April « 2010 « The FYE Collaborative

April, 2010

Sandi

Uncategorized — 1 Comment
16
Apr 10

In Virginia, We Are All Hokies Today (4/16/07)…What Has Transpired Since The Largest College Massacre In Our Nation’s History

Since the Virginia Tech tragedy, 3 years ago today, all Virginia Higher Educational Institutions must convene a Violence Prevention Committee to find ways to prevent another ‘VA Tech’ at their campuses. This is mandatory via legislation after the Va Tech tragedy. What does this mean? With huge budget cuts and increased enrollment, higher ed professionals in Student Services must find a way to protect their students from this kind of tragedy.

A simple email to me last summer from my program lead, asked me to create a program that addressed ‘threat assessment management’ with my students. My first question was, can we call it something else? My next thought was how do I fund this and make it something students will attend. Luckily, I have a great network of community professionals that were ready and eager to take time from their busy schedules and help the community college students that we all serve. I called in my network and got a program together called “Wellness, Life’s Hard We’re There”. This program consisted of guest speakers to address topics such as: The Connectedness of Everything, Campus Safety, Suicide Prevention, Healthy Relationships, and Prescription Drug Abuse Awareness. I also, applied for a mini-grant and was approved for extra funding. I also asked my current students and college alum to be available for any students who need to talk about problems, knowing that this generation is more peer related than any other generation. I put together a brochure with local help hotlines and the peer’s information for students. This program was immensely popular and to my surprise found more students interested in becoming a mentor than ones who declared they needed help. I will never know how many individuals this program touched but I do know that this is the first of its kind in the Virginia Community College System that this simple program may lead to a new community ‘Wellness Initiative’ that brings local businesses and community leaders in to help students in the future and I am excited about this new endeavor. Stay tuned for how this comes together.

So out of tragedy, comes something positive.

Bryce

Original post

How do we get young men to want to go to college and want to work hard once they get there?

Earlier this week I read an article about the challenge of engaging male students in a meaningful college experience. I saw the anti-intellectual attitude alluded to in this article displayed at the high school level when I was a teacher and coach, and I see it now in my work in higher education. It’s not that male students aren’t intelligent, don’t work hard, or aren’t prepared for college-level work. It’s just that, in far too many cases, being a good learner and being a “man” are mistakenly viewed as being mutually exclusive. This false dichotomy leaves young men feeling like they have to choose one role or the other. And, at 18 years old being “cool” or “chill” generally wins out. This means that participating in class, being seen in the library, or having any sort of academic conversation outside of class is strictly taboo (Note: many will do “academic” things when no one is looking, but my experience has been that the best kind of learning is, at least part of the time, public and social).

Really, there are two related problems here: (1) Getting males to want to go to college, trade school, technical training, etc. and (2) Helping those that do go to take full advantage of the opportunity rather than doing enough to not kicked out, but without looking like they really care all that much. I realize that my mentioning these problems is not earth-shattering and that there are a lot of people thinking about the same thing. The shortcoming I see is in the way we go about trying to remedy these problems.

This made me wonder how we could package some of our basic messages about the value of education and deliver them in ways that would resonate with the students we are trying to reach, particularly male students. The Inside Higher Ed article I linked to above mentions a strategy employed by Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia wherein students are introduced to the concept of a “Morehouse Man” that embodies a set of core values that the institution believes are characteristic of the type of men they hope to graduate (Morehouse is an all-male institution). The intent is to help students see and believe that being a man includes being well-dressed, well-spoken, well-educated, etc. and that to become that sort of man a student needs to do certain things while they are in college. The question I would have is whether the audience they are intending to reach (those students that for whatever reason aren’t living up to the ideals held out by the institution) really want to become a “Morehouse Man” or at least the image of a “Morehouse Man” that has been created by this messaging.

An example of this same sort of challenge is outlined in Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath. In a nutshell, the state of Texas wanted to decrease the amount of litter on their highways. And, they knew which Texans were most likely to litter, so they targeted their campaign at “Bubba.” Bubba represented the 18 – 35 year old male, pickup truck driving, country music listening demographic that seemed to be at the heart of the litter problem. The idea was to give the standard “don’t litter” message using both language and messengers that “Bubba” would relate to. So, they brought in members of the Dallas Cowboys, Mike Scott of the Houston Astros, and Willie Nelson and the now well-known phrase “Don’t mess with Texas” was born. These weren’t just famous people, they were people that Bubba saw as real Texans, men that Bubba wanted to be like. The strategy worked and visible litter along Texas roadways had decreased 72% within five years.

So, the question am left with in all of this is who our Bubbas are and how we can package two old messages (education is valuable and education means doing things that lead to good learning) in new ways. Who would male students respond to and what could that person or group of people say that would make an 18 year-old male student want to be a scholar?