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23 comments - Last on 07/16/2008
Rebuilding Campus Community: The Wrong Imperative
A Statement of the National Association of Scholars
A movement is afoot to restore our universities’ lost sense of purpose. Unfortunately, its leadership is hostile to liberal education. The movement goes by several names: “educating the whole person,” “the residential life revolution” and “the student learning imperative.” These Imperativists (our word, not theirs) are not scholars. Their outlook largely derives from “the helping professions.” The Imperativists view the university as an instrument of progressive social change. In most cases, the faculty is bypassed.
Most faculty members are ignorant of the movement’s spreading influence, although it imperils their role as arbiters of academic content. This is an ignorance they can ill afford, because the Imperativist challenge aims at nothing less than the authority of learned judgment, reasoned discourse, and open mindedness. The traditional goals of the university are being threatened by a morally imperious philistinism.
We know how this came about. For several decades faculty members have allowed the definition of the educational mission to slip from their hands. Faced with an increasingly bureaucratized university, many have retreated into the redoubts of their scholarly specialties, paying less and less attention to the fulfillment of broader purposes. Teaching has often been scanted or dulled. The once serious concern for individual mentorship – the guidance of students through initial encounters with new ideas and systems of thought – is also fading. American faculties are far from perfect, but if the university is to reclaim an elevating and integrated vision, it must be guided by those who truly understand its ideals – a claim professors can make far better than the misguided functionaries now seizing upon the task.
Liberal education is emancipatory; it both opens and sharpens minds. It opens them through exposure to the robust debates that have provided civilization its most creative tensions. It sharpens them by focusing on what has brought these debates to their utmost levels of penetration, implication, and rigor. Widened horizons, breadth of knowledge, power of thought, and the intellectual confidence born of wrestling with serious issues are its culminating legacy. But this legacy can only be bequeathed by those who have themselves received it.
The ends and means of the “student learning imperative” are otherwise. It seeks to “transform” students, but in a doctrinaire and coercive way. It assumes that undergraduates arrive on campus bearing a benighted inheritance – the values of traditional American culture – that must be replaced by more enlightened attitudes. Students must confess their racial, sexual, and other prejudices; admit that American society is, by its nature, oppressive; and pledge to promote specific forms of social and political change. In short, the “student learning imperative” aims at winning converts to an orthodoxy. The Imperativists offer thought reform, not education.
This is an affront to liberal principles and the education these principles should inspire. It also violates the basic maxims of university governance in which the faculty’s core responsibility for academic content is only shared, to a limited extent, with senior institutional fiduciaries.
The facts about this movement initially came to national attention in October 2007 at the University of Delaware, when some undergraduates complained of a mandatory dorm-based program in which white students were browbeaten into admitting they were racists; heterosexual students were interrogated about their sexual preference; and all students were pressured to commit themselves to reducing their “carbon footprint” by twenty percent. Freshmen were subjected to one-on-one meetings with residential advisors who were tasked by their supervisors to break down psychological resistance. The university first tried to deny these facts, but, when confronted with copies of the planning documents, “suspended” the program.
Was the University of Delaware’s program an aberration? A National Association of Scholars canvass, “How Many Delawares?” found that it was different in degree but not in kind from hundreds of others. Moreover, the NAS learned that this movement has a history, dating back to a 1994 call by the American College Personnel Association to improve the sense of “community” among students on campus.
In principle, that call was welcome. The university had lost many of the norms that once gave it cohesiveness. By the early 1990s, a Carnegie Commission study revealed that “lack of community” was the single most prevalent complaint among undergraduates. Unfortunately, instead of consulting with the faculty about how best to reinvigorate traditional ideals, student affairs “revolutionaries” (their own term) have been allowed to attempt the construction of a wholly new kind of student community, made up of a wholly new kind of student.
This movement is rich in catchphrases. For example, its proponents portray the college classroom as concerned merely with “information transfer,” while in the dorms, residence lifers take care of “the whole student” and “identity development.” At a recent national conference, residence lifers declared they were now “equal partners” with faculty in higher education. They characterized residence life in the old days as being concerned merely with “programming activities,” while under the new “curricular model,” res lifers, like faculty members, act as teachers.
Teachers of what? And by what means? It is much in the interest of faculty members everywhere to begin posing these questions.
