Believe it or not, it really is Relevant

Friday afternoons are fantastic around here. No classes after noon, and most all of my colleagues are off starting their weekends as early as humanly possible -- rightly so, seeing as how most of 'em put in upwards of 40 work-and-prep hours in just the four days from Monday to Thursday. But I, slacker that I am, have to spend my Friday afternoons catching up on things I should have done earlier in the week. There are a couple of ongoing research projects that I piddle around in; I use the time to grade quizzes and read through informal writing assignments; and I generally manage to get a good bit done.

This last Friday, though, I had an intriguing hour-long conversation with a student who wandered into the office to talk about what he perceived as his growing dissatisfaction with his experience at MC. And it wasn't anything as simple as "I don't like my roommate" or "There's nothing to do here on the weekends." Nope. This was fairly deep, striking at the heart of what the Christian liberal arts education is supposed to be -- and, incidentally, dealing with several of the issues we've raised in our classroom discussions in Comp I.

Basically, this student was having a tough time dealing with two issues. First of all, he was trying to discern the extent to which the Christian faith of his professors permeates what (and how) they teach -- it's the "integration" question, for those of you who know the Mission Statement, or who have read your Holmes. That says a lot, if a second-year student is independently asking those kinds of questions. He had come to MC because of her reputation, because of her claim to be a "Christian University," but his experience for this past year-and-a-bit was not fulfilling his expectations.

The second issue he was facing, was that his experience in many of his classes here has been (to paraphrase) elementary and unchallenging. He found some of his classes to be, well, not "ridiculous," and not "a waste of time," but something just short of either of those. Now, the first issue -- the integration question -- is easily lumped under the "Christian" part of "a Christian University," and it deserves some serious thought by each faculty member here. But the second has to do with what a liberal arts education really is (the "University" part of our PR motto), and the expectations that students have as they come to college.

So many of our students, I believe, view the two-and-a-half hours per week that they spend in a class as the upper end of the amount of time that they're willing to devote to their education. Aw, come on now, those out of class assignments? Are you serious? They're just an unreasonable imposition on MY time. What? We have to read in advance? We have homework? And I think that particular mindset, though diluted to a less abrasive extent, was precisely what was troubling my student. Don't get me wrong -- he's a perfectly capable, responsible, and (in many ways) model undergraduate. I would kill to have a whole class full of his ilk. But the idea that "my education is somehow deficient because my classes aren't challenging" ignores the critical issues of independent learning and self-motivation which are the hallmark of the passionate intellect. Remember what Holmes says about the "ethic" involved in the academic process? It's at the bottom of page 17, for those of you who care....

I guess my encouragement to this student was that he's never going to escape those "boring" classes -- not because some professors are inept, but rather because we, as professors and mentors at a liberal arts institution, find ourselves teaching to hordes, masses, flocks, multitudes, and hosts, rather than gearing courses to meet the needs of one particular mind. And any given student's background, preparation, and capacity for learning is going to differ substantially from the student in the next row.

But that doesn't mean you're off the hook, if you find yourself not being challenged by a particular course. It's your moral responsibility to find ways to make it challenging. Supplement what you're getting (or not getting) in class by reading outside the required texts, or by sitting down with your professor outside of class, or by talking with some of your classmates about the issues raised in a lecture. Or -- horror of horrors -- actually do some reading and preparation in advance, and come to class ready to (heh heh heh) "challenge" your prof. In the humble spirit of collegial academic inquiry, of course. But see if you can outthink him. Uncover counterarguments that might give her pause for thought. I guarantee you, you'll be the more well-developed and well-educated because of it, and the class will be more enjoyable both for you and for your classmates.

So, you see, all of these things we're talking about in Comp these first few weeks of the term -- it's not just some high-falutin' academic question for the brainiacs. It actually matters. The way you think about these things is going to have a tremendous impact on the next three or four years of your college experience. How are you going to handle those disappointing classes? What will you do to make sure that you emerge out of the Coliseum, diploma in hand, more developed (intellectually, spiritually, socially, physically, and emotionally) than when you showed up last month?