Does the Undergraduate Stereotype Ignore Diversity?

The lazy apathetic student who wants to be entertained has become one of the worst stereotypes in contemporary discussions about higher education. We’ve all heard about the legions of social media obsessed undergraduates who stumble around in a drunken Facebook stupor, all tweaked up by Twitter, intoxicated on texting and high on television. In conversations, it would seem as if students are too busy suffering technology withdrawal to learn during a 50-minute lecture. These students, with their out of touch helicopter parents and obese inflated grades, as well as egos, from high school are crumbling the state of college learning. The problem with this portrait of undergraduate students is that it ignores the immense diversity among them. Benton exhibits symptoms of this troubling habit in his Chronicle of Higher Education article about the apparent grim reality of undergraduate learning. The blame is placed on uninspired students and “transient faculty”. He states, “More than anything, change in four-year colleges depends on choices made by millions of parents and students.” Evidently, all it takes for instructors to get a raving review from students on course evaluations is to, “Expect little, smile a lot, gesture freely, show movies, praise them constantly, give high marks and bring cookies.” Not only do generalizations demean undergraduate students, they also tend to conjure up a specific image of privilege and license, which excludes many underrepresented students. It becomes assumed that students have support, that students are simply spoiled and that students are being catered to. How is it possible to truly embrace diversity and improve learning if all undergraduates are lumped into a narrow stereotype?

"A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education": http://chronicle.com/article/A-Perfect-Storm-in/126451/#

"Ashlea and Gillian"

Intellectually, I would say this piece from Snacks', Tearing down the gates: Confronting the class divide in American education (2007) did an excellent job of drawing a stark contrast between the lives of Ashlea and Gillian to illustrate the concepts of "cultural, social and economic capital." I was intrigued by the Bourdieu theory he mentioned, of "habitus" and want to learn more about that.
Emotionally, I will share that the reading tapped into a time when I was confronted by that stark contrast every day, in a way that was difficult for me to process. I had two jobs. My full-time job was as an Employment Specialist at a vocational school in the Portland area, helping graduates of the program gain employment in office and computer occupations. In addition to being an Employment Specialist for the company, I was licensed vocational instructor, teaching job search skills and professional development. The overwhelming majority of our students were of very low SES, many of whom had criminal histories, were recovering drug addicts, and/or suffered from mental health challenges. The depictions of Ashlea's family so closely mirrored some of the students I worked with, that it caught me off-guard. My part-time job was in a wealthier area of Portland where I was also employed as a vocational instructor, except that I taught personal development and modeling skills for a national modeling agency and school. The overwhelming majority of those students there were from high SES backgrounds, many of whom had every advantage economically, socially and academically. Though we had students like Gillian, she would have been among those less well-off in the class.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

I'll let you decide what is good, what is bad, and what is ugly about the higher education portion of the budget proposal...


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/02/15/obama_budget_would_sustain_5_550_pell_cut_subsidy_for_graduate_students

Why do Women Still Earn Less than Men?

I remember in class we were talking about women earning less than men two weeks ago. Here is an article from Time discussing it. For some strange reason the link I posts won't work. Go to time.com Then type in "Why Do Women Still Earn Less Than Men?" by Laura Fitzpatrick. The date is April 20, 2010.

HBCU President Brings Sex and Health Education to the Campus

The disproportionate amount of young, African American students who are effected by the disturbing trends in sexual activity raise alarming concerns among Higher Education administrators. However, there seems to be a lack of publicity around sexual awareness for minority students. Philander Smith University's President, Dr. Walter Kimbrough, has created an initiative to inform students of the implications of "risky behavior" and titled it "Sex Week". This program (taken from a model used at Yale University) provides young adults on college campuses with a comprehensive series of programs that help reinforce safe behavior, and healthy attitudes. Given the alarming rhetoric that suggests that nearly half of all new cases of HIV are attributed to African Americans, and that 72% of African American children are born out of wedlock, how can administrators on all campuses (Community Colleges, Predominantly White Institutions, HBCU's, HSI's...etc) create intervention tools and co-curricular programming models that help to solve this widespread issue?

Link to article: http://diverseeducation.com/article/14752/hbcu-president-brings-sex-and-health-education-to-the-campus.html">href="http://>

Losing a Grip on the Foreign-Student Market

According to the author of this article, Australia (which is known for having one of the largest international student populations in the world) is currently experiencing some events which could ultimately 1.) decrease the amount of international students who attend its' universities and 2.) cause the country's economy to buckle. The issues at hand could have a similar effect on other nations, such as own, if we are not careful.

Link:
http://chronicle.com/article/Losing-a-Grip-on-the/126079/


Chris

National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Here is a an article on the National Technical Institute for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. While reading this article, I thought about opportunity for these students and also increased diversity in the workforce. This article reminded me of the NSF report on "Broadening Participation in America's STEM Workforce." Where the authors point out that more effort should be targeted "on two particularly under-attended-to groups in STEM: persons with disabilities and Native Americans."
I thought the later part of the article, where the author talks about the StepWise method for solving mathematical story like problems, was really interesting. It's exciting to see that these methods not only improved the students' learning at NTID, but that they could also be suitable for hearing students.

http://www.prism-magazine.org/jan11/tt_01.cfm

Brown vs. Board

I ran across this article and thought it was interesting to see the institutions involved in the Brown vs. Board case (U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service). It was interesting reading the Anderson piece and how he evaluated the decision and went into more of the history and reactions...and then see how others view the decision and how there are "monuments" symbolizing this time in history.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/121brown/index.htm

Harvard Report Questions Value of 'College for All'

This is a new report released yesterday from Harvard on a project entitled “Pathways to Prosperity” (link to the actual report embedded within the article). The authors suggest establishing career tracks for students as early as middle school. They argue that the tracks would be 'flexible' enough to allow students to switch down the line. I respect the authors of the report (as well as Dr. Anthony Carnevale who is mentioned in the article). But we know that tracking at such an early age (common in Europe) is connected to social inequalities. When a person says "college is not for everyone," they are usually talking about other people's children, not their own.



Harvard Report Questions Value of 'College for All'