Moreover, the intractability of the research-equals-prestige equation is confirmed by
U.S. News
's criteria for rating universities. The magazine gives “
greatest weight â¦
to [academic] reputation because a diploma from a distinguished college so clearly helps graduates get good jobs or gain admission to top graduate schools.” The magazine arrives at numerical rankings on “academic reputation” by asking presidents and other administrators of research universities to evaluate peer institutions on this item. Predictably, these voters value research prestigeânot the quality of undergraduate educationâmost highly. For example, in the 2000 edition, on
U.S. News
's five-point scale, they rate the University of Wisconsin at Madison, famous for outstanding graduate programs and also for huge lecture
classes and beer-and-circus, at 4.3; and Clarkson University, lacking major research facilities but renowned for faculty attention to undergraduates, at 2.6.
A key word in
U.S. News
's explanation is
diploma
âsignificantly, they use it and not
education
. The magazine implies that the label is of primary importance, that because it says Chivas Regal or Big-time U Baccalaureate, the Scotch whiskey is superb and the person holding the degree well educated. Clearly, this is not true. A California higher education expert commented, “I see students graduating who cannot write a business letter, balance a ledger, or use a computer to do so. I see other students graduating from the same colleges with the same degrees” who perform academic tasks at a high level and “are clearly very well prepared” for future jobs and advanced schooling (similarly, some graduates of Clarkson are better trained than some Wisconsin grads in the same fields).
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For large, public research universities, labeling replaces learning, and, unfortunately, many students participate in this game by entering college with a single goal in mindâto obtain a diploma as easily as possible. One experienced teacher complained that for too many students, “It turns out that
having been
to college is thought to be the important” thing, not “acquiring knowledge” while there. This attitude connects to the historic disdain of collegiate and vocational students for academics and intellectual achievement but, ironically, Big-time U's promote this point of view by trumpeting the label value of their degrees and downplaying their general education programs. According to the recent Boyer Commission Report, when Big-time U's treat “undergraduate programs as sideshows to the main event” (research), students receive very clear signals about their marginal place within the academic parts of the institution.
“This school treats the average student [undergraduate] like shit,” said a senior at Ohio State University. “And so we blow off our classes and party on High Street.
Go Bucks
. I've had a great four years of partying and following the Bucks, but an awful four years of course work.” Whether this student offered a reason for his devotion to beer-and-circus at OSU, or a personal rationalization for the time and energy he spent on it is impossible to say. The synergy between the neglect of general undergraduate education and beer-and-circus is so profound that it is impossible to separate cause and effect. But the resulting reality dominates many campuses today.
STUDENT MIX AND MATCH
S
tudents at large, public research universities respond to their schools' emphasis on research and indifference to general undergraduate education in predictable, unpredictable, and sometimes unscrupulous ways. However, they always filter their reactions through the true center of their college lives, the subcultures to which they belong. This chapter examines the current state of the traditional subculturesâcollegiate, academic, vocational, and rebelâand how these shape contemporary student attitudes toward the education, or the lack of it, that they receive at Big-time U's.
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In their essay, Clark and Trow look at four student subcultures. Currently at Indiana University [April 1998], their divisions remain somewhat accurate. But I also feel students today may easily belong to one group but have lots to do with another subculture simultaneously.
Because I have to work my way through school with several part-time jobs at once, I basically identify with the vocational subculture. But I have done my fair share of partying and socializing (collegiate), and have lots of collegiate friends. I'm also a huge Hoosiers fan (collegiate). But I know many students who belong to only one subculture and to me that is the waste of a wonderful learning experience.
âA female Indiana University undergraduate
This woman's comments, typical of the majority of student responses to a question about the Clark and Trow categories, indicated the current state
of traditional undergraduate subcultures. In the last generation, the barriers separating the subcultures continuously lowered, permitting many students to live within one subculture but to incorporate elements of others into their daily lives. In addition, although some undergraduates still remained within one dominant subculture for their entire college careers, an increasing number moved from one to another. Indeed, during the 1990s, some students made dramatic four-year odysseys from mainly collegiate as freshmen, rebellious as sophomores, vocational as juniors (when full awareness of the cost of their college educations dawned on them), and even academic as seniors (finally engaged by course content, able to take small classes in their majors, and considering attending graduate school, although usually unprepared to do so).
