“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consolations
They're quite aware of what they're going through.”
– David Bowie
I've become one of them. You know who we are; you see us each summer or fall, as faithfully as the changing seasons. We all look different, yet we have something in common, something special. You know of whom I speak.
We're the parents of college students.
My oldest daughter just graduated from high school. She's filled with hopes, dreams, fears, and expectations of what lies ahead, and she's college bound. She's strong and fragile; grown up and growing; courageous and anxious; beautiful and seeking beauty; honest and seeking the truth; wise with still so much to learn.
She's coming our way.
For nineteen years I've seen students just like her go through orientation and enter college in the fall. I didn't recognize her, but she was there. She was someone's daughter or son; someone's husband or wife; someone's grandchild; someone's pride and joy. She was – and is – someone's past, present, and future. She was – and is – someone special.
She's coming our way.
It would be easy to just think of her as an enrollment, a social security number, a file folder, a name on a checklist, a statistic. That's exactly how many students appear to far too many of us in higher education. It would be easy to lose her in the policies, procedures, rules, and regulations that we spell out so carefully in our handbooks and catalogs. It would be easy to label her as a freshman, a first-year student, an English major, a Caucasian female, an in-state student, a work-study student, a transfer student, a sorority sister, a customer or a consumer – but she's so much more than that!
She's coming our way.
If you're employed by the college where my daughter enrolls, here are my requests.
Pretend she's your daughter, or the daughter of a friend or relative, or, at the very least, someone you care about.
Don't think of her as a student. Think of her as a young adult who's engaged in learning.
See her as a rare flower to cultivate, not a dandelion to weed out. Assume she will succeed.
Create an environment in which learning is the most important expectation, and assess the effectiveness of that environment.
When she has a problem, assume it's as important as whatever you were working on before she brought it to your attention.
Remove as many artificial obstacles to her learning and development as you can; she'll take care of the rest.
Assist her through her transitions into, through, and out of the college experience. Assume she will succeed.
She's coming our way.
In the film Phenomenon, John Travolta's character is forced to help a young child understand the concept of death. Using an apple, he explains to the child that we can enjoy the beauty, nutrition, and flavor of the apple, or we can throw it on the ground and let it rot. He concludes by telling the child that everything is on its way to another place. In other words, carpe diem. In other words, gather ye rosebuds while ye may. In other words, an eloquent metaphor for transition.
College is a time of transition for all students, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, previous experience, or interests. Unfortunately, the perception is growing, particularly among the parents of college students and certain legislators, that the primary goal of higher education should be getting jobs rather than getting educated. Far too many students – and the people who pay their bills – think getting through college quickly is more important than taking an extra semester to learn what they need to survive and thrive in a changing world. With a focus on meeting minimum expectations rather than maximizing potential, the ability of higher education to develop human capital is diminished. Fortunately, not everyone subscribes to these notions.
People in higher education have recently begun to talk seriously of student success. Simply stated, student success involves designing, implementing, managing, and assessing learning opportunities that help students complete seamless transitions into, through, and out of college. Students who successfully complete these transitions will reach desired levels of academic achievement and career, personal, and leadership development.
Student success is ultimately a matter of successful transition. Students must successfully negotiate a series of transitions into, through, and out of the university.
First, the student encounters the entering transition: orientation to the institution's expectations and resources; matriculation into the academic program; assimilation into the student body.
Second, the student undergoes the planning transition: making informed decisions about academic majors, careers, values, and involvement; making progress through the college experience.
Finally, the student experiences the culminating transition: successful passage to graduate or professional school, post-college work, and full citizenship in their chosen communities. To help students successfully complete these transitions, higher education can develop learning opportunities, formerly referred to as programs and services but with a renewed focus on learning outcomes. To develop learning opportunities directly related to each of the transitions listed above, I offer a tool developed by the student success team with which I work. The acronym for this tool is SCORE: skills, community, obstacles, resources, and expectations. For each transition, ask the following questions:
What skills must the student develop to successfully complete this transition?
How does the institution assist the student in becoming or remaining a member of the campus community during this transition? In the final transition, how does the institution assist the student in becoming a citizen-leader in the larger community?
What are the obstacles the student must overcome during this transition?
What resources does the institution direct toward the students who are in the midst of this transition?
What are the institution's expectations of the student during this transition?
To apply this model, think for a moment about the new students entering the institution. What skills do they need, right away, to successfully make the transition? Self-reliance? Study skills? Time management? How can these skills be addressed through orientation, residence life programs, and other efforts? How can these skills be front-loaded? Without adequate skills, student success is by default rather than by design.
Next, how does the student truly become – and remain – a member of the campus community in an effort to successfully complete an academic program? What ceremonies, rituals, activities, involvement, and interventions lead to community? How do we keep students from falling through the cracks? How do we expose students to the wonders and possibilities of diversity? What is a learning community? What learning opportunities lead to these discoveries? If students don't become effective members of the community, student success is by default rather than by design.
All students face obstacles to their success: academic integrity and honor violations, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship issues, financial difficulties, pathologies, and an ever growing list of unexpected barriers. How do we point these barriers out to students, and what can we do to help students overcome them? If we don't help students address obstacles, student success is by default rather than design.
Colleges and universities generally have resources set aside to assist students in achieving academic and personal success. What are these resources? How visible and accessible are they? Are students, their faculty, and their advisers aware of the many programs and services available to them? How integrated and cooperative are these resources? Without effective utilization of available resources, student success is by default rather than by design.
Though we print policies, procedures, rules, and regulations in our student handbooks and catalogs, we rarely talk about the expectations higher education has of the student. What does your institution expect of the student, academically and experientially, and why? What are the consequences if these expectations are not met? If the student doesn't clearly understand these expectations, student success is by default rather than by design.
Student success has to be an institutional consideration. Student success is best facilitated when the institution as a whole celebrates learning as the primary institutional purpose, directs appropriate resources toward the accomplishment of learning, and expects everyone at the institution to cross organizational boundaries in the pursuit of learning. Student success requires creating conditions that motivate and inspire students to learn; student success requires removing barriers to learning. (See Wingspread Group on Higher Education [1993], An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education, The Johnson Foundation, Inc.)
Student success has to be a departmental consideration. Student success requires designing, implementing, managing, and assessing learning opportunities that help students complete seamless transitions. Student success requires faculty and staff partnership. Student success requires creating common, shared experiences and rituals that generate a sense of community for the students. Student success requires making the first year for both freshman and transfer students an institutional priority. (See Barefoot, B., & Fidler, P. [1996], The 1994 National Survey of Freshman Seminar Programs: Continuing Innovations in the Collegiate Curriculum [Monograph No. 20], National Resource Center for the Freshman Year Experience and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina.)
Finally, student success has to be a personal consideration. Student success requires our individual efforts to help students understand that success is not a matter of starting salaries and material possessions; rather, success is a quality of character, illustrated long ago by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“ ... to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better ...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – this is to have succeeded.”
Student success requires professionals in student affairs to ask these questions, everyday, of every student: “What does this student need,” and “How can I help him or her succeed?” Student success requires us to remove as many artificial obstacles to student learning and development as we can, knowing that the student will take care of the rest. Student success requires a commitment from all of us to see each student as someone special: someone's daughter or son, worth every bit of our attention and focus. Student success requires us to assume that they will succeed.
They're coming our way.
From Fables, Labels and Folding Tables: Reflections on the Student Affairs Profession, by Randy L. Mitchell. Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1999, Atwood Publishing, Madison, WI.