needs to be present for someone to feel as though they belong. These conditions include:
1. Physical co-presence of people: The actual physical presence of another person is exciting. It allows for individuals in this space to be and to interact with one another in some way. It ensures a sense of control and reactivity to the actions of another. It is naturally and physiologically exciting to be around other people.
2. Shared focus of attention: Classrooms, organizations, Big Ten football games. When a group of people are in a shared space and engaged in a common cause or focus on a specific event/topic, a person feels a sense of belonging. It is as though all individuals in the space are moving towards one collective as a whole.
3. Ritualized common activities: These activities are all centered on that share focus of attention. For fraternities and sororities, this would be like at the beginning of the chapter meetings when everyone stands up at the same time and recites the creed together and then sits down together. Another example would be everyone yelling the fight song together at a football when the team wins. Each of these activities increases a student’s sense of belonging in that space.
4. Exclusivity: Limiting membership. This seems to be a strong factor in belonging. By simply limiting the number of people that can join in a space, the individuals in the group are deeply connected and feel in a sense more special. Being exclusive ensures solidarity among the members who have been allowed entrance.
I can see each and every one of those conditions fulfilled by the organizations that I was involved in when I was an undergraduate student. As each of those pieces was fulfilled, I felt like I belonged in each of those organization. I felt like I was in a space that not everyone share. It was my space.
Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: I had to stop reading this article 3/4 of the way through because I was sick to my stomach. It is absolutely incredible when I read stories like this about fraternity hazing culture. I can’t even imagine living in a campus culture where hazing ran rampant to the extent that people were “baptized in feces, pee, and puke” or forced to eat a “vomlet”. I think that is absolutely awful. I think the piece that I would like to focus on though is the institution itself and the history of the institution. Dartmouth is one of the oldest schools in our nation and a school that is deep in its traditions to the point where the article states that the unofficial motto of the institution is “Lest Old Traditions Fail”. I think a lot of what is going on in the fraternity community relates to this elitism and history of the university.
All the students or a large majority of the students who are attending Dartmouth are coming from a privileged background and believe that the world is going to be handed to them at some point. It is an unfortunate truth. However, I do not think that this one story is enough to condemn the Greek community in its entirety. I think unfortunately, these are the stories that are coming up or are highlighted in the media. Media never focuses on the positive lived experiences of fraternity and sorority members. All the media calls for is the closure of Greek communities without thinking about how the Greek experience has actually had a positive impact on many students’ experiences.
I think a question that I still have is what does the Greek advisor at Dartmouth do? I wonder if there was cover-up of the types of having activities for some time and it finally was let out of the bag. I would hope that as an aspiring fraternity/sorority life advisor, I would never cover-up something like this to save the face of myself or the face of the institution.
I do not think this is a popular opinion & I am okay with that. I think that drinking alcohol is a part of the collegiate experience and plays a role in the development of a student. Now when I say this, I am not advocating that every person at college has to drink, but I think that we need to stop this damaging pursuit of not allowing people to drink on our campuses.
While drinking, your social inhibitions are lowered and students are able to more comfortably socialize with one another. They are able to communicate in a way that may not have been possible with alcohol as the conductor for that conversation. I think in some ways, alcohol helps to allow people to feel more comfortable with themselves as well.
There is also this social desirability piece. Drinking is seen as being a social desirable thing to do when students go out. Not doing this can have some serious social ramifications for students. I think that this can be so strong that even against better judgment, students are going to indulge in the consumption of alcohol because they believe it is in their best social interest to do.
I think campuses allow for alcohol to be present to an extent because the consequences and legal ramifications for being caught drinking underage are not extremely severe but allow for students to understand that their actions do have consequences and they must take ownership for their actions.
