Last week I wrote a blog that got a little bit of play on social sites. I love it when social media works to actually connect people instead of just being a battering ram to destroy messages! (Is anyone else getting tired of the political vitriol our feeds seem peppered with?)
The conversation was good, with a few people even following up via email, but essentially the same question was asked a few times: “What does it mean that students are like tomato sauce?… How do you figure?”
Pick two…
Obviously, it is impossible to create a higher ed experience that is unique for everybody. And this is not catering to the ‘every child is a snowflake’ syndrome in any way whatsoever. But as I discussed last week, it is a really bad idea to make the experience one-size-fits-all too. So where is the middle ground?
For me, it comes down to trends and then it comes down to resource numbers. As my favorite boss used to say, “It comes down to time, cost, and quality…pick two.”
We know from a myriad of research that a healthy percentage of Freshman need remediation. (This is worthy of another blog entirely, as there is some controversy around it.) But researchers post anywhere from 25% to 55% of first year students need remediation, based largely on their academic preparedness. Regardless of the number you choose to use, that is a significant subset of people. It’s a trend that is highly worthy of an institution’s time! So, treatments in and around remediation make a great deal of sense, assuming you are seeing the treatments work. But such treatments are plenty these days, even seeing a few schools being criticized for using too many remedial classes just to bolster dollars.
However, on the other side of that coin is total academic readiness, more holistically speaking. The highest research I have ever seen suggests that 45% of students who fail out / drop out, do so due to academic issues. (The lowest I’ve seen is 15%.) Unfortunately, academic issues can mean a lot of things. Issues can equate to ability, but it might be better described by a lack of motivation, prioritization of time, or just plain tenacity, etc.
However, if you look at Student Success initiatives on most campuses, academic problems make up the subset of people that are the focus of 90% of the work. But why?
If more than half of students leave school, fail out, or drop classes because of non-academic reasons, wouldn’t it be in our best interest to look for the categories that fit under that umbrella instead?
7-16% of students report leaving their college or university due to loneliness. In fact, if you look at general surveys of demographic sectors, we see Millenials and Gen Z reporting that they are the loneliest generations ever. Despite all of the social media tools, devices, and more, they do not believe themselves to have friends or supportive relationships. Isn’t that group worthy of our time too?
Note that these numbers do not include students who feel bullied or purposefully left out!
Again, depending on the research, 15-33% of students have little support from home, specific to college. Often pointed out only during first-in-college situations, this can manifest itself with little (or no) financial help, but importantly it also likely means adults in student’s lives who do not help navigate the complexities of a university experience. What should a student do when they have a professor who does not like them? What should a student do when they struggle to prioritize between work, school, and social opportunities? How does a student work through failing an exam or the struggles with collaborative projects when they have people at home stating, “I told you this would happen…our family is just not college material…”
Similarly, the range of students who are “food insecure” may only be 11% although some report it as high as 41%, but either way, that seems like a trend worthy of our time and energies.
And note that all I have talked about thus far are negatives. What about the criticism by politicians and business leaders that higher education does not produce entrepreneurs, innovators, or creative types? (In fact arguing that higher ed “kicks” the creativity out of people.) How can we create experiences that embrace and empower students to produce innovative solutions which tie back to life?
See? Tomatoes.
But importantly, not one cherry tomato at a time. Clusters of tomatoes on “the vine”, allowing us to work with them in clusters or groups.
I get that treatments for students, initiatives for success, and everything else along these lines is a numbers game. Schools only have the resources they have. Priorities and dedicated time needs to be set.
But I am suggesting that higher education spends a great deal of time spinning its proverbial wheels, and I’m certainly not the only one. Having spent half of my career in formal, administrative positions, I know of the tremendous waste of people’s time and energy that goes on every day at every institution. Part of my most satisfying consulting experiences with schools has involved “KWYK” consulting (Know-What-You-Know consulting) whereby my team interviews stakeholders from most every department, level, and sector in a school. We then report back to the administration of potential waste, strategies that are not being implemented in practice as they were theoretically drawn up, processes that take an inappropriate amount of time, and more. But I can also tell you that far more often these reports are shelved than acted upon. The machine is just too hard to stop.
But stop it we should! We can make different choices…we can make things better. We can help students in far greater, more specific ways that are actually meaningful. So long as we just stop trying to treat them all the same way. After all, and with one last nod to last week’s blog, would you like to be forced to eat 1970’s Ragu on every plate of pasta for the rest of your life? Exactly.
Tomatoes.
(By the way…staff and faculty are tomatoes too. But that’s another blog.) 🙂
Good luck and good learning.