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Mikki Burcher wrote “Washburn students rejoice” in regard to the WSGA decision to support the Faculty Senate in making the WTE an optional activity for students. But why should students rejoice?
I find trouble rejoicing at the student bodies admission that college is simply too hard. Certainly, 150 hours seems like a daunting task. However, when you consider the time spent in receiving your degree, it becomes a relatively miniscule amount of time. Further, as the 150-hour requirement pertains to the leadership and community service requirements, it seems equal parts selfish and lazy to suggest you cannot find that much time to help shape your community. I wonder what is in store for a community whose youth considers helping their neighbors an overwhelming task and a burden. Further, this argument ignores the fact that students can complete their WTE through scholarly and creative work or international study, projects that have no mandatory time limit.
I find trouble rejoicing knowing that, as the WTE becomes optional, that the already slim funding will become even smaller. The funding I received as an undergraduate at Washburn for my WTE activities was essential in allowing me to explore my world and appreciate the fullness of my Washburn education. Knowing that future students will not have the opportunities I had greatly disappoints me. It is the support I received to explore outside of campus that defined my time at Washburn. Any university can provide an education on campus, it takes a special one to encourage, and support, their students as they take their learning and apply it within the community. Washburn, at least while I was there, was that University.
I find trouble rejoicing knowing that the faculty, largely because of unhappiness with the bureaucratic process and lack of compensation for their efforts in sponsoring the WTE, have decided that this dispute between faculty and administration should have a negative impact on the student body. It is the passion for students, not opinion of administrative policy, that makes the Washburn faculty so great. I was under the impression you came to educate, to ask your students to think and encourage them to explore and make better their world, not to throw in the towel after one year of trying. I hope that this mindset, one in which problematic issues are not to be addressed, but instead to be tossed aside unsolved does not become the policy of the faculty. This is something I expect from the administration of Washburn. I know the faculty that nurtured me didn’t think that way, I wonder what has happened.
I find trouble rejoicing when Washburn administrators fail to put the effort into addressing the concerns raised by both faculty and students regarding the WTE. No doubt, faculty, stretched by hiring freezes and increased class sizes have chosen to abandon an effective teaching tool largely because of the lack of support the university showed them. With the WTE effectively ended, baring a decisive act by President Farley to fund it in way that will guarantee the program remains for those who desire to use it, one of the greatest tools to recruit the best students to Washburn will be lost. As much talk as there is surrounding retention, their seems be very little in the way of a comprehensive plan to address it. I would suggest, as a student who was benefited by the WTE, that programs like it are invaluable in growing this university. Success does not come through protected mediocrity.
I find trouble rejoicing knowing that we are more concerned about possibly losing a few students, rather than attracting the best students. While some students may be turned away from Washburn out of dislike for the WTE, those who it will attract are those who want to serve their communities, who want to be leaders, who want to take their learning and apply it in the real world, and those who wish to present the skills and knowledge they have gained at Washburn to the world at academic conferences. Do we want students who are turned off by work and high expectations or do we want to attract those who see a challenge and rise to it?
I do rejoice at the sight of those professors and students who showed support for the WTE. For those of us who actually participated in the WTE, it created opportunities and experiences that were truly transformational. For me, my Transformational Experiences were defining moments in my time at Washburn. Because of the dedicated faculty, my time at Washburn yielded much more than a simple degree. If Washburn really wants to move forward as a University it should strive to attract the best students and push them to their limits.
Brandon Wentz,
Washburn Graduate
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