J
Oampus Voice
Wednesday, September 9,2009 [The Blue Banner)
{The
anner}
Page 20
Wanted: improved on-campus communication
Generational stereotypes remain prevalent between faculty and students
Fact or fiction?
College students are coddled,
lazy, irresponsible and impulsive
individuals. Professors are tra
ditional, boring, controlling and
conservative. Well, these are the
stereotypes. UNC Asheville psy
chology professor Ann Weber
presents a very interesting per
spective on this issue.
“College professors have gen
erational stereotypes about their
students, and students have gen
erational stereotypes about their
professors. That doesn’t mean
that they are necessarily true,”
Weber said.
Professors and students should
learn to work through stereotypes
because they can learn from each
other.
“I had a homework assign
ment once that was called ‘Keep
Dr. Weber Cool’,” Weber said. “I
would ask my students to send
me the music, fashions and trends
that they liked. I have to say, what
I received was very interesting.”
If the major differences between
students and their professors are
generational, we should not only
recognize these differences, but
also try to work through them.
“Overall, stereotypes in general
are just superficial,” Weber said.
“Professors have many general
izations about students at first, but
once they are able to get to know
their students, the stereotypes go
away.”
Teens and 20-year-olds are the
Millennial Generation and people
between the ages of 30 and 60
are either Generation X or baby
boomers, according to McCrindle
research, an organization dedicat
ed to studying generational pat
terns and demographic trends.
Is it a disadvantage if your col-
By Precious Barksdale
Staff Writer
PJBARKSD@UNCA.EDU
lege professor grew up around the
same time as your parents? If so,
doesn’t this mean the same gen
eralizations your parents make
about you are the same as your
professor’s?
“Many professors are the par
ents of millennial children. We
raised you, we protected you,
entertained you, we did every
thing. And as a result, we spoiled
you into thinking that everything
should be handed to you,” Weber
said.
Regardless of the circumstanc
es, every student, at one time or
another, probably encountered an
older person comparing them to a
generational stereotype.
“The younger generation is
viewed by the older generation as
unsophisticated, uninformed and
less serious,” Weber said. “These
are all classic stereotypes about
adolescents.”
According to the McCrindle
group, the baby boomer or Gen
eration X professors are authori
tative, responsible and strict.
While professors have stereo
types about the younger genera
tion, students also have stereo
types about the older generation.
“My strict high school teacher
told me to be responsible in col
lege because professors don’t
remind you of when things are
due,” said freshman Hannah Orr.
“He also said that professors are
a little crazy and sometimes make
More assessment
programs would
provide more
opportunities for
both students
and professors
to critique each
other.
bad jokes. I’ve found that to be
true at UNCA.”
The biology student says she
knew her professors would try to
relate to students in her genera
tion in some way.
“Sometimes I think when pro
fessors try to relate to students it
doesn’t work, but it also depends
on the student,” Orr said.
Orr also says she recalls a time
when her professor was more le
nient when she injured herself.
“I also didn’t expect my pro
fessors to be OK with me missing
class for a couple of days, even
though it was because I fell off of
my bunk bed,” Orr said.
More assessment programs
would provide more opportunities
for both students and professors
to critique each other.
Assessment programs that exist
at UNCA are the national survey
of student engagement, the vol
untary support of accountability
and the collegiate learning assess
ment.
“When I was in college, I had a
lot of stereotypes about my profes
sors. I thought they were absent-
minded nerds who always spilled
coffee on the papers they were
grading,” said associate professor
of psychology Mark Harvey.
Harvey calls stereotypes “il
lusory correlations defined as
beliefs that inaccurately suppose
a relationship between a certain
type of action or an effect.”
“An example would be if some
one says it always rains when I
wash my car,” Harvey said. “Be
cause an individual always refers
to when they washed their car and
it rained, they maintained that
stereotype based on that one in
stance.”
Stereotypes cause a lot of mis
conceptions between the inten
tions of college students and their
professors.
“Some stereotypes that the old
er generation have about college
students I would definitely ques
tion, such as being cynical, or un
interesting, but a lot of stereotypes
I hear are positive,” Harvey said.
Though some are positive, ste
reotypes overall are misleading,
unnecessary and almost always
incorrect.
“I only hear positive things
that professors say about their
students. The professors here are
very grateful to have students who
are just willing to learn,” Harvey
said.
Accepting the generational dif
ferences and working through
them can only help, not hinder,
the relationship between students
and their professors.
“Because our way of learn
ing as a student was different,
we should work together to learn
things about each other and our
differences and appreciate the
things that are great and accept the
things that we don’t understand
about each other,” Weber said.