Tag: years

  • Thoughts on 20 years of college teaching (opinion)

    Thoughts on 20 years of college teaching (opinion)

    I have now been teaching at Duke University for 20 years. I have been through all kinds of teaching fads—active learning, team-based learning, alternative grading, service learning, etc. You might assume that I have become a better teacher over these many years. Yet I am noticing a curious trend in my course evaluations: Some of my students like me and my courses less and less.

    As a teaching faculty member, this matters greatly to my own career trajectory, and so I’ve wondered and worried about what to do. Why am I struggling to teach well and why are my students struggling to learn?

    Looking back on the past two decades of my teaching and reaching further back into my own college experience, I see six clear differences between now and then.

    Difference No. 1: Access to Information

    When I took my first college environmental science class, way back in 1992, I was mesmerized. This was before the days of Advanced Placement Environmental Science, so I came into the class knowing almost nothing about the topic, motivated by my naïve idea to be part of “saving the world.” To learn, I had a textbook (that I still have, all highlighted and marked up) and the lectures (for which I still have my notes). Sure, I could go to the library and find books and articles to learn more, but mostly I stuck to my textbook and my notes. I showed up to the lecture-based class to learn, to listen, to ask questions.

    Today, my students show up in my course often having taken AP Environmental Science, with access to unlimited information about the course topics, and with AI assistants that will help them organize their notes, write their essays and prepare for exams. I have had to shift from expert to curator, spending hours sifting through online articles, podcasts (SO many podcasts) and videos, instead of relying on a single textbook. I look for content that will engage students, knowing that some may also spend their class period fact-checking my lectures, which brings me to …

    Difference No. 2: Attention

    When I lecture, I look out to a sea of stickered laptops, with students shifting their attention between me, my slides and their screens. I remind them that I can tell when they are watching TikTok or texting, because the class material probably isn’t causing their amused facial expressions.

    Honestly, I am finding myself more distracted, too. While lecturing I am not only thinking about the lecture material and what’s on the next slide—I am also wondering how I can get my students’ attention. I often default to telling a personal anecdote, but even as they briefly look up to laugh, they just as quickly return their eyes to their screens.

    The obvious advice would be to have more engaging activities than lecturing but …

    Difference No. 3: More Lectures, Please

    After 2020, one comment showed up over and over on my course evaluations: lecture more. My students seemed not to see the value of small-group activities, gallery walks, interactive data exercises and discussions. They felt that they were not learning as much, and some of them assumed that meant that I didn’t know as much, which leads me to …

    Difference No. 4: Sense of Entitlement

    While I teach at a private elite university, my colleagues across a range of institutions have backed this up: Some students seem to not have much respect for faculty. The most common way this shows up is at the end of the semester, when students send me emails about why my course policies resulted in a grade they think is unfair, or after an exam, when they argue that I did not grade them fairly, which leads me to …

    Difference No. 5: Assessment Confusion

    When I was in college, I took midterms and finals. I rewrote my notes, made flash cards, created potential exam questions, asked friends for old exams and studied a lot. I took multiple-choice exams and essay exams, in-class exams and take-home exams. When I first started teaching my lecture-based class, I assigned two midterms and a final. I took the business of writing exams seriously, often using short-answer and essay exams that took a whole lot of time to grade. I wanted the experience of taking the exam to help students feel like they had learned something, and the experience of studying to actually entice them to learn.

    Then, two things happened. We faculty got all excited about alternative assessments, trying to make our classes more inclusive for more learning styles. And the students started rebelling about their exam grades, nitpicking our grading for a point here and there, angry that, as one student put it, I was “ruthless” in my grading. Students didn’t show up at my office hours eager to understand the concepts—they wanted more points.

