Some thoughts on higher education...

I had originally intended my first post of 2018 to be a perspective on the first year of the Trump presidency.  However, recent events at work had me thinking about my job and generated some thoughts about higher education, the direction it's going, and the toll it's taking.  Apologies in advance as this post may end up being a bit more rambling than usual.

A little over five years ago, I took on the role of Vice Chair for Education for the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.  This job makes me responsible for our department's educational enterprise, which consists of undergraduate, masters, and Ph.D. degree programs with annual enrollments of over 700 students, in addition to some medical school teaching.  Ours is the only department in the medical school with this broad spectrum of degree programs and we operate more or less like a school within a school, which gives me a unique position to view higher education.

My job as Vice Chair has never been a walk in the park.  Like any job, it has its highs and its lows.  The lows include dismissing students from programs for various reasons with the highs obviously seeing our students graduate and succeed out there in the "real world."  I think the worst experience of my life as Vice Chair came just a few months after I took the position.  We had a student who was going to march in graduation, but was nowhere near degree completion.  The student thought they were close to being done and a sympathetic faculty member told the student they could participate in graduation; these things were extremely far from the truth.  Attempts to contact the student to let them know they could not march in the ceremony were unsuccessful and I was forced to have staff pull the student out of line at the graduation ceremony.  Needless to say, the student was not happy and neither was I.  However, there was no way we could allow the student to participate given their academic progress.  There were a multitude of procedural failures that allowed the student to think they could march in graduation, but also there was a complete failure of the faculty serving on the student's dissertation committee to provide appropriate oversight.  Sadly, in the end, despite various attempts by our faculty and myself to help the student make progress on their final dissertation, the student did not complete the degree.

Doonesbury - Garry Trudeau

So this gets to one of my first observations.  Many faculty are literally afraid of the students.  They fear poor evaluations that may affect promotion (see the Doonesbury cartoon), they fear the verbal threats of lawsuits made by students, and some just want to be liked regardless of what it means for the students.  Sadly, it's our job to be better educators, which is why we have evaluations to help make adjustments in our approach to teaching.  It's our job to make the tough decisions, but we also have to ensure we follow the rules and procedures in making those tough decisions.  We also have to explain to students why the tough decisions are in their best interests.  Having done so mitigates the consequences of lawsuits; a verbal threat made many times by students, but rarely followed through with.  I suspect many faculty do not follow protocol, which only elevates their fear of litigation.  It's not our job to be liked, although none of us wants to be hated either.  Part of our job is to try and help students find their way through their higher education and to steer them in the right direction.  Many times, that results in our having to tell students things they may not like to hear.  In the case of the student I had to pull from graduation, looking at the student's history it was clear faculty kept giving the student breaks along the way when they should have probably dismissed the student (at more than one point).  More importantly, the student showed zero skill in the field they were studying.  Another reason I was baffled the student had gotten as far as they had.  However, the student previously showed great skill in one of the laboratory-based sciences and really should have been pursuing a degree in a lab-based science.  The fact that no faculty member made that suggestion to the student was really a huge disservice.  Many times, students can't see what path they show promise in and instead choose a path based on other factors; parental pressure, perceived dreams, etc.  I think all faculty must pay closer attention to the student, rather than be overly worried about their evals or lawsuits.  The expedient path usually ends up being bad for all parties.

Related to this is the fact that students are becoming more and more needy and faculty bend to that neediness.  I was appalled this past semester when two students in my undergraduate class complained to me about their overall homework grade, because they didn't get points for two assignments.  I told them they didn't get the points because they didn't turn in the assignment; seemed pretty straightforward to me.  At which point, I was informed that it wasn't their fault they forgot to turn the assignment in, because I neglected to remind the class that the assignments were due.  Really?!?!?  You can see why professor evals might be low....we don't coddle the students enough.  My colleagues and I have talked about the fact that we are noting an increased amount of neediness and entitlement among the students the past few years.  Each year, more and more students challenge me about their grading or the "fairness" of the course.  I don't know where this behavior comes from; a generational thing?  Is this what "millennials" are like?  If that's the case, I fear for the future of the world.  These kids seem to not understand that life doesn't just hand you what you want and you need to take responsibility and work for them.  I look back at what my parents endured after World War II and in their early days as parents and wonder how kids today are going to fare watching them have a meltdown when they don't have the latest iPhone.  Here again, faculty need not bend to these students and need to uphold a sense of responsibility and integrity.  I'd like to see one of these students pull off the "you didn't remind us" excuse out there in the real world.