We believe that the common life of our campuses should be consistent with the goals of liberal education and, accordingly, guided principally by faculty. Although there may be faculty members perfectly happy with the “revolutionary” education served up by many residence life offices, we don’t believe the program can survive an open faculty debate about it.
The “revolution in residence life” betrays the intellectual mission of the university in four ways.
· Instead of giving students a sense of our civilization in all its richness and complexity, it insists on pat, simplistic, and tendentious answers.
· Instead of providing an introduction to our civilization via sound scholarship, it offers the denunciations of untrained and narrow-minded partisans. Staff members in residence life may be well-meaning, but they can never be “equal partners” with the faculty.
· Instead of demonstrating how people with diverse and differing views can form a worthy intellectual community, it suppresses differences, insisting instead on social and political conformity.
· Instead of being candid about its intentions, it advances by stealth. Most faculty members and even many senior administrators have never heard of the “revolution in residence life.” That’s not an accident. The program has been insinuated onto campus under the cover of mere housekeeping reforms. The startling claims about residence life and educating “the whole person,” are seldom conveyed to the faculty. (Or, for that matter, to unsuspecting, bill-paying parents).
In sum, the new campus regime in residence life is illiberal throughout.
We believe this corrosive movement has run its course and that the time has come for responsible faculty members to assert their rightful stewardship. Colleges and universities should seek to rebuild community, but not in the regimented way embodied by “the student learning imperative.” Rather, they should seek to do it in a manner that respects liberal education’s fundamental ideals, that is to say, by:
· Fostering a sense of community based on shared interests in learning, involving collective commitments to reasoned discourse, intellectual honesty, open mindedness, acceptance of dissent, and, above all, the pursuit of truth.
· Respecting the individual dignity of all learners and disavowing attempts to intimidate dissent.
· Respecting a process of individual choice which encourages all learners to reach their conclusions in a manner that fortifies their abilities to advance in knowledge
· Investing academic power in those who are intellectually competent to exercise it.
Only a community holding these ideals in common is consistent with the mission of the university in an open society. The “revolution in student life” disserves these ideals. It is time for those who truly prize them to reassume responsibility for their fulfillment.
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As a future professor, I am a bit disturbed by this comment from the association. Perhaps I enter into the debate blinded by my entrenchment in the leftest ideology for a good deal of my education; nevertheless, I would argue that this statement reflects the snobbery of those in the Ivory Tower as they look down upon administrators and say "you're not equipped to do what I do!" In fact, the article states as an ideal that liberal education includes "Iinvesting academic power in those who are intellectually competent to exercise it." As I grapple with the length of doctoral training and realize that it equates only to that of medical doctors, I do not take this as a reason to suppose that my training is better than that of educational specialist who devote their lives to college student development--nor should NAS.
by future_prof Posted on 07/16/2008
The comment by "Future Prof" is a frightening example of why vigilance to preserve freedom of thought and speech on our nation's campuses must remain a top priority for American society -- and for the NAS in particular.
It is clear to me that the commentator is either entirely ignorant of the prevalent focus on race, gender, and ethnicity in contemporary higher education, or, much worse, would not recognize this troubling phenomenon if it stared him in the face. The most likely scenario is that he has come of age in "group-identity land" -- steadily nurtured on a diet of race preferences, victimhood, and white oppression -- and considers it, well ... "home."
The words of Norman Thomas, the perennial Socialist presidential candidate, are worth citing here:
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
"Future Prof" does not know "how it happened." He has no clue.
by ivorytowerreform Posted on 07/16/2008
As a student affairs professional I find this article distressing in many ways. I find it difficult to believe that these types of views still exist to an extent that an organization such as the National Association of Scholars would find it appropriate to publish such a statement. While I very much appreciate the lip service given to the idea that faculty should take over learning outside the classroom, give me the faculty that want, or have the ability, to spend that time and effort outside the classroom. While there is certainly no perfect approach to increasing the sense of community and learning outside the classroom, if we are not approaching this cohesively by including both student affairs professionals and faculty, we are not doing the students on our campus any favors.
by tmq28 Posted on 07/16/2008
Both "Future Prof" and "tmq 28" seem to assume that "student learning imperatives" are indeed "imperatives." As a long-time academic, I believe there is enough mind coersion already in the contemporary college curriculum and classroom. The last thing students need is more "education of the whole person" along the lines of "diversity" and group identity. To be honest, I see no reason for resident-life personnel to go beyond the following duties: instruct students in, and subsequently enforce, clear rules and regulations of civility and the type of conduct which lends itself to a productive study and learning environment. Leave the rest alone.
