This one may not be quite light enough for a Friday Thirsty, but the RGM is on record as pining for a thirsty, and I've been thinking about this, so here goes:
My university has a longstanding goal to become a R1-ranked "research university." It also has a (relatively recently) explicitly articulated "institutional value" that "students come first" (we are by no means unique in this; I googled).
It strikes me that saying "students come first" is somehow subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) different from saying "teaching comes first" or "the teaching mission of the university comes first" or even "education comes first," but I'm having trouble putting my finger on exactly how/why.
At a minimum students coming first doesn't say anything about what relationships the faculty have with them
ReplyDeleteSomething like: "First we need to get a lot of decent grad students in here and exploit them as teachers and TAs so that we can get on with our important grant writing activities" seems to be admitted by the phrase.
Your versions all put the focus on how you related to the students, and make it clear tat this is intended to benefit of the students.
Honestly, fuck students. What comes first is rigorous and appropriate instruction.
ReplyDeleteNick
That's another possibility, a set of phrases that seem to bridge the gap (both between research and teaching, and between teachers and students), but may or may not actually do so: "the pursuit of truth comes first" (the "Wisconsin Idea" included -- and I believe still includes, after a Walker-created kerfuffle -- the phrase "search for truth")or "increasing human knowledge comes first" or "the university's intellectual mission comes first."
DeleteI kind of like those (since I actually do believe in the value of research), but I suspect they'd strike many students, their parents, and taxpayers in general as too coldly impersonal, and many businesspeople as too lofty and impractical.
"Students come first" can mean that their education comes first (in which research can play a role) but more likely the administration means that students' desires and opinions come first. Students complain about boring lectures but they complain more when the professor expects them to show up to class prepared to actively engage in activities which show whether they've thought about the material. The latter pedagogical method also requires more time for the faculty member preparing for the class. The administration means, "don't worry about teaching, just keep the students happy so that you can do more research."
ReplyDeleteI think that begins to get at what bothers me. We're actually moving toward active learning and similar pedagogies which students don't necessarily enjoy, and I don't think we're going to stop (though I also suspect this trend isn't going to suddenly create respect for departments which have been teaching this way all along). But "students come first" doesn't really capture *why* we're making those changes -- because our "customers" are not so much the students as their future employers and future selves and future fellow-citizens, and other members of the community who will benefit from a community populated by well-educated adults (who will not only be reliable and able workers, but also, we hope, well-informed voters and thoughtful parents and generally engaged citizens).
DeleteHere it now has come to mean "students have options:" what type of dorm/apartment, types of classes, flexible "majors options" (mostly just badges I think! sympathetic deans ready to change grades, excuse 10 or more absences, etc.
DeleteMy ideal campus motto would be, "Mister Rogers comes first."
ReplyDeleteThis fixation with customer service is like an arms race crossed with a circular firing squad.
ReplyDeleteWe spend more and more on frivolities and end up – at best – shooting ourselves in the foot. There’s no money for the toner the copy machine needs because we spent it all on organic rose petals to scatter in front of the little dears as they glide about the campus.
I visited a friend who owns a farm. We were out walking in a field, and I was enjoying the vista so much that I lost track of where I was treading. Sure enough, I stepped in a big pile of "Students Come First".
ReplyDelete"Students Come First" is what administrators who have never actually been in front of students---save for 10 minutes each at orientation and commencement---say because it plays well with the customers, where "customers" is narrowly defined as students and parents thereof. Meanwhile, the true customers, i.e. society, are getting fucked in a manner consistent with "Students Come First" interpreted as puerile innuendo.
Seems like one of those phrases people say that have no meaning.
ReplyDeleteThanks, all! You're right, and I think I have a better handle on why the phrase bothers me.
ReplyDelete