Academics on the Hill

In twenty-plus years of working in higher education, I have witnessed several waves of reform -- defining missions, enhancing quality, assessing student performance, establishing post-tenure review, and so on. These initiatives, at least in formative stages, usually contained a kernel of good ideas. Yet, as these ideas made their way from academic discussions, to educational leadership consultants, and finally to full-fledged movements, they packed on layers of superficially appealing but flawed details. Once congealed into a movement, those who would lean against them stood little chance. In some cases, the agenda fizzled on its own while others built long-lasting legacies and costs.

This scenario is playing out again -- this time with regard to student engagement. Like many of its prior cousins, "Engagement" encompasses many layers, ranging from valid to very questionable but all with an appealing exterior. Below, I briefly lay out what I perceive as valuable ways for faculty at institutions of higher learning to engage students versus misguided directions for student "Engagement." I recognize my views may not be very popular in some campus circles or may be taken as just typical faculty grousing. As a broad response, I would emphasize that I view student engagement, narrowly defined, as an integral and critical part of a university. My issue is not at all with interacting with and developing students; rather, it is in the direction that the current "Engagement" wave has taken.

Full-time university faculty, whether in English, History, Physics, Economics, and most other areas, spend thousands of hours in pursuit of advanced degrees to become scholars and experts in particular disciplines and fields within those disciplines. At institutions with missions like WKU's, these scholars and experts communicate these ideas and skills to undergraduate and masters level students. Such statements are nearly self-evident, but they are crucial for discussing engagement.

Engagement should, in my view, mesh with this deep-level graduate training of university faculty. I don't mean to imply a cold, dry imparting of knowledge or skill. Instead, it includes the sparking of curiosity and even enthusiasm for a field. Neither do I mean to imply that faculty rest forever on the expertise that they developed in graduate school. Being a scholar or expert implies an ongoing interest, involvement, and activity in and with a discipline. If engagement is to have any legitimate connection to the scholarly training and expertise of faculty, how can it be defined differently?

This kind of narrowly defined engagement incorporates activities both in and out of classrooms. Nonetheless, I will state what seems obvious -- time in class stands at the center of faculty-student engagement. This statement may be out of style these days, but strikes me as axiomatic. All (or most) students attend classroom sessions; facilities have been constructed for classroom interaction; faculty spend their time and energy organizing ideas, presentations, assignments, new courses, and new content around classroom time.

Out of this central means of engaging students in class flow closely related ways of expanding and building on the faculty-student relationship out of class -- ways intimately and directly tied to the discipline and fields in which faculty have been trained. By this I mean time spent out of class with individual students or small groups in workshops or seminars or informally talking about discipline-related topics them spark interested minds to dig deeper. Tutorial sessions for a student or groups of students seeking additional assistance fit this definition. Time spent with students preparing for graduate school, preparing for competitions, or assisting with discipline-related clubs help promote the discipline and build student interest. Involving students in research projects or mentoring them in end of program projects are more valid connections between facutly expertise and students.

During my tenure, these kinds of activities have been an integral part of annual reviews as well as tenure and promotion documents. A renewal of or fine-tuning of their importance might be in order from time to time both by faculty or by those evaluating faculty. Such a renewal does not, however, dictate a new or broadened meaning of the term engagement.

Unfortunately, "Student Engagement" now focuses at least as much on a new and broader meaning as it does to the preceding ideas. In current usage, it emphasizes various kinds of of activities related to "social responsibility," "good citizenship," or "civic or community service." Let me say quickly, lest I be branded a barbarian, that I am very supportive of building character (in a broad sense) in young people. I just do not see character building as central to the faculty-student relationship. No doubt, faculty can play a small role in helping students see the benefits of effort and persistence, but seeking to develop "the whole person" through broadly defined "Engagement" activities (citizenship or community service projects of all sorts) should not be our responsibility. Here are my reasons why:

1. Such activities have little to do with the advanced training and expertise in disciplines and fields received by most faculty. As faculty, we are what we are and are where we are professionally because of this training. While I may have acquired skills in helping young adults build character, those skills have little to do with my job. My professional skills pertain to analyzing decisions and data. For others, their skills pertain to analyzing molecules, chemicals, cells, literary works, historical documents, computer software, or other things.

2. When students are falling short in academics and expectations placed on students in academics seem to be declining, why would we add more extracurricular priorities? Rather than expanding the university agenda, maybe we should consolidate it to reemphasize academic achievement, raise academic standards, and demand more effort in academics. In a utopian vision, we might be able to get more of everything, but in our real world, greater emphsasis on broad student engagement, of necessity, means less emphasis on matters of central academic interest, even though these seem to be getting very little attention as is.

3. Institutions with a primary mission of building character already exist. These include families, along with religious and civic organizations devoted to these missions. Moreover, these institutions and organizations that are dedicated to character-building are much better equipped to do the job than a state-supported university. Certainly, someone can participate in building a house, raking leaves, picking up trash, or whatever, as activities in and of themselves. However, the moral lessons from these activities extend beyond the narrow activitities themselves.

4. Involving universities, especially secular state universities, deeply in the business of character building under the heading of "student engagement" places some faculty at a distinct disadvantage versus others. What I have in mind here is that faculty with religious convictions are not free to espouse and push their worldviews in the setting of a university or in university sponsored "engagement" activities while someone who espouses and pushes a secular worldview may. Further, faculty who are very active in engaging young people but who do so through religious organizations receive no "university credit" for such activity. If I do the very same kinds of activities whether under the auspices of some university agenda, why should they count any differently?

Rather than trying to turn academic institutions into some kind of finishing school to build well-rounded individuals, maybe educational bureaucrats and legislators should focus on academic performance and let other, better suited, institutions do their jobs.