Another observation are the crazy things undergraduates are doing to be "competitive" in the post-graduate marketplace.  Pre-med students are cramming every waking hour with study and activities, trying to make themselves stand out from the other pre-med students cramming every waking hour with study and activities.  Students obsess over grades and many feel like getting an 'A-' kills their dreams of graduate school.  These days it's not unusual to hear of students with double majors and one or more minors.  I recall one USC valedictorian at graduation being described as having completed two majors, both with dual minors, and several overseas experiences.  When do these people sleep?  Sadly, the vast majority of students cannot maintain that level of academic rigor and quite frankly, there's no need to be doing so.  Over the years, I've found myself encountering more and more students stressing out over their academic situation and their ability to "compete" with their peers to get into those precious med school or graduate school slots.  Quite frankly, it's not necessary and it's quite unhealthy.  More and more, I find myself telling students to ease off things, drop some of their courses or activities, and focus on doing well in a smaller realm of things.  I have a partial sense of where these students are getting these ideas from, but here again, faculty, mentors, counselors, and others have a responsibility to provide real guidance to these students.  Not everyone is cut out for post-graduate education.  Many times, students are again picking paths that do not fit their strengths.  I have to keep reminding students to think carefully about what they truly want to do in life, rather than what they think they should be doing in life.  I also have to remind them to think about how they're going to leverage their education to achieve their goals, rather than using their degree major to dictate their goals.

Finally, at least in my experience, we need to do more about students with disabilities.  I am among the first to advocate for access to education for students with disabilities, but there there are two things universities need to be doing to best serve these students.  First, if a student's disability directly contradicts their ability to perform in their area of study, students should not be provided accommodations to pursue those areas.  An extreme (and unrealistic) example would be if a quadriplegic wishes to become a microsurgeon, the university should not be giving the student accommodations to pursue medical school for that express purpose.  No issues if the student wanted to pursue another area in the medical field where their disability does not directly contradict what they wish to pursue.  Don't roll your eyes....I said it was unrealistic, but let me give a more realistic example that occurred at our university.  A student wishes to pursue a Ph.D. in a laboratory science and up to a point, the university has accommodated the student's disability, which requires a isolated and quiet environment.  The student now needs to pass their Ph.D. qualifying exam in which they propose some research project, must complete the experiments, analyze the data, and write up the results.  In order to do so, the student is asking for accommodation for their disability; an isolated and quiet lab space.  Unfortunately, no such lab space exists and the University does not have resources to build a person-specific lab to meet the requirements of the disability accommodation.  Furthermore, even if the University were to comply and allow the student to essentially have a private lab space to complete their degree, how will that student fair in the job market?  It is doubtful any other university would create a noise-free private laboratory (they might, but highly unlikely) and that definitely would not happen in the pharmaceutical or private biomedical industry.  So, once again, we have not done the student any favors.  Early on, the student should have been counseled on alternative paths that allow them to be within the biomedical research realm, but would accommodate their disability.

A secondary issue with disability accommodation is how that system has changed over time.  At least at my institution, the accommodation of disabilities was established to ensure those with disabilities had fair access to an education; mostly related to physical disabilities.  However, now it includes a wide spectrum of things and the number of students seeking accommodations has significantly increased.  While I have no specific data, my own anecdotal observation has been the following.  In the past I would, on rare occasion, have a student with a disability accommodation.  This typically was to accommodate a learning disability and typically consisted of extended time on assignments or exams; typically time-and-a-half.  However, the last couple of years, I have had multiple students coming in with disability accommodations and the accommodations have become more complex.  This past semester, I had six students with disability-related accommodations.  The most extensive one I have encountered to date was extended time (double-time) on assignments and exams, a personal note-taker, quiet space for exams (I had to schedule a separate room for the student), and flexibility on deadlines due to "possible flare-up" in the disability.  I didn't really fully understand that last one, but understood it to mean that if the student told me they had a "flare-up" in their disability, I had to accommodate that and change any deadlines for assignments or reschedule any exams.  I heard from other instructors of similar experiences.  Here again, while I support giving people with disabilities access to an education, there are limits. In fact, my own experience suggests some students have learned to game the disability angle to their advantage.  Sadly, in cases where students are clearly taking advantage of the system, faculty are fearful of calling their bluff, since the typical response is a threat of lawsuit.  Legitimate disabilities should be accommodated, but again there is a fine line between helping a student move forward and stringing them along.  Students with disabilities are no different than any other student.  If they show no mastery of the material and competency in the field, faculty should be helping them identify areas where they can succeed and make significant contributions.  We should not be discriminating against those with disabilities, but we also should not be blindly accommodating disabilities simply because of a threat of litigation.

I will be the first to admit that while I love my job overall, I never really enjoyed classroom teaching.  My having to do it, only makes me appreciate teachers even more, since it's many times a thankless job.  So for all you teachers out there, know that there are those of us who appreciate what you do, thank you for it, and encourage you to continue to serve the youth of America.  I do enjoy the mentoring of students in the research environment.  I get a lot of fulfillment out of that, although there are times when it's very taxing.  Over the years, students with various struggles I've tried to help have thanked me for my advice, which has been fulfilling, but those stories are few and far between.  Being in the Vice Chair position now for about six years, I have seen the best and the worst in education.  The primary thing that makes me sad is that many times, decisions regarding education are made only considering the fiscal or legal impact, not the educational impact.  The thing that makes me happy is seeing some of the best and brightest come through our programs and become successful professionals and academics making their unique contributions to society.  The issues I've noted above are just a small part of the education enterprise.  Somewhere, there's a happy middle-ground where we can make decisions that balance fiscal/legal impact with educational impact and move forward with the best interest of students in mind.