Editor's note: This article is a response to Ethics in Academic Advising by Matthew Church and Anthony Robinson, University of Louisville, published in The Mentor on May 23, 2006. Ordinarily, responses to articles published in the journal are fairly brief and are posted only as a link at the end of the original article. In this case, however, we chose to publish the response as a separate article due to its length and research background.
Academic advisers frequently face ethical dilemmas when working with their advisees. Church and Robinson (2006) presented three examples of ethical dilemmas faced by academic advisers. We suggest alternative approaches and interpretations in the case of a student requesting an “easy class.”
Church and Robinson (2006) question the ethics of assisting students in selecting easier courses:
By telling the student an “easy class,” the adviser is being disloyal to the student and the educational community. If higher education is to promote a well-rounded education and a love of learning, recommending courses that offer little intellectual stimulation does not help higher education. Also, recommending an easy course may lead to lesser quality students in that course, and the adviser would also be disloyal to the faculty. (¶4)
We take issue with Church and Robinson's statement that recommending an easy course may lead to a lesser quality education for a student. It may in fact enable an excellent student to continue his/her education. It is our belief that no content is irrelevant. What is an easy course? An easy course for one student may be a difficult course for another. Church and Robinson seem to imply that a student requesting an easy course is lazy or just seeks an easy out. An adviser who would be partner to such a request or even provide information to make such an act possible is “disloyal to the student.” They respond with almost puritanical zeal to a suggestion of a student's failure to embrace hard work. Perhaps there are other explanations for the student's request than sloth or ethical depravity. With an eye toward “respect for the person,” let's entertain the possibility that there may be a positive reason for the student's inquiry. It is possible that a student with mature judgment is attempting to balance the semester workload. Perhaps the student is taking courses that require a great deal of time or effort or wants to focus energy on subjects with which he or she has had little success in the past. Church and Robinson assert, worse yet, that advisers would be “disloyal” to their faculty colleagues and in some way betray their educational institutions if information about an “easy” course were provided. It would seem that Church and Robinson doubt that their colleagues and their institutions offer courses that are appropriately demanding. If this is indeed the case, is simply steering students away from these classes the most ethical response to the problem? They go on to assert that offering information concerning easier courses does not “help higher education.”
Church and Robinson's premise appears to be based on the assumption that easy courses offer “little intellectual stimulation.” The barely suppressed assumption is that unless a course is difficult, a student could not possibly be learning. Frequently, course work that is served in appropriate increments may surprise students who discover they are accomplishing difficult work at the end of the semester without experiencing difficulty in learning it. Perception has a great deal to do with whether a course is seen as easy. Often in courses with mass exams across sections, some sections are still perceived by students to be “easier” due to the skill of the teacher. What a student perceives to be an easy course may also represent a fit between preparation and abilities and course selection. Students who do well in math think math is easy, students who have had success in writing perceive English courses to be easier, and so on. Church and Robinson (2006) asked, “How does an easy course prepare a student for life after college?” (¶4). A basic course in finance or an introductory course in marriage and family is rarely overly challenging but is very applicable to real-life issues. Such a course may not only provide a student with practical skills but also cause a student to see everyday things in a different way. A student who enrolls in a health and exercise science course may develop a skill, acquire a more active life style, and increase longevity and quality of life by improving health. A balanced schedule that includes courses like these along with more challenging courses can boost confidence and teach students valuable life lessons, including the importance of balance in scheduling activities. Vygotsky's (1978) zone of proximal development can be applied to this issue. Easier courses taken in conjunction with more rigorous courses provide a unique form of scaffolding by allowing greater study time for the more difficult courses, promoting self-efficacy, and encouraging successful application of study skills. An initial easy course may stimulate interest and encourage confidence for further intellectual exploration. We have one colleague who took introductory psychology as an undergraduate after hearing that it was easy and ended up with a doctorate in the subject. Apparently, the ease of the course did not deter intellectual stimulation or undermine education.
We have encountered requests for easy classes on a number of advising occasions for various reasons. It is important to discuss the reasons for such requests rather than assume that the student is procrastinating or loafing. Students may have personal, health, financial, or job-related issues, or they may be student athletes who must travel extensively during a term. These things impact students' abilities to carry a full load of courses in a given term. A student may be required to take a full load due to financial aid, but may not be able to spend as much time as is needed for a full load of more rigorous courses due to other responsibilities. Balancing his or her course load may allow a student to actually complete a full schedule rather than play a less ethical “cat and mouse game” of planning to drop a class after full-time status is established in order to appear to be full time. Challenging courses, balanced with less challenging courses, can create schedules that can position students for success, rather than failure or mediocre performance and lower levels of learning across all classes in a schedule of all rigorous courses.
The role of the adviser in these cases, like most cases, is to identify the issues and work with the student and his/her unique personal issues. Is it wrong for a student to find easier courses to schedule along with more challenging courses in order to achieve an academically reasonable load and foster progress? Do we help by flunking students and by encouraging schedules that are likely to destroy students' permanent records, which in turn disable future academic endeavors? How much is love of learning augmented by failure, loss of scholarship, and conditioned helplessness, which may result in depression or giving up (Seligman, 1972)? In response to Church and Robinson's (2006) question, “How does taking the easy way out establish trends for life?” (¶4), perhaps students learn to pick their battles and plan for success.
We agree with the authors' statement that many issues facing advisers must be handled on a case-by-case basis. However, it is imperative that advisers listen and try to understand the reasons for students' requests. Fidelity and respect for people demand it. The advising responsibility goes beyond that of being an administrator of college policy. Fisher (2005) describes the role of advisers as that of “strong student advocates, neutral mediators, moral role models, and conscientious staff representatives” (¶17). We, as advisers, must be diligent in all of our roles. The education community is not well served by over-extended students. Students who are able to remain in school can have far-reaching implications in society.