Top Ten (or maybe, Bottom Ten)

This is a list of some of the irritations I have in dealing with the world of teaching college today. Some of them are simply societal and not much can be done about them; others, perhaps, better enforcement of rules or something would help.

This is not a "ranked" list, this is just as I think of them:

1. All the students who work full time and try to go to school full time and try to have a family full time but can't quite pull it off.

Look, I know it's hard. I know college is expensive and I'm not sure how to fix that problem (because people expect the newest fastest computers on college campuses, and nice shiny new athletic facilities, and state-of-the-art classroom buildings). And a lot of schools have a certain number of "deadwood" profs who probably don't generate enough credit hours to pay for themselves (and maybe we all fail to do that, I don't know. But since most of the people in my department are teaching 14 hours, and in many many schools out there, 8 or 9 is considered the ultimate maximum, I wouldn't necessarily call any of us deadwood).

In some cases with the students it's a matter of survival - they have a stay at home spouse and little kids, they have a mortgage to make. And some of the students do it admirably well.

But others - they fall asleep in class, they randomly miss class (and then say that they were either too tired from work or there was a mandatory meeting. There is one employer here in town that regularly ticks me off because they call these "mandatory meetings" when something goes wrong - and I know it's not the students lying to me because multiple people are out and even students who don't have class at the "mandatory meeting" time are complaining about them. The employer KNOWS that a goodly percentage of their employees are from here, and yet, they persist in calling in people who work the late-evening shift at 11 am or some damn time like that to "meet" with them.). Some of the students can't seem to get papers written on time, or they complain that the library isn't open when they are free.

And I know this is a problem. In some cases I will admit to wondering if it would be less of a problem if the students didn't need to drive a brand-new car or have the fancy new cell phone with all the bells and whistles or have an iPod or go on skiing vacations or such. Because, you know? When I was a student, I didn't go on fancy vacations. I used the same old ugly "boom box" tape deck that I saved my money up to buy in high school (I didn't own a cd player until 1995 or so, when I was in grad school, and had a tiny bit more disposable income).

There's a point at which you should say, you know, going to school and successfully getting a degree is more important than having whatever new "toy" right now.

Because they'll come out with a newer and better "toy" in six months, and then you'll have to buy that too....

As I said, I never know how to judge it. When I was in college I went to a "Public Ivy" with mostly upper middle class kids. Some were on scholarships that they had to keep at least a 3.5 for, so of course they worked hard and made school their first priority. But no one that I can remember worked full time...I was of course one of the lucky ones, I had money from grandparents that paid my tuition and housing. Those of us who did work, usually worked less than 12 hours a week, and it was doing stuff like shelving books in the library. And it was for "pizza money" or "movie money" - so you could go and spend a little more than your "allowance" and not feel too bad about it. I can't imagine working a 40 hour week and going to school full time. I applaud those who can do it, but sometimes I wonder if some of the student body might not be better served either (a) going to school part time or (b) taking a few years to work and try to save up money, and then go to school later (If that's even possible.)

One problem with part-time is that financial aid makes it hard as hell to do. Financial aid is set up badly in some ways, IMHO.

2. People trying to finish degrees in absentia.

I'm working with one now. He's out in the workforce, is a couple classes and a thesis away from a Master's, and now he wants the Master's. The problem is? I'm doing this ON TOP OF my already 14 hour load. The other problem? He wants everything done YESTERDAY, except for the things he has to do.

Look, dude: primary rule of working with people who will grade you: do not piss them off. Okay? Don't write me long misspelled e-mails full of conspiracy-theory type accusations because some office somewhere in the university hasn't bowed to your whim at that very moment. May I remind you you LEFT CAMPUS for employment before finishing your degree?

I remind this person on a regular basis that finishing a degree in absentia is harder and more frustrating but I don't think he believes me.

3. The whole politicization of so much in academia.

Please, please, please, please - do not come to me asking me for campaign donations for your "guy." Please do not stop by my office and deliver a speech as to why I should vote for your "guy." You will not change my mind.

Also please do not expect me to discuss politics. I like keeping politics out of the workplace. I see what political disagreements can do. It's really ugly and really unpleasant and unnecessary.

I consider it a GOOD thing if students walk out of my class and don't know my political affiliation for sure. Because the problem with them knowing is that then they also "know" what they are "supposed" to say on certain topics, and it makes for less interesting discussions and less thoughtful essays.

If I disagree with a student politically, but they write well and write persuasively and fulfill the requirements of the assignment, I will not grade them down (provided their facts aren't wrong or provided they've not made up statistics to support themselves).

4. Mass meetings. Mostly these are kind of a waste. Mostly these involve people from the administration getting up and stating things we all already know (because the press release was e-mailed to us). Unfortunately these also often involve someone with a pet political (or university-political) agenda, or someone who feels they've been slighted somehow, getting up and making a big long spiel about how they've been wronged.

And it looks SO petty. I wonder if they realize how petty it looks?

I don't know. I was taught that if you had something good to say about someone or about a situation, you talked about it in public, but if you had something bad to say or a complaint, you went to the person in private and delivered it in private.

5. Students with drug and alcohol problems.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't expect students to be members of the WCTU or to never party. But when someone has other students saying about him, "He's really pretty smart but he parties way too much" or "Yeah, don't expect him to show up to many 8:00s; he's usually hungover from Wednesday on," then there's a problem. (Note: these are actual student comments I heard about a particular student - a student who is taking one of my classes for the third time.)

Likewise, with drugs, unless it's some scary dangerous thing that can make you violent like meth does, I'm pretty much willing to shrug and go "As long as you don't drive stoned, do as you will." But I don't like students coming to class stoned. I don't like having to wake people up in the student lounge and tell them it is time for lab. I don't like having someone who reeks of pot and has those glittery bloodshot eyes coming up to me every five minutes to ask me what they need to do next in lab.