    So, I threw out exams in favor of shorter papers, discussions and activities. In fall 2024, I had 74 students and I gave a whopping 67 of them A’s. To do well in my class now, you don’t really have to learn anything. You just need to show up. Except the problem with grading for attendance is …

    Difference No. 6: Our Students Are Struggling

    We all know that our students are struggling with more mental and emotional health issues, perhaps due to COVID-related learning loss, the state of the world and so many other things. Many of us include mental health resources in our syllabus, but we know that’s not enough. Students are much more open about their struggles with us, but we aren’t trained therapists and often don’t know the right thing to say. Who am I to determine whether or not one student’s excuse for missing a class is valid while another’s is not? How can I keep extending the deadlines for a struggling student while keeping the deadline firm for the rest? Sure, there are suggestions for this (e.g., offer everyone a “late assignment” ticket to use), but I still spend a lot of time sifting through student email requests for extensions and understanding. How can we be fair to all of our students while maintaining the rhythm of course expectations?

    Usually, one acknowledges the differences between students now and “back then” at retirement, reflecting on the long arc of a teaching career. But I am not at the end—I have a long way to go (hopefully). I am expected to be good at this in order to get reappointed to my teaching faculty position.

    Teaching requires much more agility now as we attempt to adapt to the ever-expanding information sphere, our students’ needs, and the state of the community and world beyond our classrooms. Instead of jumping to solutions (more active learning!), I think it’s reasonable to step back and acknowledge that there is no one change we need to make to be more effective educators in 2025. We also can acknowledge that some of the strategies we are using to make our classes more engaging and inclusive might backfire, and that there still is a time and place for really good, engaging lectures and really hard, useful exams.

    There are fads in teaching, and over the past 20 years, I have seen and tried plenty of them. We prize teaching innovation, highlighting new techniques as smashing successes. But sometimes we learn that our best-laid plans don’t work out, that what students really want is to hear from an expert, someone who can help them sort through the overwhelming crush of information to find a narrative that is relevant and meaningful.

    The students in our classrooms are not the same students we were, but maybe there is still a way to spark their enthusiasm for our subjects by simply asking them to be present. As debates about the value of higher education swirl around us, maybe caring about our students and their learning means asking them to put away their screens, take out a notebook and be present for our lectures, discussions and occasional gallery walk. For my part, I’m reminding myself that some students aren’t all that different than I was—curious, excited, eager to learn—and that I owe it to them to keep showing up committed to their learning and, maybe, prepared with a few more light-on-text lecture slides.

    Rebecca Vidra is a senior lecturer at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

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  • 200 years of Manchester Met

    200 years of Manchester Met

    The history of Manchester Met can be traced back to 1824 with the founding of the Manchester Mechanics Institution, established through private initiative and funds to teach artisans the basic principles of science by part-time study.

    Now, one of the most popular universities in the UK, Manchester Met has over 43,000 students and continues the legacy embedded in its proud history of transforming lives through the power of education and research.

    To mark the momentous milestone, the university had a year packed full of activities, which also served to highlight its areas of strengths:

    Driving Economic Growth: Advancing skills, knowledge, and digital technology to build inclusive and sustainable economic growth and innovation, shaped by industry 

    Transforming Health: Enabling people to start well, live well and age well with innovative research and transformative healthcare

    Championing Creative Excellence: Harnessing imagination to drive creativity, bringing architecture, art, design, fashion, media, and performance together

    Leading Sustainability: Driving innovative solutions for a greener and more sustainable future through advances in science and engineering, practice, and policy 

    Tackling Inequalities: Building cohesive communities and helping shape a more caring, just, and inclusive society: locally, nationally, and globally.

    Malcolm Press, vice-chancellor of Manchester Met commented: “By delivering on our areas of strength we continue to build a better future for all. Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Manchester Met has been a real highlight for me, especially in a year when we have achieved so much.  

    By delivering on our areas of strength we continue to build a better future for all.
    Malcolm Press, Manchester Met

    “We have continued to grow our research activity. In 2024, the University secured several large funding grants – marking a significant milestone in research grants and awards at the university. This is an indication of the quality and calibre of our research offer,” he said.
     
    “The university also celebrated achieving TEF Gold and an amazing set of results in the National Student Survey with improvements placing Manchester Met above sector for every theme. These results highlight the university’s unwavering commitment to ensuring a positive and enriching student experience.
     
