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/#