Dr. Sylvia Wasson
by ivorytowerreform Posted on 07/16/2008
Despite raising some interesting challenges to other faculty to step up and take back ownership for student development (for which I agree), the article falls short by not discussing how more and more Student Affairs professionals are achieving Ph.D.s and Ed. D.s. That many Student Affairs professionals are trained in student development pedagogy and curriculum development is wholey left out. This training is on par and many times more deliberate then a faculty member's training as a liberal educator. From my experience and talking with fellow faculty members, graduate schools are not adequately equiping future faculty to become true liberal teachers. In addition, the amount of faculty peer-mentorship that currently exists to prep new faculty to be liberal educators is almost non-existent. How can students rely on faculty when our system of creating liberal educators is flawed? In addition the article fails to note that some of the best Student Affairs Divisions across the United States are led by tenured faculty members who have assume the Deanship position.
Concerning the comments made by Ivorytowerreform, "To be honest, I see no reason for resident-life personnel to go beyond the following duties: instruct students in, and subsequently enforce, clear rules and regulations of civility and the type of conduct which lends itself to a productive study and learning environment." An inherent piece of the argument is missing. Residence Life personnel and many other Student Affairs personnel already design, enforce and educate students about policies and procedures that lend themselves productive study and learning environments. However without whole-person conversations what do these policies and procedures look like or how are they enforced? Would the faculty and writers of the original statement prefer a simple system where "people with diverse and differing views can[not] form a worthy intellectual community," but intead where "social and political conformity" is forced. I would hope not. My own liberal education taught me to questions, listen, analyze, challenge and reach a reasoned conclusion. Ideally, as espoused by Paulo Friere, I hope this educations occurs with others (not just faculty) in many places. Depending on what I wish to be educated on the faculty may not be the bst place to start but I hope are apart of the overall picture. I was not taught to shallow simply enforcement! Maybe that is what Ivorytowerreform would have but I would hope that would not happen on any campus.
by Challenge Posted on 07/17/2008
by msr08 Posted on 07/17/2008
by Ashley Thorne Posted on 07/18/2008
by prof58 Posted on 07/18/2008
As a Student Development Administrator, I actually agree with very likely the majority of the premise of this article. Yet I also agree with the majority of the premise of Ralph Nader and the Green Party. Unfortunately both premises are naive and archaic and refuse to recognize the realities of our society in the 21st Century. These realities are far more powerful and enduring than any rhetoric about what it used to be like or how it SHOULD be.
Universities are "corporations" now, like it or not. To simply rant about the situation will only make it worse. It alienates constituents and weakens whatever real efforts at improvement might be possible. Yes, standards have dropped and been corrupted. I am the first to admit that far too many higher education students don't know where they are, what they are doing, or why they are doing it.
Yet the fundamental premise or this article fails to take into account a more holistic and integrative view. It is reductionistic and narrow. Learning DOES take place in far more places than the classroom. Liberal education IS about more than just learning a lot of information. Few would disagree that higher education has a a primary mission the development of critical thinking. This occurs within the overall experience of an individual - not just the lecture hall or classroom.
I encourage finding common ground rather than drifting to such polar thinking and belief.
by Ed Smith Posted on 07/18/2008
As an active member of ACPA, I commend NAS for raising the issue for debate. The pioneers in higher education created it to teach men to become lawyers, physicians, and ministers. It was the faculty who spent time in residence with students. They taught them the basics.......the Golden Rule, they discouraged them from drinking alcohol, and they provided leadership by example as they personified the life of a good Christian.
Things have changed. Faculty have great demands on their time. Who has the time to prepare for class, teach the class, lead the discussion, actually advise students on the best path to enlightenment and graduation, and then to partner with the folks over in student affairs? There is clearly a role for student affairs practitioners to play in the lives of students. I have been around too long to be so naive as to think otherwise.
