There's shenanigans afoot at my university. We noticed this semester that our gen-ed offering, our freshman-level intro class, is having trouble attracting students. Usually this class is one of our most reliable engines for student contact hours. Most degree programs require students to take an arts credit. Theatre has historically been a fun option for them. I have gripes about our standard 100:1 student:instructor ratio, but I have faith in the basic integrity of the course. My colleague handles the super-large section; her superpower is crafting a high-quality course even at that scale.
But this semester? Low, low enrollment. Nothing about the course has changed. We poked into sites like ratemyprofessor to see if there was some groundswell of resentment at the course. Nope.
The only big factor we can detect is a different arts credit, an intro course offered in a different department unrelated to my college. This course is 100% online and asynchronous. It has over 1,500 students with a single instructor. The scuttlebutt (which I can't confirm) is that the whole course has only one TA assigned to it.
There's no practical way to assess students' performance in this course except through a massive use of automated and easily cheated exams.
A student familiar with the class raved about it. It's apparently on several "best class at LSU" lists--not because the class teaches good things but because it's easy. It's as close to a zero-effort way to get through three credits of required coursework as you can find.
I feel so tired and outraged and tired and disappointed . . . and tired . . . thinking about this class.
On the one hand, I have to wonder what the professor in charge--whom I do not know--must think or feel about this. Surely they can't be under any illusions about the quality of this course or its reputation. But the alternative is that the course was specifically designed to be a high-enrollment easy A. I hate classes like that. They cheapen every other class--especially other gen ed courses, especially arts gen ed courses. They reinforce the already strong sense among students and populace that higher ed (and especially higher ed in the arts) is basically a scam, a series of meaningless, frustrating hoops to jump through in order to get the degree (which is in turn seen and assessed purely in terms of a key to a well-paying career). Universities are just money-hungry, goes this line of thinking. Look at increasing tuition! Student loan debt! The cost of textbooks! And why? Just so graduates can feel superior for having endured this expensive battery of meaningless busywork.
It angers me that there's a class that, intentionally or not, seems perfectly designed to reinforce that narrative. I don't know the professor's story. I don't know their mindset here. But from the outside it's hard for me not to imagine they (and their department) have kind of sold their soul.
And on another level, I'm disappointed that students for the most part see this as a good thing. Why not take this easy course? I'm busy and stressed out with my real classes (or my real life). I don't want to have to look at some pictures or listen to some music or go to some long-ass boring play just to declare myself more educated. If I can get this hoop out of the way easily (and with a little cheating), why not?
Now--reality check--when I was an undergrad, yeah, I'll admit there were a few times I bypassed a harder course to take, for instance, the non-honors option of a gen ed. But I never cheated, nor would I have been OK with a course in which cheating was widely seen as the legitimate path through the class. I do think I did invest time and effort and curiosity even in courses that I didn't think of as integral to my main studies. I don't think--perhaps I'm rose-coloring things--that I looked at any class as an utter waste of time. I took them, in other words, in some degree of good faith.
It's disappointing to me on a deep level that so many students--inspired, I know, by an overwhelming flood of pressures and perverse incentives--are just willing to take classes basically in bad faith. And it's worse when those classes seemed designed in accordance with these bad-faith expectations.
Why has no one stopped this clearly broken course? I asked. The answer, it seems, is that no one really cares. Enrollment is enrollment. The scam continues.
Surely I'm being ungenerous here. Certainly there's a lot I don't know. But, well, it's depressing times.
More tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment