In
most of my training seminars and workshops I tell the audiences that
people were given two ears and one mouth for a definite reason. To tell
us to listen twice as much as we speak. Now, I realize that is not what
we in academia do well. We are speakers; not listeners. After all, it
would get very quiet in a classroom if faculty did not speak and
lecture. But
the same is not true for administrators. We forget that the job is no
longer to lecture to others but to minister to their needs.
I
would be remiss if I didn’t state that I learned that by acting like I
had two mouths and one ear. I like many other administrators thought was
an administrator because I knew things and was capable of getting them
done. So my assumption was that what I had to say was important. More
important than listening to others and learning from them. Took me a
while but I finally learned the lesson. That was not just important to
me as an administrator but now in life as a student and consultant of
academic customer service.
If
I hadn’t learn to use my ears I would have done what so many schools do
and assume I know what students want and need. There would be no need
to find out what students think or really want. I would already know.
Even if I felt it was important to hear from students, I would create
surveys that would be self-fulfilling prophecies for example. I’d
already know the answers after all. But I did learn and so I and my
entire group really ask and listen to students. And here is what we
learned this year.
The
study compares what 400 faculty and administrators think the 600
students we interviewed want and need versus what students said they
actually want. The differences are illuminating
.
What Faculty ad Administrators Think Students Want
5. More Parking4. No reading assignments3. Short classes2. A minimum of homework1. Good grades with little effort
And What the Students Said They Want
5. More parking4 Safety in the parking lots and buildings3. Instructors who know their names and staff/administrators who care2. The correct course when they need to take it1. An environment that encourages and supports their learning.
The only area that there is correspondence of opinions is in the area of parking.
It seems that legs are becoming vestigial. No one wants to walk. In
fact, behind the correspondence is a wish to be able to park right
inside the classroom or office. Maybe we should all be building
drive-ins so no one would have to even get out of their cars.
The
differences belie some very interesting points. The faculty and
administrators’ views of what students want indicates a rather negative
attitude toward the students they are supposed to educate. It seems they
bought the stereotypical belief that today’s students are
under-prepared, lazy, coddled children who demand high grades. That
should not surprise mist people since that is a rather prevalent belief
on most campuses. It is usually expressed by the statement that “admissions needs to recruit better students.”
With
a belief that the students are sub-par, it is no wonder that schools
fail to meet their real needs. They don’t care to do so. If a person
feels that another is below them or not up to their expectations, they
will necessarily treat them in an inferior manner. This degraded
attitude is a definite cause of weak customer service that leads to
retention problems.
Review the thoughts the students presented. Taking them seriously and learning from them will help any school.
TWO BOOKS FOR THE COST OF ONE
Purchase a copy of From Admissions to Graduation: Increasing Success Through Academic Customer Service and get a copy of Customer Service Factors and the Cost of Attrition Free.
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