Shared Vision at Illinois and Elsewhere

I would agree that engagement/disengagement with students is very similar to Senge’s issue of commitment, compliance, and apathy in shared vision. I liked the way Senge defined the difference between a person with compliance and a person with commitment. He stated that the compliant person with will follow the rules of the “game”, but a person with commitment will be willing to change any rules that stand between them and winning the “game”. The engaged students with a commitment to their own education will seek out experiences beyond those required. They are the ones that attend special lectures, become involved in a professional organization, and stop by to talk and ask professors about their research. The disengaged students with a compliant attitude toward their education follow every rule and recommendation to achieve their goal of graduating and looking good to employers. Some of them strive to achieve 4.0s and do research to enhance their resume, but ultimately see in all of their tasks merely a means to an end.

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Not very many students have a vision of their own learning. True to the compliance nature of many students, their “vision” is to “win the game” by “following the rules”, and thus do well in school and get a good job. A few students have a personal vision of their own education, and although their peers may sometimes see them as “dreamers”, they are willing to break all the rules, to climb mountains, and cross seas to accomplish their ideals. These are the ones that end up doing great things, much greater than just building great resumes.

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How can U of I create a shared vision for students’ education? Well, I believe the difficulty of achieving a shared vision increases exponentially with the size of the university. First of all, larger schools have more bureaucracy and rules toward educational procedure, which gives students an obstacle to being commited if in their own mind a rule of the university is preventing their personal vision of education from being realized. This happened to me recently as I went to see if a class I want to take (ECON 302) could be applied toward general education for me, an engineer. But despite the appearance of a class that could help me become more well-rounded, it did not fulfill the criteria that university put forth as a firm basis for what classes can be gen eds, such as having a writing requirement. Anyway, it would help to bring each student’s vision of their education into a university shared vision if the rules were more flexible to the vision and intent of learning for the individual.

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Another reason that larger institutions like Illinois have a harder time creating a shared vision is student feelings of insignificance. When students seem insignificant and can’t see their impact on education around them-such as asking a question in a lecture class of 700- they fall into compliance or apathy. It was interesting to read about the rule of 150 in The Tipping Point because it explains the issue of large groups very well. In small groups (~150 or less) students are able to know enough of the rest of the individuals for a subconscious accountability to become innate to the group, where members know who does what. In this case organization and coordination of goals and vision is easier than large groups. In larger groups the students feel more “on their own” in such a sea of young people, and it becomes very hard to perceive the status of others and one’s own status in the group, whether they are doing right, wrong, or nothing. According to Gladwell, these larger groups need much more elaborate organizational structures to keep a singular focus or vision for the group. Thus, U of I can facilitate creating shared vision of undergraduate education by breaking learning units (i.e. classes) into more manageable sizes. The question is whether this can be done cost effectively with peer mentors, or the stronger leadership of teaching assistants is needed.

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A third reason that comes to mind on how Illinois struggles to create shared vision in such a huge student body is the prevalence of “distractions”. It is no surprise to anyone in the class that many students find it very easy to get into the party/drinking scene at U of I, perhaps as a combination of the wide number of fraternities/sororities and the already alienating character of an enormous student body. There are even a large number of professional societies that promote such things (i.e. engineering barcrawls). In addition, I observe a multiplying effect of each student that takes to the distractions and provokes interest and acceptance by each of his or her peers. Although many would argue that students that are heavy into partying are making their own choices, students make there own choices on every college campus in the United States, and yet here we are, with certain large “party school” campuses sticking out of the crowd. Point being that a suggestion for promoting shared vision at U of I, more initiative could be taken to lessen negative distractions on and around the campus community.

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While the individual vision of a professor or administrator to create within the University a shared vision of undergraduate education is a very worthy pursuit, it is a formidable task that will require committed faculty and students, willing to break rules, climb mountains, and cross seas in order to "win" the realization of our ideal.