Independence day

Given the large amounts of money students and tax payers shell out for higher education, it’s not surprising that more and more people are becoming concerned about the accountability and efficiency of colleges and universities. John P. Campbell, associate vice president for teaching and learning technologies at Purdue, has tried to cast a new data-mining program that monitors student progress in this light, arguing that preventing students from failing a class increases the value of their tuition. \nNew “course-management systems” now track students’ participation on various assignments, and in-class “clickers” monitor answers to questions. Students who are not logging onto some of these Oncourse-like Web sites will soon find themselves being contacted about getting help. \nOne can imagine that there was a time when college students were actually treated like the adults they technically are. In an age of free-speech zones and prank permission slips, coddling students is apparently the norm. \nMany of you might be surprised to hear that Purdue was having a problem with low-performing students, which would suggest that students at Purdue probably do something besides study – possibly math word problems or farm chores. According to Campbell, the program helps alleviate this problem of low-performers and dropouts.\nHe claims he developed a model that can predict which students are heading for a grade of C or lower 66 percent of the time – \nnot too bad. He also said while the most-at-risk students usually failed anyway, the middle-of-the-road students usually improved when contacted about study sessions and tutoring. \nSurprisingly, students haven’t really protested the idea, although professors freaked out, fearing that the data might be used to evaluate them – because the idea of people being evaluated for their job performance is just ridiculous. \nThe program goes way too far when it comes to respecting not just student privacy, but more importantly, student independence. In college, students are supposed to be learning valuable skills for the real world, not learning how to wait for someone to e-mail them telling them what a terrible job they are doing. All professors have office hours and tutoring is advertised all over campus. If students are doing poorly, they should know they need help and seek it themselves. \nIt’s also not very appealing to imagine how this program could evolve in the future. Imagine getting an e-mail every time you do not log onto Oncourse or miss a problem on your WeBWork. Sometimes people have better things to do than homework on a given night, and some of these people actually manage not to fail their classes. \nIt’s true that some students don’t make the cut and that college isn’t for everyone, so we should resist the urge to think we can make it a fit for all. By babysitting students we take away their initiative to learn – and fail – on their own.\nIt seems we just might have one more reason to hate Purdue – \nbecause students there didn’t have the guts to stand up to this ridiculous policy. If administrators are pleased with the results, however, it just might be implemented here someday.