Administrative Calls for Empathy and Student Assessment

[Zeus Bird]

"Huh. What do they do when you have something like an emergency hospitalization during finals week? Say, something like appendicitis or a car accident? Just grade based on previous work?"

Final exams can be rescheduled within a very short window immediately after the semester, but that is about it.  No incompletes, but a number of administrative calls to "work with the student" in whatever circumstance arises, without any specificity as to what that entails.

[fishbrains]

Final exams can be rescheduled within a very short window immediately after the semester, but that is about it.  No incompletes, but a number of administrative calls to "work with the student" in whatever circumstance arises, without any specificity as to what that entails.

I've fallen into the habit of requesting specificity within the context of institutional policy when they use the phrase "We need to work with students. Can we submit grades later? (no). Can we lower the requirements for an incomplete? (no). Will faculty--especially adjuncts--be compensated for additional work beyond our contract dates? (hah!). Are you suggesting that faculty don't generally try to "work with students" in their day-to-day interactions with them? What have we not been doing that you want us to do now? (um, well).

They love me at meetings. Sorry if I'm not being helpful here.

[Caracal]

Final exams can be rescheduled within a very short window immediately after the semester, but that is about it.  No incompletes, but a number of administrative calls to "work with the student" in whatever circumstance arises, without any specificity as to what that entails.

I've fallen into the habit of requesting specificity within the context of institutional policy when they use the phrase "We need to work with students. Can we submit grades later? (no). Can we lower the requirements for an incomplete? (no). Will faculty--especially adjuncts--be compensated for additional work beyond our contract dates? (hah!). Are you suggesting that faculty don't generally try to "work with students" in their day-to-day interactions with them? What have we not been doing that you want us to do now? (um, well).

They love me at meetings. Sorry if I'm not being helpful here.

I get the impression from students that there are significant numbers of faculty who are unsympathetic jerks. Most of us are nice, reasonable people, but I can certainly think of plenty of academic who these emails are probably actually directed to.

[marshwiggle]

Final exams can be rescheduled within a very short window immediately after the semester, but that is about it.  No incompletes, but a number of administrative calls to "work with the student" in whatever circumstance arises, without any specificity as to what that entails.

I've fallen into the habit of requesting specificity within the context of institutional policy when they use the phrase "We need to work with students. Can we submit grades later? (no). Can we lower the requirements for an incomplete? (no). Will faculty--especially adjuncts--be compensated for additional work beyond our contract dates? (hah!). Are you suggesting that faculty don't generally try to "work with students" in their day-to-day interactions with them? What have we not been doing that you want us to do now? (um, well).

They love me at meetings. Sorry if I'm not being helpful here.

I get the impression from students that there are significant numbers of faculty who are unsympathetic jerks. Most of us are nice, reasonable people, but I can certainly think of plenty of academic who these emails are probably actually directed to.

Typically, the people to whom these emails are directed will ignore them, while the conscientious self-reflective recipients (like fishbrains) will feel the implied criticism is unjustified (which it is).

[Caracal]

Final exams can be rescheduled within a very short window immediately after the semester, but that is about it.  No incompletes, but a number of administrative calls to "work with the student" in whatever circumstance arises, without any specificity as to what that entails.

I've fallen into the habit of requesting specificity within the context of institutional policy when they use the phrase "We need to work with students. Can we submit grades later? (no). Can we lower the requirements for an incomplete? (no). Will faculty--especially adjuncts--be compensated for additional work beyond our contract dates? (hah!). Are you suggesting that faculty don't generally try to "work with students" in their day-to-day interactions with them? What have we not been doing that you want us to do now? (um, well).

They love me at meetings. Sorry if I'm not being helpful here.

I get the impression from students that there are significant numbers of faculty who are unsympathetic jerks. Most of us are nice, reasonable people, but I can certainly think of plenty of academic who these emails are probably actually directed to.

Typically, the people to whom these emails are directed will ignore them, while the conscientious self-reflective recipients (like fishbrains) will feel the implied criticism is unjustified (which it is).

Yeah, that's certainly true.

[Zeus Bird]

Final exams can be rescheduled within a very short window immediately after the semester, but that is about it.  No incompletes, but a number of administrative calls to "work with the student" in whatever circumstance arises, without any specificity as to what that entails.

