Tag: student behavior

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Editorial Opinion

Editorial

Students’ behavior at the Howard Gardner lecture last Thursday evening prompted a debate about proper decorum that shouldn’t be necessary on a campus like ours, where maturity is an unstated expectation. The event, however, does raise important questions about the Transition to College course and student engagement at the University.

The fact that first-year students were required to attend the lecture as part of their Transition to College course does not excuse disrespectful or rude behavior. Texting, sleeping and chatting during the presentation reflects poorly on the University as a whole and is a juvenile way of expressing displeasure. Having scholars visit our campus and sharing their ideas is a privilege that we liberal arts students should relish.

As college students, we should be held responsible for our actions, and we should promote change through alternative means, such as well-reasoned argument.

Of course, students are not the only ones at fault. Many students were not engaged in the lecture, perhaps because of the book selection for the first-years’ common reading. Some students believe Gardner’s book, “Five Minds for the Future,” was too light and fluffy, politically correct and even arrogant. Much of the class of 2014 agreed that they hated the book before they even arrived on campus. Still others said Gardner was dismissive of questions and did not handle criticism well. In the future, a book should be chosen that engages students and stimulates intellectual debates.

The Transition to College course itself could also be at fault. Many first-year students do not take this pass-fail course seriously, and this disdainful attitude could have carried over to the lecture. The course, we believe, is valuable to the first-years’ development and adjustment to college life; however, it needs to be presented in a way that will be taken seriously. Perhaps the course could be administered online over the summer, or the information could be conveyed through foundation seminars or interaction with resident assistants. Still, acting out during the speaker’s presentation is a poorly executed way of expressing dissatisfaction with the course.

More generally, we fear the students’ behavior is indicative of a decline in student engagement. In many classes, especially large lectures, students spend their time texting or surfing sites unrelated to classwork. We question whether this is a matter of teaching students how to behave in a college environment, or if it simply speaks to a growing trend of disrespect and apathy in an increasingly mobile and networked age.

Regardless of the causes of students’ poor decorum in presentation spaces and in the classroom, we strongly urge University students to think deeply about why they are in college and about how they comport themselves. If they are here to truly learn and broaden their minds, we hope they will show it by putting down their mobile devices, staying awake during lectures, paying attention in class and acting like mature and engaged college students.

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Headline News

Student behavior sparks dialogue on proper audience decorum

By Tracy Lum

Editor-in-Chief

Howard Gardner spoke about his book, "Five Minds for the Future," in the Weis Center Sept. 15.

Student behavior at a lecture last Thursday evening has sparked ongoing discussion between faculty and students about proper decorum during presentations and classes.

According to accounts from professors and first-year students, many in the audience of Howard Gardner’s talk on “Five Minds for the Future” were disrespectful toward the speaker. First-year students were required to read Gardner’s book and attend the lecture as part of their Transition to College course.

“Some [students] were sleeping. Some were texting. Some were doing their homework,” Tamerat Feyisa ’14 said.

Mitch Chernin, professor of biology, was “appalled” at the behavior.

“I could hear a constant din within the Weis Center,” he said. “I realize that this was a required event for first-year students and many of them would have preferred doing something else at that time; however, it is not unreasonable to expect respectful behavior during a lecture.”

Mike Toole, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, noticed similar behavior from where he sat in the front row.

“I heard this coughing nonstop throughout the lecture,” he said. After seeing many people “sleeping, chattering and not paying attention,” he speculated the coughing was part of a coordinated effort through which the class expressed displeasure and boredom.

“It was just very frustrating to me,” Toole said.

The morning after the lecture, Toole spoke to other faculty members before posting a message expressing his concern about the students’ behavior on a virtual faculty forum (vforum). Besides describing the rude behavior he perceived, Toole also wrote “students cheered the first two questions simply because the questioners pointedly criticized the book and speaker without stopping to listen and reflect on whether the criticism had merit” during the question-and-answer section of the talk.

According to Toole, the message received approximately 25 replies by Monday afternoon. In addition to addressing concerns about behavior at the lecture, the posting also raised questions about the state of student behavior in general on campus.

Some faculty members believe student behavior in the classroom is not an issue as long as expectations about decorum are established at the start of class.

“In one class recently I allowed [students] to bring in their laptops, and I realized that was a mistake because that facilitated communication between them that wasn’t directed toward the class,” said David Kristjanson-Gural, associate professor of economics.

Other faculty members do not believe student behavior is an issue.

“My view from giving lectures in physics classes over the years [is] that I haven’t seen a significant change in student behavior,” said Ben Vollmayr-Lee, associate professor of physics, on the vforum.

The conversation on decorum has spread to the classroom.

Kristjanson-Gural devoted a 20-minute discussion about the lecture in the foundation seminar course he teaches. He said many students “expressed embarrassment … and disapproval of the attitude of the students who were disrespectful.”

