Comments on: Syllabus Fantasies

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:47:19 +0000

My university has begun requiring us to use a specific format they have designed, so we don’t even have a choice in where to place what. And a central part are what I’d guess are legal pre-emptive defenses, including anticipating change of pace, disability policies, and how to address student complaints. It truly resembles more a legal contract than a teaching tool.

Looking at your Auden comparison, though, I wonder whether administrative power increases the lower you go in university hierarchy. In the 40s universities were mostly populated by a certain type of student, whereas today the obvious exchange system of degree for money is central in all school, but especially in less acclaimed tertiary schools. (Are community colleges and for profit schools considered tertiary?) So that might bring about a legal dimension that assured the “contract” as it replaces the ‘gentlemen’s agreements” of old?

By: Derek Kompare

Derek Kompare — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:58:56 +0000

Excellent analysis of the gap between Auden’s syllabus and our own today. My university may be private rather than public, but we are still required to have more or less the same sort of legalese as you listed. It’s had to grow a bit virtually every year.

There is no escape from this “contractual logic” as you put it, because it’s replicated everywhere we turn in our culture. Even if we only click “agree,” we are supposed to be reassured that there are limits and obligations of the experience embedded in ToS or EULA. And with all that money and time on the line (and up and down the chain, from students up through university presidents), there is little space for the blissfully unaccountable contemplation that Auden offered up.

By: I. Nash

I. Nash — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 19:13:36 +0000

The legalistic nature of today’s syllabi is indeed a product of the consumerist college campus — but it also indicates a big shift in the students themselves. In Auden’s day, fewer people were admitted to universities, and in order to get there, those people had to have a good deal of mental discipline and a pretty strong work ethic. There’s no need to load a syllabus with rules that everyone already knows and takes for granted.

But today, I’d estimate that a good 70% of my university students genuinely do not know how to discipline themselves to take responsibility for their own progress in the course. In other words; if we don’t spell it out for them, they don’t do it. When I don’t tell them the penalties for late work, a lot of them turn in late work. When I don’t explain and enforce rules about punctuality and attendance, many of them skip several classes or come in 20 minutes late. Then, when their grades suffer for that, they get angry and complain — because they were never TOLD they had to do otherwise.

I won’t speculate here about the reasons for this. But because this state of affairs is common (especially in public universities), legalistic syllabi are the only way professors can protect themselves from needless aggravations and conflicts. It also protects students from being penalized for something they genuinely didn’t know was wrong.

I would *love* to leave the legalistic, picayune, punitive-sounding stuff off my syllabi. But I’ve learned it’s not worth the misery that ensues. Of course, that misery still pops up sometimes — but far less than it does with no stated policies on syllabi. As institutions that serve the public, we are obligated to deal with the current-day attitudes and behaviors of the college-going public.