To the extent that any staff member utilizes coercive tactics in the engagement of student learning, they have betrayed professional ethics. Of course, the same rings true for faculty. My respect for the academics of America is profound. Fortunately for me, I am intelligent enough to know that of those who are considered to be academics in America, a signficant percentage also call themselves student affairs practitioners. I welcome the opportunity to partner with faculty toward a common goal to educate students in every facet of higher education. What I choose not to do is to devalue the contribution of any well meaning person who has chosen to dedicate their lives to enlightening, challenging, and empowering students in productive ways.
by amalloy Posted on 07/18/2008
Sylvia (Cashew),
Alcohol poisoning, suicide, weapons possession (and use), and sexual assault are a staunch reality of today's university populations. Even if you believe vehemently that these students have no place on a university campus, did you stop to think about whom (on your campus and elsewhere) takes the time and energy to remove these students from the population so that your classroom is safe? That's right, Student Affairs Professionals. TheUnited States
Do you want it weighing on your conscience if a student comes to you, as a trusted faculty member, with a mental health issue? While the days of in loco parentis are in the past, the students sitting in your classroom are whole people with whom you will form relationships. If a student trusts you enough to disclose a personal crisis, do you have the training needed to aid that student? Or would you refer to a counselor on your campus? Those counselors, more often than not, fall under the umbrella of student affairs.
Finally, do you enjoy teaching at an accredited institution? If so, then you’ll need your division of student affairs to retain that accreditation.
by baildori Posted on 07/18/2008
Seems rather obvious, doesn't it, that this organization, or at least the author(s) of this article and some of those commenting are members of that white, privileged, elitist, old-boys club? I mean, who else would claim that American society is NOT oppressive, and suggest there is no need for today's university students to examine critical issues like social justice? None other than the privileged few in our country that have never had to experience oppression or suffer injustice, right? And who else would make such an elitist and ridiculous statement that students who struggle with issues of addiction or mental illness or making healthy life choices don't belong on a college campus? Forgive me, but if we drum them all out, who do you think will be left for you, the amazing all-knowing scholars, to teach?
Prior to receiving a link to this article from a colleague, I'd never heard of the NAS, and I've been a full professor in American academia for over a decade. The students I see in my classes are fully human: intellectual, social, spiritual, psychological, emotional, etc. And much as faculty, or scholars, might like to think that focusing solely on intellectual discourse is THE path to enlightenment, the reality is that without the help, support, and whole-person focus of our very intelligent and talented Student Affairs Colleagues, most of my students would never be ready to embark on the intellectual journeys I have mapped out for us to take. Today's college or university students bring not only their intellectual needs to campus, but also their social, spiritual, psychological, and emotional ills. We can either pretend that isn't the case or embrace an educational process that addresses the whole person of our students, and as someone else has already pointed out, I don't see many faculty lining up for the job.
by BS Posted on 07/18/2008
I thank NAS for going after this important issue. One of the nicest benefits of being an instructor in the UK (I was, until a short time ago, based in the US) is that student affairs doesn't exist as a "profession". Sure there are people that make sure the place runs, financial aid is settled, etc., but they're just everyday people hired without the nonsense master's degrees in student affairs.
The fact that the UK could have highly diverse, international student campuses with minimal "professionalization" of student services rebuts the argument about the necessity of these people. And, much to the shock of student affairs bureaucrats, we also have students drinking on campus (I know...the horror!).
Now the NAS should go a step further and study how much of the increase in college costs in the US over the past decade is due to these useless do-gooders!
by rml Posted on 07/19/2008
This is in response to National Association of Scholars’ “statement” titled “Rebuilding Campus Community: The Wrong Imperative.” While I am an advocate of freedom of speech and expression, I also believe this right must come with validity and sensibility. In this case, the author(s?) of the statement lacks substantial evidence and takes an elitist point of view.
As a person in Higher Education with experience in both Student Affairs/residence life and faculty teaching, I am familiar with the almost universal rift between student affairs staff and faculty. The statement notes how faculty are “bypassed” and how “[m]ost faculty members are ignorant of the movement’s spreading influence.” This is true mainly due to most faculty’s lack of free time to mentor or interact with a student outside of a classroom setting. As a student, I remembered how professors were too focused on their own research, tenure application, or publication goal to even get to know me as a person versus just as a student. Today, I have encountered students who share similar experiences and who feel that their classroom experience have become robotic (like some teachers) and that their learning experience has evolved to just “passing the class” instead of learning something valuable due to the teacher’s inability to capture their attention or challenge their intellect. This is also supported by some of my faculty colleagues, who because they have a “Dr. or a PhD” on their business card, they are somehow beyond student affair “imperativists” who go the extra mile to educate students outside a classroom.