    “2024 has been a year of progress, change and transformation. Education has a transformational effect on individuals and society. It is the key to growth, and the teaching, skills, and innovation that we provide will continue to deliver not just for the city of Manchester but to the whole country and internationally.”  
     
    A major part of this transformational year is the continued investment in campus. One of the many highlights of 2024 was the opening of Dalton building, home to the faculty of Science and Engineering and the most ambitious development project in the University’s history.

    The £115m development is set to be a global hub for innovation, research, and industry collaboration. Dalton positions the university as a leader in science and technology education. Its innovative laboratories, research hubs, and active learning environments, provide a vital space for delivering excellent education and research with impact.

    The opening of Dalton marked the culmination of a £400 million transformation of the campus over the last ten years. This has seen the opening of flagship buildings including the iconic School of Digital Arts (SODA) – a £35m investment to develop digital skills and drive innovation across all forms of creative content and the Institute of Sport – a world class facility championing everything that sport can do.

    Manchester Met’s School of Digital Arts (SODA) Photo: Manchester Met

    Historic buildings on campus have also been restored. The Ormond Building, built in 1881 is home to the University’s administrative hub and the Grade 2 Grosvenor West building in the School of Art received a £10 million upgrade.

    The transformation of the campus is aligned to the university’s sustainability goals, one of which is becoming a carbon free campus and supporting the city of Manchester to become carbon neutral by 2038. The university is serious about sustainability and is proud to be in the top 5 universities in the People and Planet league for more than a decade.

    Green spaces feature across campus, providing tranquility in the bustle of city life. The re-opening of All Saints Park has boosted biodiversity through the planting of new trees and wildflowers with wider improvement works contributing to creating a walkable, inclusive, and easy to navigate campus that encourages active travel through cycling, running, or walking.  

    The state-of-the-art facilities on campus are the enablers of excellent education, research with impact and make Manchester Met a great place to be for all students.
    For those students pursuing a vocational route, Manchester Met is a leading provider of degree apprenticeships and since 2019, more than 2,500 apprentices have graduated from the university. Manchester Met highlighted the significant impact of degree apprenticeships for individuals, employers, and the wider economy through the publication of its Force for Impact report 2024.

    2024 set the bar high and there is no doubt that 2025 will see the University continue to go from strength to strength. True to its progressive nature, the transformation is set to continue with plans for a new library given the green light. The visionary building will provide a modern and dynamic learning environment that places students and their learning at its core.

    This is a central part of the university’s strategy to deliver excellent education for its students, and research that delivers impact to the community and world.

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  • College Student Satisfaction: Reflecting on 30 Years

    College Student Satisfaction: Reflecting on 30 Years

    College students have changed greatly in 30 years, but how has student satisfaction changed?

    Think back 30 years ago to 1995. What is different for you now? Where were you and what were you doing in the mid 1990s? Perhaps you were still in school and living at home, or not even born yet. Perhaps you were in your early years of working in higher education. Take a moment to reflect on what has (and has not) changed for you in that span of time. 

    Thirty years ago, I was just starting my position at what was then Noel-Levitz. What stands out for me was that I was about to become a mom for the first time. Now my baby is grown and will be a new mom herself later this year. And I find myself being on one of the “seasoned professionals” in the company, working alongside members of my team who were still in elementary school back in 1995. 

    Thirty years ago, we were just beginning to utilize email and the internet. Now they have become the primary way we do business, communicate professionally, and discover information.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new technology that we are learning to embrace to improve our professional and personal lives.   

    Thirty years ago, students were arriving on our campuses, seeking an education, guidance, growth, belonging, value for their investment and ultimately a better life.  That’s still the case today.  Plus, students are navigating more technology options, they are more openly seeking mental health support, and they are living in a world full of distractions. Online learning is a reality now and continues to become more accepted as a modality, especially after the experiences of 2020. As the demographic cliff looms, colleges are expanding their focus to include lifelong learners. 

