First-Year Academic: Class Limits and Ethics in Public Education
Posted By voncookie on August 31, 2010
What do you do when, in the first seminar you’re teaching on a semester schedule, a class that is a requirement for the undergraduate major in your discipline, and your enrollment is capped at 15… and there are 14 students enrolled in the class, and 6 on the waiting list… all majors nearing their last year, with the exception of one sophomore who is still undeclared… and in order to continue with the major, all of them must take your class *or else*.
Or else what?
Well, or else they’ll have to leave being a major, and take up a minor instead, and essentially deprive your department of much-needed support, not to mention $$.
What do you do, when the course requires, for each student, over the course of the semester 20-25 pp. of written work? What do you do when you’re teaching that particular class that meets twice a week, plus another class that meets 5 days a week at 8 a.m., and at the same time doing all this admin and service stuff that complicates your schedule?
What do you do, when you’re supposed to do all this, and publish as well, because you’ll be on the market again in approximately two weeks when job listings come out (ah, incipient depression!) and you’ll be dedicating a significant chunk of time to that endeavor every single free moment that you have, not because you want out of the job you love, but because the department expects you to want to move upward and onward towards the elusive tenure-track position in your sub-specialty. Or even sub-sub-specialty?
What do you do, when you receive panicked emails late at night from students who flatter you with pleasantries and compliment your teaching style based on hearsay from other students, blatantly sucking up to you… and you know for a *fact* that they’re trying to court you, convince you that they really, sincerely want to learn from you, whatever it is that you’re teaching?
What do you do when you’ve had a limit of 20 students before and managed just fine, but never had such a heavy writing requirement, and have never had to teach more than one class at once.
What is the ethical choice here? To admit all the students and encourage them to go on in the major, knowing that you won’t be able to provide the same amount of detailed feedback that you usually would, simply because the stack of papers is five higher? Do you keep the strict 15-student limit and explain that they won’t get the same amount of individualized attention if you were to let them in?
What. Does. One. Do?
Public education is suffering from classes that are overcrowded on one hand, or from class limits that keep students out of the courses they want and/or need in order to graduate successfully and on time. What do you do when you know that these same students who are currently barred from the class may have to delay their graduation because they didn’t meet the requirements for the major and then have to become “Super Seniors” and bear *more* student loans and terrible financial hardship in order to do so?
In other words, when do you step up and try to make public education viable again? When does quantity matter more than quality? What can you do, ethically, to encourage students to continue their study, when you know that the toll on you personally is going to be inescapably damaging?
… and all this while suffering from a persistent workaholic tendency that is destroying both sleep-schedule and peace of mind…
Where does the personal become the political and vice versa?
After many years at Big U, watching it suffer thanks to the Governator and such, I want to know, at last what *I* can do to make public education viable again, not just for a few, but for many?
What do *I* do?
Answer: Very simple.
I remembered this morning that I am a bit of an altruist, an idealist, a believer in a fair, affordable education for people of every code, creed, and class. I remembered that I came from privilege, and that I got my Ph.D. so that I could pass on what I’ve learned over the years. I remembered that I need the experience, and the opportunity to learn efficiency– how to streamline my grading and such, how to, in essence, be a professional academic that has a commitment to Higher Ed. Not just the Ivory Tower, but to the students themselves.
What did I do?
Need you ask?
I let them in. I let them all in.
But, come what may — and I truly fear the workload — I will be able to write someday, on my tombstone, my Great-Grandmother’s motto:
“She did what she could.”
And that’s what matters right now.