In many Transition to College classes this week, instructors discussed the issue of decorum with first-year students. Ashley Rooney ’14 said during class, students were asked to fill out a survey including questions about what constitutes proper behavior and a respectful audience.

“Most kids said that the first few pages and then rest of the book had an arrogant tone,” Rooney said. ”Some kids described [the book] as pompous and said [the tone] carried throughout the lecture.”

Rooney, one of the students who questioned Gardner about the ethics of capitalism and socialism as economic systems, said she did not notice any misbehavior during the lecture, but that she believes criticism should be expected when an author writes a book based on opinion.

“I think it’s fine to ask questions and to be critical,” Rooney said. “Thomas Jefferson tells us to question boldly.”

Feyisa, a 32-year-old first-year from Ethiopia, also spoke during the question-and-answer portion and criticized the book as too “career-oriented.”

“My argument was that it was not a book that promotes intellectual virtues,” Feyisa said.

He said the book did not promote “the life of the mind … the life of the intellect” and that it did not encourage critical thinking.

Feyisa attributes the students’ behavior to a lack of engagement with the book. Before even coming to the University, Feyisa said that a discussion about the book unfolded on the “Bucknell University Class of 2014” Facebook page.

“We sort of had this cyber community,” he said. “Everybody was talking about how they hated the book.”

The book’s failure to create discourse and start controversy, he said, was the real problem behind the students’ lack of engagement and subsequent behavior during the lecture.

Several students in the audience thought their fellow students’ behavior was uncalled for.

“I thought that we owed him a lot more than we gave him. Even if we didn’t like the book, he’s still another human being, and there’s a level of respect that shouldn’t be breached,” Liane Chesek ’14 said.

Maddy Liss ’14 expressed a similar opinion about the question-and-answer part of the talk.

“I was really embarrassed,” she said. “I wanted to stand up and say something.”

No official disciplinary action has been taken. Toole believes discussions about unacceptable behavior will prevent the texting, sleeping and chatting during lectures from occurring in the future.

“We know that this was not the entire class of 2014,” Toole said. “It was just some students who felt that they didn’t need to be there.”

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Opinion

Lack of respect for the minds

By Lizzie Kirshenbaum

Contributing Writer

Where you’re from, what dorm you’re living in and if you did the summer reading: these were probably the three most common icebreaker questions asked during first-year orientation. The reply to the last question? Well, I didn’t get past the third mind.

Last Thursday, the first-year class was sent to the Weis Center for the Performing Arts to hear Howard Gardner lecture on his book “Five Minds for the Future.” A contagious cough passed through a large section of the audience, and the remainder of the class felt frustrated with the lecture that was cutting into their study time. There was a clear lack of enthusiasm in the crowd as students questioned how long the lecture was expected to last. Upon his initial address to the students, Gardner spoke with a definite air of condescending humor. He began by insinuating that a majority of the students probably did not read his book and apologized for the mandatory element of his lecture.

At this point the room was still giving its attention and respect to him, so I was personally offended by his patronizing attitude. Additionally, Gardner delivered a summary of his book rather than discussing it more in depth. His presentation resembled something more similar to a sophisticated “Barney” novel than an intellectually stimulating lecture. As Gardner carried on dryly, the eyes of the students slowly began to close if they were not already fixated on a cell phone screen.

Upon reaching the question-and-answer part of the lecture, disorder erupted in the Weis Center. As the first brave student stepped up to the microphone, he politely rejected the notions set forth by Gardner’s book but did not ask any questions. This student’s courage to insult a man of Gardner’s stature in front of a crowd well over 1,000 people struck the first-year class with shock.

Some wanted to applaud this classmate’s intellectual courage to instigate a challenge. A great majority was merely amused with this student’s chutzpah to insult the work of a highly esteemed psychologist. Gardner maintained his poise on stage and responded respectfully to the student. He was not looking for a debate but was attempting to clarify the intent of his novel, which he felt the student had misunderstood.

The succeeding student interrogated Gardner with a rather verbose series of questions and as Gardner pointed out, she did not allot him time to respond. At this point there was a clear sense of annoyance in Gardner’s voice, to which the students responded with laughter.

My immediate thought was that an additional meeting of the first-year class would be held the following day to ridicule our immaturity. When no such meeting was called, I realized that was where the dividing line is drawn between high school and college. In high school, our teachers were responsible for molding us into mature, respectful learners. Our creativity was limited and our natural freedoms were curbed.

But in college, students are more motivated to speak on behalf of their beliefs and actively engage the world. One could say the comments made at the Gardner lecture were simply an act of freedom of speech, but one could also admit they might have been an act of insolence.

In retrospect, the first-year class probably should have maintained better composure for Gardner, but the outcome of that night has stirred much conversation among the students, many of whom have indicated their disappointment in Thursday night’s behavior.

Perhaps the result of the lecture spurred a slight growth in maturity of the student body, allowing for the first-year class to learn from experience, one of the points Gardner was trying to make in the first place.