I Hate Bucky Dent

political correctness

One thing that was also different in the 1970s is that you could have a beer with friends over a sports game in the lounge. Now, thanks to the drinking age, that’s forbidden. Students are drinking behind closed doors or going off campus to watch sports events.

rml, at 6:35 am EDT on September 30, 2008

Two comments

One, the University of Tennessee provides the cable TV in the dorms, which is, to my mind, perverse. It really would be okay, I swear, for students to do without it for the one or two years of their life they spend in a dorm. I’ve never had cable, and sitting on my rear in front of a blank TV just doesn’t work, so I go out and do other things, like read, walk, talk to people. Or waste my time on the web.

I also suspect that getting rid of the cable TV would help a lot in forming friendships. Back in the day, as my students put it, my freshman roommate and my adjoining “suitemates” became fast friends. The only TV we watched was the muppet show at 1am on my tiny 10-inch black and white Sears TV. Otherwise we mostly just talked, about girls, beer (and how to get it), our classes, politics, the relative merits of Rush vs. Cult, and that sort of stuff.

Two, most university residence life systems encourage closed doors to reduce petty pilferage and sex crimes. I think this is probably a good thing.

JP Craig, at 9:30 am EDT on September 30, 2008

Is it the technology?

I was a student in the not-too-distant past, and we had similar amounts of technology in our dorm rooms. However, we typically left our doors open and would wander the floor to watch TV together, or play video games together, or work on assignments, or just hang out. So technology, cable TV, video game systems, and computers didn’t really get in the way for us.

While technology makes it easier to be a loner, most students still have a desire to be part of a bigger community and forge new friendships. This illustrates how important it is for institutions to be intentional about fostering and building these kinds of opportunities for students, as it is too easy to sit alone in your room and watch reruns of Seinfeld.

T-bone, at 10:55 am EDT on September 30, 2008

Outdated Complaints

This is exactly the kind of gibberish that keeps student affairs professionals in the status of “babysitter".

Who cares about face to face interaction? The purpose of the University is teaching and research. Otherwise...leave students alone!

Who do we think we are deciding which forms of communication are better than others. Let the students decide and stop experimenting with them. We need to get out of the business of social, personal, and political experimentation.

Oh well, the money is drying up and student affairs will be the first to be cut...thank God!!!

Mike, at 12:20 pm EDT on September 30, 2008

Students see as Instructors do

I see some parallels between these observations and what I saw at my last institution. All the faculty had office lining a hallway (as they do in many institutions). As a grad student, I noticed how all of them covered up the window-slits on their doors and constantly keep the doors closed and locked unless someone knocked. I never got a good feel from those hallways.

As a new faculty member, I took down the paper and tape covering the window-slit in my new office, and I always propped open the door when I was in. I didn’t just do it for the students, I was hoping it would help me connect with other faculty better. After two years in that position, not one other faculty member ever took down their window covers. However, two others started propping open their doors more often which led to some good hallway talks between us. Now I work in an open office layout. Some faculty members would hate this lack of privacy, but I think it’s healthy for interaction and research.

If students see their instructors boxing themselves away, it’s little wonder that they do the same thing in their dorms.

Mark, at 1:00 pm EDT on September 30, 2008

You forgot about another important communal area that can and often does become a conversation, get-to-know each other area, and that is the communal bathrooms and showers. These days, one of the few ways that will guarantee, minimally, that students have to interact with each other is by sharing — the bathroom. Meal plans offer a few of the same benefits, but people can and do choose to eat alone.

I know we have thought about all of these social concerns as we sent and are sending off our childrent to school. I know that a good deal of my “eductation” took place not in the classrooms, but in the TV lounges, coffee shops, and other communal areas on campus. Those friendships and connections have lasted. This month, I will gather with the eighteen other guys, plus a few more, that I shared a dorm hall with now thirty-eight years ago during my sophmore year in college. We stuck together the rest of our collee days after that year. It’s our thirty-fifth college reunion, and I wouldn’t miss it for anything. This group was central to my “education.” And yes, I was the small town kid from not Kansas by Minnesota, and my roommate and good friend was from not Long Island, but the Westchester County area. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

old guy who likes coffee, at 12:35 pm EDT on October 1, 2008

Touched a nerve

Thanks for the memories. I used to spend hours each day in the commons lounge playing cards with people who became my best friends for life. We used our halls for Frisbee. I was on an exchange program one year at an all-girls college (I’m a male) and used to watch the first season of All My Children (yes, Susan Lucci was in it) with lots of co-eds. I don’t remember much time alone in my dorm room b/c I was hardly ever alone. Part of the problem I saw as my own kids were growing up is that since everything was structured for them they never developed the spontaneity we did.

Patrick, teacher, at 10:15 am EDT on October 6, 2008