The main motivation for belonging to one subculture, moving to another, and incorporating elements of another into one's life has always been attachment to peers. Beyond financial circumstances, far beyond parental wishes, and even further beyond any influence exerted by university officials, undergraduates behave in certain ways and also change their behavior because of their peers. Alexander Astin, in the most extensive polling of student attitudes ever done, commented (his emphasis): “
The student's peer group is the single most potent source of influence on growth and development during the undergraduate years,” and “Students' values, beliefs, and aspirations tend to change in the direction of the dominant values, beliefs, and aspirations of the peer group.”
Those students who begin their university careers as collegiates usually have friends from their hometowns already in a campus sorority, fraternity, or dorm, or they quickly make friends with students on the same collegiate wavelength. If, after a year or two, some of these collegiates rebel against this subculture, they tend to do it with friends in the same housing unit, and they move into off-campus housing together. Then, if financial circumstances force them to obtain jobs to pay escalating college costs, often they work for the same employer. Finally, if they become academic, usually they form on-going study groups and hang out with their academic peers.
In addition, cutting across the migrations from group to group are the frequent incorporation of elements from other subcultures into the dominant one. In the 1980s and early 1990s, as college expenses increased, many students, including collegiates, had to obtain part-time jobs and adopt some vocational values to remain in school. Then, because universities kept raising the price of tuition and other fees, student vocationalism continued in better economic times. An Indiana University male senior explained this point of view (various observers quote analogous comments from undergraduates in all parts of the United States):
I think Clark and Trow's definition of collegiate is dated in its assumption that collegiates do not have to worry about money or do not care about grades. I and some of my fraternity brothers have to work at part-time jobs and also have large student loans to pay off. Also this change in collegiate attitudes is brought on, not by a resurgence [surge?] of genuine academic interest, but by a job market that often demands course work beyond a four-year degree. Many of us might go on for MBAs.
In other respects, the collegiate definition is still true. I love my football weekends, b-ball nights, activities with sororities, fraternity dances, and general partying. Most of all, I appreciate my fraternity brothers and the lifetime friendships I've made with them.
Less typical but far from idiosyncratic were the undergraduates who incorporated elements of the rebel subculture into the collegiate one. Helped by the accessibility and merchandising of the national rebel culture, particularly its music, a male sophomore wrote in 1995:
I am a collegiate/rebel who lives in a house on Second Street with some of my pledge class buddies from the fraternity. But we also constantly listen to the Grateful Dead and are deep into the culture surrounding the band and even join the Deadhead tour whenever possible. However, we still belong to our fraternity and go to functions there. We also love basketball and football and have season tickets for both. Our favorite bar is a totally Greek hangout, but we do our drugs at our house.
When Clark and Trow conducted their research in the 1950s, they would have never encountered this response: collegiate/rebels! Even in the 1960s on some campuses, fights occurred between Greeks and rebels. However, by the 1980s and subsequently, collegiates could easily participate in aspects of rebel culture, primarily the music and the drugs, incorporating them into their leisure activities.
Another cross-subcultural group, in part necessitated by rising tuition and other college costs, were academics who became vocational to help pay for their college educations. Some academic/vocationals existed during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, but the modern era greatly increased their number. A male discussed his journey:
I am a history major with an almost perfect GPA. I also work twenty hours a week in a mind-numbing job at 7-11. However, I was
recently accepted for graduate school at Berkeley and I know that I will do well there. I also hope to obtain a Teaching Assistantship there to help solve my financial problems, and to integrate working for money into my life.
This student then added a P.S. that illustrated his time with yet another student subculture:
I should mention that I dropped out of college for a semester and lived in Mexico because my girlfriend, and my best friend, and his girlfriend (all really smart people and top students) convinced me to do it with them. That was our rebel phase. What a waste, financially and intellectually. Also I missed a whole Big Ten basketball season.
The story of the Mexican sojourn illustrates how peer groups affect even academic students, the subculture most in tune with parental and professorial demands. To a much greater extent, peer pressure influences collegiates, resulting in unwritten dress and speech codes, and a high degree of conformity. Similarly, many observers have noted the ironic conformity of rebels, also often adhering to dress and speech codes, as well as peer pressure to be cool or hip. And in a final twist of contemporary consumer culture, national clothing companies merchandise the rebel look, and, as an authentic female rebel student complained:
There are all too many sorority girls on this campus wearing flannels and getting tattoos and piercings because this is the prevalent [rebel] image offered by MTV and other media. This trendy conformist nonconformism dismays those of us who truly wish to pull away from the mainstream in order to acquire an individual perspective.
