The Rocket

Issue date: 5/2/08 Section: Opinion

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Finals Week. The time to display all of the knowledge garnered throughout the entire semester.

I know we've probably all taken an uncomfortably large class or two this semester, and what can we say we've learned from those classes?

Slippery Rock has over 8,000 students attending for a variety of degrees.

It is not a small, private, liberal arts school; it is a public university…and as most students and professors know, the class sizes are huge.

I can only speak to English classes because that is my major, but I know that the number of students in a class is rising all across the campus.

Therefore, I think it's time that we, as a campus, think more about the quality of education at Slippery Rock, and most other public schools.

The educational system is salvageable, and I think we should focus on how we can change things rather than running or turning away from problems.

If you take a look in SRU's schedule, you can see many classes with 50+ students in them.

I'm not sure how professors are supposed to gauge how well students are achieving what the Liberal Studies guide calls "Outcomes for Student Learning and Development" with 49 people in an "Interpreting Literature" class.

Even the best professor would find a formidable task in teaching 49 students to analyze and interpret literature, much less write about it intelligently.

If nothing else, it certainly would not lead too much of a discussion about literature, it would just become a professor telling you how they interpret literature, and how you should, too.

If we continue on this path, education will become less about learning, and more about schooling. How many students can we shuffle into these "cattle call" classes? Creative Writing classes in my major have between 20 and 29 people. The National Council of Teachers of English says that college writing classes should have no more than 20 people in a classroom.

So I guess my potential Creative Writing degree from Slippery Rock will show that I thought about creatively writing, but couldn't legitimately put it into practice through work shopping and feedback because there were too many people in the class.

I'm sure glad that the "real world" doesn't know about that. I might not be able to get in a decent graduate school if they knew that my schooling focused more on how many people they could get in a class, rather the quality of education.

I don't want this column to be construed as an attack on the professors here.

A lot of professors at this university are really intelligent people, are incredibly interested in a variety of subjects, and love to teach.

It's not their fault that the administration values the amount of money they can get from an extra 10 more students in a class rather than what the students can learn from the class. This "diploma mill" mentality is not the direct fault of the professors.

I also don't want to be picking specifically on Slippery Rock for class sizes. Lots of universities have glossed over quality education in favor of quantity.

It's all about profit over education.

Public universities are becoming, essentially, grade 13.

A lot of students are only going through the motions of getting a degree, in hopes of graduating and moving on to graduate school, or getting a job they might not otherwise get without a college "education."

Personally, I get what I can out of a class. I've had some really great classes, but there have also been classes that I certainly could have benefited more from had there been more discussion time rather than simply lecture time.

I often find it very hard to achieve the level of education through discussion and communication that I want from a lot of my classes here. Professors are great to talk to after class, but in big classes, I feel alienated and removed.

Discussion is quelled in favor of lecture and quick-and-dirty assessment.

If you have a pulse and can pass the test, public universities are more than willing to take your money…but what do students truly learn from these classes?

It's time that the University, as well as the country, takes a good look at what we consider "higher education." It has been edging perilously close to simply churning out mindless graduates for years now.

I'd just like to remind everybody that the "pen is mightier than the sword," but swords are illegal on campus, so I like to discuss the University's qualities through words.

I hope that my columns, especially this one, have opened your eyes to what I think is really going on in the world. And don't worry, I'll make sure to keep doing that until I graduate, or until all the wrongs have been righted.

Lisbeth Wells-Pratt is a sophomore creative writing major and a regular contributor to The Rocket.

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