    Thirty years ago is also when the Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI) was launched to provide four-year and two-year institutions with a tool to better understand the priorities of their students. (In the early 2000s, we added survey instruments specifically for adult and online populations.) The data identified where the college was performing well and where it mattered for them to do better in order to retain their students to graduation. The concept of looking at satisfaction within the context of the level of importance was new back then, but in the past three decades, it has become the standard for capturing student perceptions. Since 1995, we have worked with thousands of institutions and collected data from millions of individuals, documenting what is important and where students are satisfied or dissatisfied with their experience. As we reach this 30-year milestone for the SSI, I took some time to reflect on what has changed in students’ perceptions and what has stayed the same.

    Consistent priorities

    What stood out to me as I reviewed the national data sets over the past 30 years is that what matters to students has largely stayed the same. Students continue to care about good advising, quality instruction and getting access to classes. The academic experience is highly valued by students and is the primary reason they are enrolled, now and then. 

    Another observation is that there are two areas that have been consistent priorities for improvement, especially at four-year private and public institutions:

    • Tuition paid is a worthwhile investment.
    • Adequate financial aid is available for most students. 

    These two items have routinely appeared as national challenges (areas of high importance and low satisfaction) over the decades, which shows that institutions continue to have opportunities to communicate value and address the financial pain points of students to make higher education accessible and affordable. 

    Campus climate is key

    One thing we have learned over the past thirty years is how students feel on campus is key to student success and retention. The research reflects the strongest links between students’ sense of belonging, feeling welcome, and enjoying their campus experience to their overall levels of satisfaction. High levels of satisfaction are linked to individual student retention and institutional graduation rates. Campuses that want to best influence students remaining enrolled are being intentional with efforts to show concern for students individually, building connections between students from day one, and continuing those activities as students progress each year. It is important for institutions to recognize that students have lots of options to receive a quality education, but the environment and the potential student “fit” is more likely to vary from location to location. What happens while a student is at the college they have selected is more impactful on them than which institution they ultimately chose. Creating welcoming environments and supporting students’ sense of belonging in the chosen college is a way for institutions to stand out and succeed in serving students. Colleges often ask, “Why do students leave?” when they could be asking, “Why do students stay?” Building positive campus cultures and expanding the “good stuff” being done for students is a way to critical way to improve student and institutional success.

    One sector where the data reflect high satisfaction scores and good consistency, especially in the past five years since the pandemic, is community colleges. Students attending their (often local) two-year institutions want to be there, with high percentages of students indicating the school is their first choice.  Community college students nationally indicate areas such as the campus staff being caring/helpful, students being made to feel welcome, and people on the campus respecting each other, as strengths (high importance and high satisfaction). These positive perceptions are also reflected with overall high levels of satisfaction and indications of a likelihood to re-enroll if the student had it to do over again. The data indicate that two-year institutions are doing a nice job of building a sense of community among primarily commuter student populations. 

    Systemic issues and pockets of improvement

    Everyone talks about “kids today,” but in reality, they have been doing that for generations. It can’t be a reason not to change and respond appropriately to the needs of current students. When we consider the priorities for improvement in higher education that have remained at the forefront, we may need to recognize that some of these areas are systemic to higher education, along with recognizing that higher education generally has not done enough to respond. There are certainly pockets of improvement at schools that have prioritized being responsive and, as a result, are seeing positive movement in student satisfaction and student retention, but that is not happening everywhere. Taking action based on student feedback is a powerful way to influence student success. The campuses that have bought into that concept are seeing the results. 

    Current student satisfaction national results

    Want to learn more about the current trends in student satisfaction?  I invite you to download the 2024 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report. 

    This year’s analysis takes a closer look at the national results by demographic subpopulations, primarily by class level, to get a clearer view on how to improve the student experience. Institutions have found that targeting initiatives for particular student populations can be an effective way to have the biggest impact on student satisfaction. Download your free copy today.

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  • Moving Beyond New Year’s Resolutions to Embrace a Multi-Year Enrollment Strategy 

    Moving Beyond New Year’s Resolutions to Embrace a Multi-Year Enrollment Strategy 

     

    Developing New Year’s resolutions for personal growth is something many of us do. Unfortunately, it is often a set-it and forget-it process that is simply reupped the following year. When done correctly, however, creating a resolution that is developed as a sustained, long-term strategy—and that is regularly returned to and adjusted as needed—seems to be the best way to meet our personal goals.  
     
