Question: What do RWC students want?Answer (according to some): The World.
Some would claim RWC students want parking spaces next to buildings with all classes housed inside state-of-the-art, techno-fantastic wireless meccas where they lounge in $35,000 furniture sipping lattes and await pod-casts of classes they skipped this morning.
These people claim that students want personal housekeepers to follow along behind them scooping up their cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and half-eaten lunches. They want widescreen plasma monitors pumping an everlasting media stream into their grammar-deprived minds.
Students want half-priced meals served until all hours of the day and night and cheap daycare available just as late. They want an endless supply of paper to print textbooks instead of paying umpteen gazillion dollars for materials they’d never look at anyway.
Some would claim that students want to bring children to school with them and let them run screaming and unsupervised through the halls.
They want Raymond Walters to tell them what time it is and remind them to get to class on time.
And, of course, they expect to get straight A’s without lifting a finger to get there. According to some, students want to turn in homework whenever they please, take open-book or online exams, and expect grade curves, extra credit, and, of course, no dreaded team projects.
They won’t fill out a survey, provide time for student organizations, or nominate teachers for awards. They don’t want to sit in committee meetings, participate in student government, or volunteer any time or money, or to make any other sacrifice to make this a better place for future students.
This spoiled-brat view of our students is a compilation of somewhat exaggerated statements that various administrators, faculty, staff members, and fellow students have shared with me over the years I’ve been here.
It is true that there are those who portray such attitudes; every class has the do-nothing loser who wants it all.
But this concept of the lazy, good-for-little student is used as a catch-all excuse to deny the so-called “wants” that really translate to viable needs. And, somehow, for every student that might reflect some of this attitude, I could name more than a dozen who do not.
I know single moms who struggle to pack their classes in before the daycare closes at 2 p.m. and who hope to finish their degrees before their kids get over four years old and are no longer eligible for RWC daycare services.
These women spend a few hours in classes, rush to get their kids, and talk of having to hold babies in the computer lab while they hurriedly print lecture notes before going home to clean, study, care for their kids, and get ready for work and babysitters.
I know married couples who take classes around work schedules in order to advance in their careers. And I know kids opting to come here where tuition is almost reasonable, while they work their way through college and have no intention of letting poor high school grades get in the way of becoming their families’ first college grads.
The reality is that the vast majority of RWC students simply want respect.
They want the kind of respect that is shown at main campus and at Clermont, where the wants of the students are not viewed as pipe dream wishes, but as requests that might actually bring better reputations and increasing interest in their campuses.
That kind of respect is afforded to students at Raymond Walters, but only in bits and pieces through certain academic and administrative offices or functions. Individuals in these departments show respect for students when they repeatedly fight for the needs of students even when no students bother to speak for themselves.
Students here don’t have outrageous requests:
Feed us after 2 p.m.
Expand daycare options, or find ways to offer needs-based scholarships, or make greater alliances with local daycare providers to offer discounts or other benefits.
Get on the ball with technology.
Tell students where their money goes.
Make respect for students be RWC’s core competency.
Today, in addition to my regular rant, I have a few Boos and Bravos for this last issue of the quarter:
Bravo! to Dean Straker. There has been a push by faculty to ban unsupervised children under the age of fourteen from campus. Discussion about public access to libraries and computer labs, UC policies, enforcement issues, and lack of daycare options for students was quieted when Dean Straker wisely requested that the motion be tabled for review by the legal department.
Bravo! to Don O’Meara, Nathan Vazquez, and several others who have recently been pushing to give Raymond Walters’ students equal opportunity to receive certain Phi Theta Kappa and transfer scholarships, which have, until now, excluded us. It appears that these scholarship opportunities will soon open up due to their strong advocacy.
Boo! to any of you smokers who find it necessary to toss your cigarette butts at our main entrances, showing absolute disrespect for this school you pay money to attend. How can we claim to deserve any perks when we can’t keep from embarrassing the school when newcomers are met with such a gross first impression?
Boo! to whoever cut janitorial services, since it apparently keeps housekeeping from regularly cleaning our stairwells and bathrooms, although I suppose it could be considered a Bravo! since the ever-fearsome dust bunnies are now trapped in the sticky crap crusted around several of the stairwells!
And, finally, Bravo! to the dozens of men and women who’ve contacted me to thank me for this column. Your encouragement has been invaluable.
See you next quarter.
Want to help? Contact the Student Government office at www.rwc.uc.edu/rwcsg or email me at cowanka@email.uc.edu.