I've fallen into the habit of requesting specificity within the context of institutional policy when they use the phrase "We need to work with students. Can we submit grades later? (no). Can we lower the requirements for an incomplete? (no). Will faculty--especially adjuncts--be compensated for additional work beyond our contract dates? (hah!). Are you suggesting that faculty don't generally try to "work with students" in their day-to-day interactions with them? What have we not been doing that you want us to do now? (um, well).

They love me at meetings. Sorry if I'm not being helpful here.

I think this is my likely course of action.  Thank you for the input.

[Aster]

I feel that sometime early this year, some sort of national conference/workshop for Higher Ed administrators took place, and one of the fad takeaways was to create insta-empathy initiatives.

Big Urban College was subjected to this last Spring. Out of nowhere, unrequested and perplexing, our leaders decided that every class needed to have its own pick-me-up to make students feel better about themselves. Or something like that? There really wasn't any detail or guidance provided, nor any real rationale. But it was a blanket policy for all courses, and all of the professors were given six weeks to design and implement something.

I was reminded very much of those fast food restauarants where you walk in and all of the employees were required to scream, "Welcome to Arbys!". The forced, artificiality of it has always bothered me and made me feel embarrassed for the workers.

[apl68]

I feel that sometime early this year, some sort of national conference/workshop for Higher Ed administrators took place, and one of the fad takeaways was to create insta-empathy initiatives.

Something similar has evidently occurred in the K-12 world.  At a recent presentation by several of our local school administrators, they talked mostly about some initiative that sounded like it was along those lines.  It's supposed to start in Kindergarten and continue all the way through 12th Grade.  Since K-12 initiatives are generally gone within two years or so, I'm skeptical.

The admins I'm talking about aren't a bunch of phonies or incompetents.  They're all good people, as far as I know.  But in their line of work you seem to get pushed to follow a new fad every couple of years.

[quasihumanist]

The admins I'm talking about aren't a bunch of phonies or incompetents.  They're all good people, as far as I know.  But in their line of work you seem to get pushed to follow a new fad every couple of years.

When you're trying to solve problems that you don't have the resources to make even the slightest dent in, you end up injecting yourself with bleach quite often.

[ciao_yall]

The admins I'm talking about aren't a bunch of phonies or incompetents.  They're all good people, as far as I know.  But in their line of work you seem to get pushed to follow a new fad every couple of years.

When you're trying to solve problems that you don't have the resources to make even the slightest dent in, you end up injecting yourself with bleach quite often.

Hall of Fame!

[Hibush]

The admins I'm talking about aren't a bunch of phonies or incompetents.  They're all good people, as far as I know.  But in their line of work you seem to get pushed to follow a new fad every couple of years.

This phenomenon is undoubtedly true. It is one manifestation of many people running after any shiny new thing.

Some administrators recognize that this happens and learn to subvert the continuing string of new fads. They know what the inner workings of the programs need to be for its long-term success. They keep making sure those operations are happening. They are also adept at packaging their solid programming as the latest fad, so they can continue funding it and so that they appear to be current. They are willing to accept that continuous funding for the right thing is an unrealistic goal, recognizing that funding has to come from initiatives with ever-changing priorities.

A lot of faculty thankfully have a strong intellectual bent that prioritizes providing accurate representations of how the world works. That tendency can work against an administrator. Faculty who move into administration and don't make the switch end up pure and poor. At the other extreme, administrators who don't see the big picture solely chase fads and end up with low performance and frustrated faculty. Finding the great dual-purpose faculty to move into administration is a hallmark of schools that succeed.

The

[mamselle]

The...what?

Good, thoughtful post...bookmarking and hanging on to see the rest of it!

Mm

[fishbrains]

OMG! Did they get to Hibush? Did Hibush click "Post" right as they burst through the door? Is "The" the beginning of a name or an acronym for some organization? Terrors of Higher Education? Maybe something about Engagement?

[starts moving towards the safe room (AKA inside bathroom)]

[mamselle]

Or did the empathic robots kidnap him and make off with all his devices so he could never complete that thought?

Alas, poor Hibush, we knew you well...

         ...or maybe we just thought we did.....

《  ...Hey....psst.....Move over and make space in the safe room, I'm coming in after you》

M.

[fishbrains]

It's the bathroom the teenage boy uses, so I'm using the term "safe" very loosely.