Similarly, many fraternity men insert earrings and other body jewelry and don appropriate rebel clothes for weekend “raves” and “clubbing,” only to return to the “catalog” collegiate look (Abercrombie & Fitch, Tommy Hilfiger, et cetera) during the week.
Finally, some members of one group of vocational studentsâintercollegiate athletesâhave adopted a number of the traditional customs of the collegiate subculture, notably initiation and drinking ceremonies. Throughout the 1990s, alcohol-related incidents involving college athletes occurred, as did some nasty hazing episodes. The increasing isolation of athletes from the general student population, and their sense of their teams as elite units,
often prompted the hazing of new members. Ironically, team initiations escalated at a time when fraternity and sorority hazing declined somewhat, and campus administrators had great difficulty in curtailing the athletes' activities.
At the core of the problem for university officials is their escalation of big-time college sports. From the first contact between an athlete and a school, the jock knows that he or she is special and is treated much better than ordinary student applicantsâamong other perks, the university usually pays for the visit. This treatment continues when the athlete enrolls, and it extends through his or her time at the institution. Even though the jock, working in a sport for thirty, forty, or more hours per week, definitely earns her or his athletic scholarship, the sense of specialness and immunity from ordinary rules never departs; in fact, when combined with anger over excessive work demands, the result can be antisocial, even criminal behavior. Many intercollegiate athletes pay a high personal price for being big-time college sports entertainers. But their schools promote, and large numbers of regular undergraduates love, the beer-and-circus that the jocks provide.
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Party, Party, Party [at Louisiana State University]
Nearly every [student] organization on campus hosts parties throughout the year ⦠. [For football weekends] all of the campus streets are closed to accommodate the massive number of people tailgating, drinking, and partying ⦠. Such frenetic activity and enthusiasm extend to all aspects of student life at LSU, and often preclude more serious activities like studying.
What is a typical [student] weekend schedule? Fridayâdrink, fall asleep in someone's bathtub; Saturdayâleave bathtub, watch the game, drink; Sundayâdrink lightly.
âThe Insider's Guide to the Colleges
, 2000 edition
One of the few campus activities at Big-time U's that unite undergraduates from different subcultures are college sports events, even prompting some uniformity of dress on “game days” and “game nights.” On football Saturdays at Louisiana State, most students dress in the school colors of purple and gold. At Ohio State University before football games, a majority of students wear scarlet and gray to support their beloved Buckeyes, and many participate in such rituals as buying a slice of cake from the “Cake Lady” outside Ohio Stadium. Similarly, as many Indiana University
undergraduates mentioned, whatever their “home subculture,” they were Hoosier fans.
One expects collegiates to fervently support intercollegiate athletics but, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as the electronic media increasingly emphasizes sports, many vocational students have also become fans, listening to or watching the broadcasts of their universities' teams while at work or commuting. Similarly, because sports have become so central to American culture, some academic students feel compelled to follow their schools' teams or be tagged “total losers,” a fate worse than normal scholarly “nerdiness.” Only hard-core rebel students adamantly hold out, such as the female rebel who complained about sorority girls and also “dissed” college sports. However, more casual rebels like the IU Grateful Dead fans enjoy intercollegiate athletics.
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In the questionnaire for this book, students revealed how much time they spent during the average school week viewing live sports events, watching or listening to sports broadcasts on TV, radio, or on the Internet. The results indicated the major importance of athletics to contemporary collegians, particularly males: only 16 percent of men spent less than five hours per week in sports fan activities; 56 percent logged between six and fifteen hours; 19 percent, sixteen to twenty-five hours; and 9 percent, more than twenty-five. On the other hand, 71 percent of women spent less than five hours per week on this pastime; 26 percent, between six and fifteen hours; and 3 percent logged more than ten.
As always, totals varied according to type of school: male respondents at NCAA Division III schools, mainly liberal arts colleges, recorded times similar to the national women's averages, and 38 percent of the women at these colleges spent zero hours per week as sports fans. However, at NCAA Division I schools, the totals for both men and women exceeded the national averages, and, most striking, a significant percentage of male students (32 percent) spent more hours per week as sports fans than they did “studying and doing course assignments.” One respondent explained in a P.S.: “Me and my housemates really attend Bristol University, not Ohio U, but we party here in Athens.” (Bristol University is part of an ESPN advertising campaign depicting the network as a university, and its announcers as professors teaching the only worthwhile subject in Americaâsports in all its combinations and permutations.)