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Campus Life in the 21st Century Talkin’ About My Generation
Editor’s Note: Now that America is sending the younger generation off to war, the question naturally arises, “but can they talk?” Or better still, “if given the opportunity, would anyone listen?” This article by recent college graduate, Taylor Parson, suggests that the answer at least to the former question is in the affirmative.
Sociologists, marketers, and newspaper headlines call us the “iGeneration,” or generally “Generation Y,” indicating the period shadowing the “GenX”. They’ve placed us in the limelight, scrutinizing the alleged differences between us and those previous, wondering why we act the way we do. And apparently, if you believe marketers and newspapers, we actually like the limelight. Another term, the “Multitasking Generation,” indicates the growing trend of technological advances used by the Generation Yers. This new generation embraces cell phones, iPods, laptops, and the Internet, not only successfully incorporating them into their daily lives but also figuring out how to simultaneously use this technology within the confines of other activities. This type of multitasking, however, has also led some to consider this generation “hyperdistracted.” And unsurprisingly, these teenagers and college-aged adults remain the most medicated in history. Some regard nonspecific stress as the primary factor; others push the theory that parents, teachers, and technology have nurtured this generation to the point of overexposure, increasing their chances of needing medication. Regardless of the reasons, this new generation proves different than previous ones in that they regard themselves as “special” or “worthy” in the sense that they continue to require constant pampering from others. USA Today wrote a report on Generation Yers in the workplace in December of last year, saying that many have grown up in a “child-centered” atmosphere. This climate has created a generation used to “constant feedback” and expectations that differ from previous generations. Our generation questioned our parents, which in turns means that we question our employers, and I would argue, our professors. A few students with whom I spoke agreed with this assessment. But what accounts for it? For one thing, upbringing can be a prime indicator for how students interact with professors. This remains evident by the frequency of “helicopter parents,” a phrase used to describe those parents of Generation Yers who “hover” above their children. The Wall Street Journal in July 2005 claimed that students have simply not learned the basic skills required to leave the nest, basically because many have been too “pampered.” One UNCW student I discovered calls her mother every day after each class and complains any time a professor won’t “work with me.” Her mother then calls someone “over the professor’s head.” But some universities, though dealing with these parents, seem to adhere to a policy of “strictly business,” something many parents look for when scoping out universities. And this doesn’t escape some professors either. A student from the School of the Arts in Winston-Salem recalls a time when, while lecturing, a professor shouted at another young man typing away at his laptop, presumably taking notes. She accused him of “playing around.” “She was very distrustful of him,” this student told me. The student with the laptop, apparently trying to stay calm, responded sarcastically that “yes, I am taking notes.” The professor turned smug and said “Well, you had better be because you are paying for this.” Many factors could account for the lack of patience that the professor had with this particular student. But one thing appears certain—the professor, mark(et)ing her territory, lashed out at a student and the student lashed back. Speaking of laptops, how do other technological trends factor in? A history student in her junior year at UNCW recalled a time when a professor “called out” a student for talking on her cell phone in class. The phone rang and the professor stopped lecturing. “He told her to get out. She put up a fight and started cussing at him.” Afterwards, it was clear that the student thought the professor intentionally embarrassed her. And she couldn’t understand what the big deal was with the cell phone going off. A former Cape Fear Community College student, who will be transferring into UNCW in the fall, noticed “more than a handful” of peers lost in games programmed into their calculators while sitting in a math class. When asked how this harms anything, a few other students said that its shows disrespect for the professor as well as disrespect for the learning process in general. Some students feel that parents and/or technology aren’t the significant factors contributing to today’s student behavior. They think that other cultural issues may be to blame. A former community college student told me that the political climate today can affect the way a student interacts with not only the professor, but with other students as well. “Say that a person watching the news is a homophobe, and one of her/his professors is openly gay. She/he may go into the classroom the next day and not want to listen to anything the professor says.” But what if the professor isn’t openly gay? “He may think some of her/his fellow students are gay, and this may change his perspective on the entire classroom dynamic,” he said. Another student agrees. “Anything with which that student disagrees will cause her/him to disassociate. So if she/he opposes homosexuality or gay marriage, for instance, that mentality may affect the way he thinks and acts while in the classroom.” But there are other cultural matters. One student claims that since athletes are such a staple in society, for example, those students that participate in university sports get away with “murder.” “Ashley” said he overheard four baseball players using expletives to describe their professor while she lectured in class. These same athletes, “Ashley” said, felt that they can get away with it because they see themselves as superior. These social conditions may be regional, one student declares. Raised in the Philippines, and then in Hong Kong, “Maria” said that most of her peers “behaved themselves” while in class. After moving to the states, first Texas and now North Carolina, she noticed that most kids didn’t “give a damn.” “Maria” claims that contrary community standards can account for and directly contribute to this. Though a community or the students themselves can be partly faulted, we cannot overlook another piece of the puzzle. Another tendency permeating the university scene involves professors who “coddle” their students. One employee in the William Madison Randall Library thinks that many professors want to be “buddies” with their students, thereby placing themselves in vulnerable positions. Many college teachers prefer intimate relationships with their students to detached, but still present, stations of authority that seek to loom over students or to provide discipline. “Some students may take this to mean that they can depend on the professor to give them the grades they want, and not necessarily the ones they deserve,” one student said. “I’ve seen friends take advantage of a professor’s openness that way.” But he also admits that he knows students to end up respecting the professor more. “It all depends on the personality of the student.” The disrespect displayed by the student may not be without merit, especially when the professor either acts more like a friend or merely has a perceived lack of classroom control. “If instructors cross that professional boundary,” another student asserts, “then a student may respect her/him as a “pal” but disrespect her/him as the authority figure that the instructor should represent.” This student claims that if the professor can’t maintain some sort of order within the classroom, then responsibility for any negative reaction from students lies with the professor. But do any of these characteristics, trends, or expectations really make us different from previous generations, as some proclaim? Not really. It’s just a matter of various and changing pieces that make up the puzzle, symbolizing and explaining the “Y” of our cohort. We’re just the latest letter in the ongoing construction of the generational alphabet.
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by Agnes McDonald
Mind of the South, Mind of America: The 1960s and the Unfinished Journey by John L. Godwin
Poetry Page Poetry by Agnes McDonald, Maggie Parish, and John L. Godwin |
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Carolina Civic Voice Spring 2006 Vol. 6, No 2 |