    As enrollment managers, we all have pursued the first approach in our professional lives by evaluating last year’s successes and failures annually, making a few tweaks, and then seeing how it all works out again the following year. The truth of the matter is that this approach was relatively sustainable for a time. Simply buying more names, adjusting the aid-leveraging model annually, or a developing a wider marketing plan often could drive greater enrollments—mostly because those tactics generally were designed to “add more fuel to the fire.” As long as the applications continued to grow, annual tweaks could help to maintain the core enrollments as well as improve on the margins for many institutions.  

     

    The Need for More Effective Strategic Enrollment Strategies

    Unfortunately, outside of key private and public flagship institutions, headwinds have developed over the past decade that are affecting higher education enrollments in significant ways. Ultimately, they may lead to campus closures for some, and to campus financial distress for many. As outlined in a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, “Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress,” those pressures include:

    • Post-pandemic enrollment challenges from traditional students (decreasing 15% from 2010-2021).




    • Changes among adult learners (“The number of adult students over the age of 25 has fallen by nearly half since the Great Recession”).




    • Growing competition.




    • A lack of public support for higher education nationally. 

    The combination of all these factors has brought about the need for enrollment managers to develop a wider multi-year strategy that includes tools with the ability to enable deeper, more highly data-informed fine tuning throughout any given cycle. A one-size-fits-all approach to creating a nuanced strategy can no longer work in an environment of shrinking applications and increased competition. 

     

    Liaison’s Partnership Philosophy

    Liaison is uniquely positioned to assist with higher education institutions in a true partnership. With the technology, services, and consultative approach that we provide our partners throughout the nation, we can assist in developing a comprehensive enrollment approach unique to your campus—ranging from single-point to full-enrollment planning solutions that are uniquely tailored to your unique needs. Liaison’s partnership philosophy, technology solutions, and industry knowledge and insights can not only help strengthen your enrollment planning and goals for this year but also set you up for long-term enrollment success.  

     

     

    Craig Cornell is the Vice President for Enrollment Strategy at Liaison. In that capacity, he oversees a team of enrollment strategists and brings best practices, consultation, and data trends to campuses across the country in all things enrollment management. Craig also serves as the dedicated resource to NASH (National Association of Higher Education Systems) and works closely with the higher education system that Liaison supports. Before joining Liaison in 2023, Craig served for over 30 years in multiple higher education executive enrollment management positions. During his tenure, the campuses he served often received national recognition for enrollment growth, effective financial aid leveraging, marketing enhancements, and innovative enrollment strategies.

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  • New policy gives Cornell head start on New Year’s gains

    New policy gives Cornell head start on New Year’s gains

    Cornell got a jump on its New Year’s resolutions this winter, unveiling an updated version of its proposed Expressive Activity Policy just before the holiday season. On Dec. 18, the Cornell Committee on Expressive Activity released a much-improved revision of the proposed policy. This comes after FIRE and nearly 500 other organizations and individuals weighed in on an earlier draft from Oct. 30. The final say belongs to university leadership, but this update marks a significant step in the right direction. 

    One of the most notable changes from the Oct. 30 version is that the policy no longer requires students to schedule expressive activities through the 25Live reservation system. The October draft also limited spontaneous protests to Ho Plaza — a tiny patch of campus measuring merely one acre out of the sprawling 745-acre Ithaca campus. We criticized this provision as well as the scheduling requirement, and thankfully, the new proposal contains neither. 

    That’s not the only laudable change. The new policy also preserves the right to put up flyers, posters, and other expressive materials without having to identify oneself on the material. That is a critical win for students who may only feel comfortable expressing their views anonymously. 

    Cornell deserves praise for demonstrating its willingness to engage critics, make changes, and to honor the principle of free expression as enshrined in our Constitution. 