It never happened to me, but a colleague recounts a story of how a student once came to class high, hooked a bunsen burner to the water jet instead of to the gas jet, and then turned on the water, not realizing what he had done, even as the water fountained up. (As I said to the faculty: good thing you weren't planning on using water-filters that day; he might have hooked the thing to the gas and blown up the room).

And again, it's sort of like having that 40 hour a week job to pay for your cell phone - or like having that hot and heavy romance - there comes a time when you have to ask yourself: is this interfering with my education?

6. Some of the crap with financial aid.

In particular, the policy that seems to be in place (no one will actually CONFIRM it for me at financial aid but the students say it's so) that says it's preferable to fail and retake a class than it is to drop out of it.

This one makes me crazy. Because, there are some people who just "give up" mid semester. I encourage them to drop but they don't. And then I'm faced with assigning F grades to them. And someday, I know the administration is going to start calling those of us who "give" Fs in to justify why.

7. Plagiarism.

Look, the reason we make students write papers and do projects and all that crap is not because we're mean harpies who want to punish the young and the beautiful because we are old and hidebound and ugly. No. The papers I assign are generally mock-ups of what I would expect a person to be doing in their work-life: research reports, short briefs on particular species, proposals, mock-equipment-requests. There's a reason for it.

So - if you copy from someone else - or if you buy a paper online, you have just defeated the assignment. You have failed to get the practice I was trying to get for you. And you have royally pissed me off in the process: plagiarism is one of those things that makes me angry all out of proportion to the offense.

Yeah, yeah, I know, "everybody does it." But the truth is, they DON'T. I'm not sure I buy that statistic (so often quoted to us) that 80% of college students say that they have cheated.

The other thing is that plagiarism creates an atmosphere of distrust. I find I Google phrases out of all my student papers now...not just the ones where I go "this doesn't sound like a college freshman." And it wastes faculty time. And it makes us feel suspicious of all the students. And it's just kind of distressing; one of my colleagues has stopped assigning papers at all because he's so fed up with plagiarism

(which feels to me not unlike "when you're afraid to go about daily life, then the terrorists win." He's given in to the 10% or so that did the wrong thing. And that just makes me sad.)

8. Utilitarianism. And I realize this is as much a problem with ME as it is with other people. But I get so down when people balk at learning about plants because "I'm gonna be a doctor and I don't need to know this stuff." Or the whole difficulty in promoting the gen-ed classes as something worthwhile: "I'm going into business, I shouldn't have to learn this genetics crap in general bio." Or, "I'm going to be an engineer - why are you making me read Dickens?"

I don't know. I realize I'm sometimes kind of an odd duck but I don't think it's so very odd that I like learning and I enjoy learning. And it makes me sad to see so many people, when you ask them what they want to do in college, they say, "Get my degree so I can get a job" or "get my degree so I can make more money at my job."

Again, it's probably a factor of financial pressure, but it makes me sad to see people not choosing to explore things - taking the "safe" courses - because they're concerned about not wasting their education. And unfortunately that sometimes boils down into an attitude of "unless it is directly related to the narrow task I am planning to do for the next 40 years of my life, I do not want to know about it." And that's sad.

(That said: there are waste-of-time courses. As much as I love The Simpsons I'd never expect to be able to get humanities credit for taking a course on it. But when I was an undergrad, I thoroughly enjoyed my Great Books courses although they've done little - directly at least - to advance me in my career. It was a different way of thinking, and I enjoyed that.)

9. "D is for Diploma." I actually had a student say that to me, after he came to ask after his grade, and I (sort of sadly) told him he had earned a D.

I wanted to shake the guy, and say "You think a crap job is good enough? You think sliding by doing the bare minimum is how to get through life?"

I didn't. Hell, for all I know it may have been his only D, he may have been in some other class that was a real ballbuster and he took the D graciously from me because it meant he passed the ballbuster course.

But I kind of don't think that's it. We have a coterie of students whose goal in life is to get a job that pays well but allows them to do minimal work. Sadly, such jobs rarely exist, and if they do, you probably won't get one on a 1.9 GPA. But there are people like that - who seem to slouch through life with enthusiasm for nothing (I could forgive the D, almost, if he were, for example, a dedicated Theater major who gave great time and effort to working on plays. But he was just an average Joe and was not known to really make an effort anywhere.)

I mean, yeah, I know, it's a free country. But it makes me kind of sad to see someone who doesn't seem to care about anything much, who lacks a passion. And who thinks that's a normal state of affairs. (And who, in some cases of some students I could name, roll their eyes over the fact that the professors or other students care about things and express a passion for them.)

10. Some of the petty rudenesses. One thing that's gotten on my nerves this semester is this: I open the classrooms where I teach in the morning. (I teach 8:00s five days of the week). The students who are waiting their always PUSH PAST ME to get into the room - they cannot stand back and let me enter first.

(I suppose I should be grateful for that were we living in Iraq or somewhere; they'd trip the IED first).

But when my arms are full of books - and like this week, I'm also juggling a water bottle and Kleenex and cough drops - it's kind of annoying to be standing out in the hall as people push past you in a big crush to get in the room.

And you know, maybe I'm just old-fashioned but: I'd like the tiny bit of respect afforded by "we will stand back and let you enter the classroom first." The sort of ironic thing is, some of the guys at least, if we come up to a door together under other circumstances (like coming in from a field lab), they will HOLD THE DOOR for me (and the other women in the class) and let us in. So why can't he let me enter the room first at 8 am?