Students speak out on UW challenges

As the student panel was introduced for the second forum of "Is the UW Academically Challenging?" panelist Kate McDaniel motioned in the crowd forming at the doors of the already-packed Mary Gates 389.

Fifty or so students then poured into the open aisles. Mediator George Bridges, associate dean of undergraduate education, took one look and turned to the audience.

"Obviously there's been a strong response," he said, which could sum up yesterday's entire forum.

Hundreds of students, some faculty and some administrators used the forum to respond -- often openly and vocally -- to the original question posed by RegentWilliaml Gates that gave the series its title.

Sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education and the UW Teaching Academy, yesterday's forum allowed students to offer perspectives on challenges presented by the UW.

Many of the comments made during the often loud and lively debate suggested that it is on students to challenge themselves, it is important for professors to engage students and it is necessary for all parties to remember the obligations students hold outside the classroom.

Student theater group UWOnCue opened the event, reading remarks by students on UW challenges out loud to the audience.

"It is disturbing to look out over a class of 300 and know you mean nothing to the professor," was one quote, the theme of which was revisited throughout the event.

Presenters from the UW Study of Undergraduate Learning (UW SOUL) followed, giving statements compiled from students all over campus. Many of those comments followed the theme that learning at the UW is a matter of real-life experience combined with classroom academics.

"What we learn in the classroom is just a fraction of what we are learning here," read Andrew Fisher, an undergraduate research assistant with UW SOUL, from that organization's report.

Five student panelists formed the centerpiece of the forum, each panelist relating experiences with classes that ranged from the challenging to the inconsequential.

McDaniel, a senior philosophy major, said that rather than focusing on broadly challenging students, professors should realize that different students experience different stages of intellectual development.

"What we want to see is challenges at the [current] stage of our intellectual development," she said.

Jeremiah Murphy, a physics and astronomy senior, said challenges to undergraduates rest in their ability to engage new concepts rather than their ability to deal with stupefying loads of coursework.

"[Learning] is just basically challenging views, not necessarily hard work," he said.

On the flip side, Murphy and the other panelists agreed that classes that offered little or no student input were classes that would receive little or no student interest.

Murphy's example was "the typical, large introductory survey class, where the atmosphere of the lecture is, well, a lecture."

However, Christina Roberts , a panelist and a senior CHID major, made a point that even the most seemingly banal 101 course holds potential for learning if students chooses to embrace it of their own volition.

"I can't say that one class didn't challenge me in one way or another," she said.

After the panelists spoke, the forum was open to audience comment -- with many students jumping at the opportunity.

Teresa Huarte, sophomore art major, attacked the passivity of apathetic students on campus.

"People who sit in the back of the class are not going to be challenged. The people who are most challenging to everyone else are the students who don't challenge themselves," she said.

Junior biology major Sonia Carney attacked classes that challenged students to the point of despair, relating a story of an exam that flunked the overwhelming majority of students who attempted it.

"When you leave the students feeling hopeless, they'll feel challenged, but in a way they've destroyed themselves," she said.