    Nor is outreach to the university required to put up material in designated posting areas. While the initial March 11 interim policy stated that approval was not required to post in designated areas, it instructed community members to “[c]ontact the applicable building coordinator or campus facilities director to find out the locations of” said areas. This effectively created a prior restraint that required students, faculty, and staff to reach out to administrators before expressing themselves. In contrast, the latest proposed policy puts the onus on personnel to “communicat[e] transparently” on where they place posting areas. 

    The committee rejected suggestions from several commenters to require pre-approval or notification before posting, choosing instead to uphold the principle of free speech and honor the school’s own noble legacy of political activism and public debate.

    Unfortunately, the new proposal is not without its flaws. It maintains a broad definition of hostile environment harassment, reflecting and even exceeding the overbroad definition set forth by the controversial Title IX regulations enacted in 2024. These federal rules require colleges to adopt a standard for harassment that includes protected speech, and as a result of deep-seated constitutional concerns, courts have blocked their implementation in 26 states. Any further federal changes to Title IX regulations would necessitate another round of changes at Cornell.

    Despite this, Cornell deserves praise for demonstrating its willingness to engage critics, make changes, and to honor the principle of free expression as enshrined in our Constitution. 

    FIRE will continue to call for the reform of Title IX regulations and for universities to adopt a definition of hostile environment harassment that better reflects First Amendment principles. We’ve been writing to the Cornell Committee on Expressive Activity every step of the way during the revision process, and we will continue to nudge Cornell toward making further progress. But for now, good on Big Red for locking in some solid gains before the new year even started. 

    If you have questions about your school’s new or existing policies, reach out to FIRE’s Policy Reform team at speechcodes@thefire.org, and we’ll make sure you get answers. And if your school adopted policies you’re concerned about, we’re here to help you push back. You can also check out our FAQ on protests and our political speech FAQ if you’re interested in activism this spring.

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  • Twenty six years of enrollment at Public Research 1 Universities

    Twenty six years of enrollment at Public Research 1 Universities

    A while ago, I made the claim that Oregon State University has the longest streak of consecutive years of fall-over-fall enrollment growth of any public, Research 1 university in America.  A few people have asked me, not exactly doubting the claim, but thinking maybe I had made a mistake, for the source of it.

    This started as a curiosity: I knew from our own internal documentation that the last time OSU (the oldest OSU…not the one in Ohio or Oklahoma) had a fall-to-fall enrollment drop was 1996, and I was curious to see if any other institution could make that claim. So I went to the IPEDS Data Center and downloaded the data. 

    It’s below.  First, a few points: My comparison group is 108 Public, four-year, Research 1 Universities as designated by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education as of Fall, 2022, the latest IPEDS data available. The R1 designation is actually called “Doctoral Institutions: Very High Research Activity” but the nickname R1 is a holdover from prior years. The category contains those institutions who produce the highest research activity and output among American universities.

    What you can’t see here is that 2023 showed an increase (it’s not yet in IPEDS, but trust me), and that 2024 will also show an increase once our census is final.  So OSU’s record is the 26 shown, plus last year, plus this coming year, for a total of 28 years.

    There are a couple of small anomalies with the data, as there always seems to be.  First, some institutions missed a year or two in their reporting.  Even if those years had shown an increase, they were already nullified by other decreases. And Penn State has bounced around from being one institution to being several to being one again; this too does not seem to make a difference in the tally.

    The first chart here shows all years and all institutions (you’ll have to scroll down to see them all using the bar on the right.)  You’ll notice that every institution shown (other than OSU) has at least two years with a blue box after 1997, meaning a decrease.  Hover over the box for details.  Orange shows an increase from the prior year.

    The second chart shows individual enrollment data for any institution you select, using the filter at the top.  The bars are colored similarly: Orange for increase, and blue for decrease.

    If I’ve missed something or you think these data points are wrong, let me know.  If a university decided intentionally to shrink, for whatever reason, that’s interesting, but not the point of this visualization. If you want to look at just graduates or undergraduates or men or women or students of color or some other variable, I encourage you to read my posts here and here about how to download IPEDS data for yourself. 

    And as always, leave a comment below if you find something interesting.

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