What do they really want?

In my new position as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences, I have a renewed perspective on issues facing a university.

Our past two year's experiences with COVID-induced remote learning raised many questions, to put it mildly. A primary question we faced was what people really want from education, divided into stakeholders: What did students want? What did parents want? What did teachers want?

Seeking answers often led to difficult conversations, because, although this should be obvious, none of these groups had monolithic views of educational delivery and modality. Hearing the news, you might want to have a knee-jerk opinion and say, "Parents want their kids back in school" or "Students want to return face-to-face" or "Teachers don't want to go back into the classroom."

In truth, we saw wide variations within these populations. No question, our administration heard from parents who feel the price paid for college includes an in-person experience, even if these were "squeaky wheels" (at times it felt that every unhappy parent seemed to know our provost if not our president, and would they go right to the top with complaints). Yet other parents didn't want their students on the ground, in classrooms, dorms, and other shared spaces, while any remnants of the pandemic existed.

As I learned last fall in my own course, when we finally returned face-to-face, many students were exuberant about being back together in person. But some students have been among the most mask-conscious people I know and have been articulate about their own health concerns. Also, while some students loudly objected to they what they viewed as the lesser experience of online learning, some students loved the flexibility online and remote learning offered.

Many teachers were wary of returning to classrooms, especially being compelled to do so, but others were tired of teaching through masks and longed for the face-to-face experience that had drawn them to teaching in the first place. In terms of technology, while, sure, some instructors bumbled around in Zoom, many have learned, in ways that often surprised themselves, the advantages of remote, online, and hybrids, especially the "chrono-hybrids" I discussed previously.

COVID-19 is ongoing and will continue to present modality-based challenges. I do think we got a lot right. For instance, tough as it was, through the year we have tried to reduce the number of modality shifts after courses were listed on our term master schedule (TMS). Students are often surprisingly accommodating about these changes, but I think it is reasonable that the modality listed on the TMS should provide some level of assurance as to how a given class will be offered.

Simply, we can offer education in more ways now, so we shouldn't be surprised when it's more difficult to determine what people want. Students and faculty both realize that the old ways of teaching and studenting can yield to improved approaches. It's worth noting that I think that we have not done a great job communicating these things clearly to parents.

Education is multi-faceted and complex. Giving people what they proclaim to "want" isn't always the best solution. Part of the contract of education, one that makes it unusual, especially higher education, is that you pay someone to teach you content and in ways that challenge you. You cede to their expertise in ways that are supposed to help you be a more fulfilled person.

In general, for all demographics, we have to be clearer about articulating what it is we are doing and why, so that when our actions are not aligned with peoples' "wants," we can explain that course of action. Will this make everyone happy? Of course not! But it will help resist one overarching problem: When people feel decision-making is happening in a black box.