This statement by National Association of Scholars also fails to recognize how most campuses have initiatives with faculty departments and how some residence life programs have faculty in residence, where faculty are given free room and board in hope that they add to community development of resident students and interact with them to provide a humanistic face to professors. For most faculty who have taken the opportunity to be involved in residence life, they have a better understanding that the residence hall staff and residence life imperatives go beyond the “traditional” education of which other faculty are only aware. They are exposed to the fact that students have more layers to them that just a classroom student and that student learning continues outside of a classroom. In addition, faculty in residence witness that residence hall staff are individuals with a plethora of education, qualifications, and experience that make them marketable and desirable in all types of occupation, including academia.
I applaud the effort of the National Association of Scholars to provide a one-sided and opinionated statement. However, for a supposed reputable association, I have to question the credibility of a group whose statement lacks proper research and who feels that rebuilding community is owned only by “responsible faculty” with exercisable academic power. If education and rebuilding community were limited to only the privilege few, then that is not a true fostering community of education, which in return, would devolve the minds of learners. As the old adage goes: “Don’t let your books get in the way of your education.”
by princewonder1975 Posted on 07/21/2008
The quality of debate that is revealed in these comments is indicative of the problem we face in academia today. I believe I detect the aroma of ad hominem arguments on both sides of the question. The Left accuses the Right of racism, sexism, and elitism. The Right accuses the Left of being agents of a surreptitious socialist agenda. This is all quite colorful but displays a failure to focus on the issues at hand, at least as I see them.
The main question here, as far as I'm concerned, is who is responsible for the open minded intellectual development of the students on today's campus. I would say that all sides are. Having a PhD. proves nothing. Joseph Goebbels had a degree in German Studies from the University of Heidelberg. No doubt, Dr. Goebbels would have received tenure during the 1930s at the German university of his choice, had he but applied. I believe he was otherwise occupied.
A more interesting question is how the student affairs personnel in question got the idea that there was only one unquestionably right answer to social and political issues. Who were their teachers? Where were the faculty of their day? On the other side of the matter, how did some tenured faculty get it into their heads that they alone are the bearers of the liberal tradition? Isn't it the case that some faculty today are not especially interested in promoting effectively the all round development of the life of the mind, in showing students different sides of an important question? I know many fine open minded faculty, but I have met a few in my day who assume that anyone who disagrees with them is a priori a dunce, the fact of the disagreement being taken by them as sufficient proof of the point.
Finally, I challenge the notion that education of the whole person is a Left wing slogan. As a teacher and an administrator at a Jesuit institution, I know that Jesuit schools have considered that goal as part of our mission since, oh, I guess the 16th century. Just about the only socialist document being read by the cognoscenti of the day was penned by Thomas More. I doubt his canonization was the result of a Communist plot, and I have it on expert opinion that More's essay, Utopia, was yet another attempt by a liberal educator to get his readers to think. Apparently this was not a passion shared by Henry VIII. Educating the whole person means that we can take care to cultivate the minds of our students while also letting them know that it is a bad idea for them to drink themselves to death. They can do better than this. A sober mind cultivated is far more pleasant than a brain blinded by Ever-clear. Why would we care about one side of their soul and not about the other?
Speaking of the life of the mind, I hope this debate can rise above name calling, lest I become deeply bored.
Roger White, Assoc. Prof., Political Science, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Loyola University New Orleans
by sonofmill Posted on 07/21/2008
Hello All:
I would agree with the fact that these groups rallying against Student Affairs are members of "the Good Ol' Boys Club" otherwise known as White Supremacists. I am Appalled that so many of the faculty members involved in these issues do not see the whole picture. As for Ms. Sylvia Wasson, you are in fact uninformed about the issues. Do you not notice that plenty of LGBT citizens are loosing rights on an ongoing basis, and it is justified by amendments to state constitutions and laws being enacted? All of these laws are being passed to "ensure the institution of marriage," in actuality they are taking away MY rights. So, how dare you say that there is no homophobia?