In my opinion, I think alcohol should be allowed on college campuses but should be monitored. As we move into a more liberal time period, I think the drinking age is something that should be considered as a source of conversation because we expect students to come to college and take ownership of their experience, while at the same time telling they can’t drink. If they do drink, they will be punished. These punishments range depending on the campus but can be as severe as being kicked off campus. I think there has to be a different way of handling alcohol on campus to ensure that student affairs professionals and the administration can turn it into a learning experience and a developmental process for the students.
A Nation of Wimps: Related back to this piece about helicopter parents, we are seeing more and more that students feel that their life is being planned out for them or at least they are being pushed in certain directions to ensure success. The parents of students today are now gearing them towards academic achievement to ensure that they are going to be competitive in the economy of the future. We are seeing more and more students who have a lack of independence and believe that their parents are always going to be there for them.
I think an interesting piece of this is the binge drinking section. A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign believes that at the end of the day, students binge-drink because it gives them ownership of something in their life. It provides a piece of authenticity to their experience and intensifies their experiences in a significant way. The professor states that we are in an inverted world where drinking to oblivion is the way to feel connected and alive and I would have to agree. I think on college campuses, people feel connected because of stories that they are able to share.
Though drinking to oblivion is not the best way to be connected necessarily, I understand the premise that since students are all drinking to a dangerous level, they feel a connection in this way. However, I think that students are binge-drinking because they have a deep-seated fear of getting in trouble from “some authority” but want to be able to have the same positive experiences that others are having in college. It gives them something that they solely have control over and no one can take it from them.
Being Gay at Jerry Falwell’s University: Liberty University is a very unique institution. Liberty was founded by Jerry Falwell. He was Southern Baptist minister who was known for homophobia, bigotry, and the Moral Majority. I would just like to pause and ask: Who in the hell let this man build or create an institution of higher education? However, the story is about a student who came to this institution and eventually self-identified as a gay male. He knew that the culture of the institution was homophobic in nature but couldn’t help the person he was. He eventually disclosed this information to a professor and was shocked by her support. I am happy to see that even at this conservative, homophobic institution, the professors still care and have concern for the student’s well-being. The student discusses this Liberty Way that they all had to follow. These rules are archaic and I can’t believe that they actually still exist on this campus. Furthermore, they have a DEAN OF MEN. This is asinine. I thought we were past the separation of gender on campus and that anyone could advise anyone. Apparently, this is not the case at Liberty.
However, it is nice to see the shining stars of Liberty like Dr. Reeves. He is one of the counseling staff members and really supported the student through his disclosure and allow for him to really own his identity rather than the expected ‘praying the gay away’ mentality. I think this story is an encouraging piece for students who are struggling with their sexual identity and need to know that there are people on college campuses that do care about the well-being of their students and are willing to be there to talk to them and listen.
Interested in reading this, the link is provided.
Guests in Someone Else’s House: Students of Color:
It is unfortunate that we are seeing that students of color are not finding a sense of belonging at predominately white institution. This may be for a variety of reasons, but as student affairs professionals, we need to work to move the needle forward on this so that they do feel comfortable and as though they belong. Students of color must find a positive level of comfort, according to Tinto, i border for them to be academically successful at a PWI. I think many times our institutions write up the right policies and implement good programs, but I don’t think we think about the campus culture and understanding if there is buy-in across campus for this. There needs to be an opening and inclusive environment for students of color to thrive.
High school college counselors and community college staff have begun referring students who identify in a minatory group to colleges that may be more welcoming to them. The intent of this is to ensure that people are able to have a space that they feel safe and that they feel they are able to achieve and prosper - both academically and socially.
Reading this make me think about everything that has been going on in my office over the past couple weeks. it really makes you stop and thinking about the impact your words, your actions, and your being can have on each and every student that you encounter. I think it is important to recognize that having a diverse staff is important because yo want to make sure that as a staff, all students feel safe in a way that they are able to open up to and form a positive relationship. I’ve never thought about students of color as being “guests in someone else’s house”, but again, that could be white privilege speaking its loudest.
I think there is definitely work that needs to be done to strengthen higher education’s commitment to diversity.