To the Editor:
When I stepped down from my full-time faculty appointment at Arkansas State University at Mountain Home in 2006, following a 40-year career in higher education, I was enthusiastic about teaching as an adjunct. In conjunction with my retirement to central New Mexico, I soon became a part-time instructor at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, and at Central New Mexico Community College. During my four-year-run as an adjunct professor, I thoroughly enjoyed the ongoing academic stimulation and the opportunity to interact with some very bright and talented students.
However, as these four years passed, I grew increasingly weary of all the whining, crying, excuse-making, and general lack of attention to responsibility that appear to characterize most of today’s college and university students. I began to sense a growing atmosphere of entitlement among a majority of my students, who apparently believe that society owes them an education. I even endured several instances of students’ insisting they should pass my course simply because they had paid their fees and purchased the required textual materials.
Although this is certainly nothing new, college and university administrations are more concerned about FTE’s and student retention than about standards of behavior and adherence to reasonable norms reflecting personal responsibility. For example, when I first began adjunct teaching in 2008, one of the 400-level courses I taught had an enrollment cap of 25 students. At the time, I expressed concern that this course was intended as a senior seminar and should have no more than 15 students enrolled. Not only did this sentiment fall on deaf ears, but the same course later ballooned to a 55-student cap.
I celebrated my 66th birthday earlier this month. I have grown very tired of catering to student demands for such accommodations as make-up exams that have dubious origins; special privileges that students know they can take advantage of because the institution will sympathize with their demands; and various other assorted administrative and clerical hassles, all of which interfere with my overall enjoyment of teaching.
The observer might suggest a hard-line stance: Set rules, incorporate them into the course syllabus, and roll the dice. I have found this strategy to be flawed and deficient in a number of important respects—specifically, it creates an atmosphere of intolerance and lock-step discipline that I believe interferes with the flow of learning and meaningful student interaction.
And so I have decided—sadly—that it is time for me to go. I am certain I will miss the pedagogy, but I will not miss what the academic environment has become during the past four decades. I know that I am not alone in such feelings. Other educators have expressed similar sentiments. I cannot help but wonder where all of this is going to lead. The collapse of personal responsibility among our nation’s young people, combined with the sense of entitlement that seems to loom in their minds, are serious liabilities as the 21st century progresses.
Kenrick S. Thompson
Rio Rancho, N.M.
The writer is a professor emeritus in sociology at Arkansas State University at Mountain Home and at Northern Michigan University.