Wake up people, all of these calls from groups like NAS, and Fire are calls to spread hate, and oppression. If you really agree with them, than perhaps living and working in the academic setting isn't right for you.
by wordhorder Posted on 07/22/2008
by Ashley Thorne Posted on 07/24/2008
If you are going to write an article that bashes my profession can you at least use the correct terminology? Dorm?!? Administrators in residence life have not used that word in quite some time. Instead, we prefer the words “residence halls” because our students do more than just sleep in our halls.
by ThatGuyUKnow Posted on 07/24/2008
Several commenters have attested to the scholarly attainments of the imperativists; permit me to doubt their relevance.
Some years ago, a friend was working in a university's administration. He determined fairly quickly that his lowly B.A. was not going to get him very far. So he scouted around for a graduate program that could get him a Ph.D. with the bare minimum of effort.
It will surprise no one who reads this to learn that he now has a Ph.D. in Education and is a high muckety-muck in his administration.
Even those innocent of advanced degrees in the subjects can compare the research in education to that in physics, psychology, and history and see that there is a qualitative difference.
The educationists have nearly succeeded in ruining American pre-college education; why would we want to set them loose on our colleges and universities? These people are not scholars in any recognizable sense of the term; they are credentialists.
by vepxistqaosani Posted on 07/25/2008
As a recent addition to the world of Higher Education, I am worried about what I have stepped into. With such little respect being shared, and so much misinformation being presented, I have to wonder if we are really working to educate students, or if we are working to promote our own egos.
I value the work done in both Student Affairs and Academic Affairs. Many times the lines between the two are blurred. I had the privilege of working in an office that was equally staffed by both sides of the debate and worked with honors students to help create a more engaging and academically challenging learning experience. It is clear to me that the work done within the field of Student Development Theory is informing all of academia, and it would be beneficial for all Academic and Student Affairs professionals to understand. I challenge faculty to read the learning objectives of different Student Affairs offices. After reading them, post here with your thoughts. Chances are you will actually agree with most of them (maybe not all), and be grateful that this work is being done.
by schustab Posted on 07/29/2008
Sorry, but what most of the SA "professionals" are trying to foist on students are simply none of their business, as long as students are following basic rules. "Diversity" and all the other po-mo claptrap is ideologically driven and presumtuous in assuming that any student needs their leftwing enlightment in order to function on campus. Tell us the rules and hold some mixers so we know who is in the dorms. But don't presume that you are superior to me in any way and try to "instruct" me on how to live and what to think. I pay to sleep in the dorms (and thats what they are, despite the current academia jargon) not be hassled by some overgrown babysitter. I pay the college for the education, not the SA. Sa needs to mind their own business and not presume to instruct the the people who pay their salaries.
by SGT Ted Posted on 08/15/2008
An inherent piece of the argument is missing. Residence Life personnel and many other Student Affairs personnel already design, enforce and educate students about policies and procedures that lend themselves productive study and learning environments. However without whole-person conversations what do these policies and procedures look like or how are they enforced?
IF you are incapable of writing clear instructions on how to report a rules violation and to explain your rules system, you are an incompetent who has no business teaching anything to anyone, much less an adult college student. "Whole person converations" is Gobbledegook.
by SGT Ted Posted on 08/15/2008
I had to chuckle when I read SGT Ted's posts. "Gobbledegook" is the perfect word! I work in SA and it didn't take long to figure out I'm in the wrong field. It's definitely not what I thought it would be. I'm exhausted by all the jargon, the racism, the superior attitudes and the much ado about nothing.
The grad students in our office get a raw deal. Here's an abridged version of something their "leader" told them: IIn my PhD program there were only 3 of us (minorities). I was a proud Latino and this other woman was proud of her blackness, but we don't know that was wrong with this other black girl. She said she was just an American."
He told them how they ostracized this woman because she had "identity issues," and just as he expected, the grads expressed their disbelief that someone could be so stupid. It's all about racial identity and being "inclusive" of everyone except whites.
SAPs think their PhD's are licenses to dictate how students think and speak. One grad student was talking about a judicial hearing where a student was found "guilty" of something or other. She was quickly corrected; the correct terminology is "he was found responsible, not guilty!" It's pathetic to see students tripping over their words or "self-correcting" all the time because they're afraid of how they'll be viewed if they don't use the gobbledegook! This isn't helpful to students, but it boosts a hell of a lot egos.
by pebblesj5 Posted on 12/23/2008