The 2019 Student Success Conference provided an opportunity for students to share their thoughts and concerns with faculty and staff at the University of Idaho Wednesday in the Bruce M. Pitman Center’s Vandal Ballroom.
Brian Smentkowski, the director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and host of the event, said he hopes that giving faculty and staff the opportunity to hear student input will help them be more aware of what things student want prioritized.
He said this was the second year a student success event has been held but this year they were more intentional about student participation. He said that at last years meeting only two students were present, while this year more than 30 students were at the event.
Smentkowski said one of the biggest take-aways he had from the discussion was that students were defining success differently than faculty and staff usually do.
“Typically, when we think about student success, we have a skew as a university toward the learning environment and learning experience. We think that it focuses almost exclusively on academics,” he said.
He also said through this event, he is now more aware that students’ concern about their success continues outside the classroom. He said students’ financial needs and mental health needs as examples of areas that can slip under the radar when only faculty and staff are included in the conversation about what student success is and how it should be achieved.
Cher Hendricks, vice provost for academic initiatives at UI, said the Student Success Conference is an important way for the university community to get together and share their ideas and vision for the future. She said she believes there will be tangible changes influenced by faculty members hearing student voices. A specific issue she thinks will be influenced is general education requirements.
“We have four people here today who are on the gen ed steering committee. So, to me that is a way we can actually see something happen based on the kind of suggestions that come out of this meeting,” Hendricks said.
Claire Russell, a third-year UI student majoring in human resources and marketing, said she was glad to have her voice heard at the conference. She said she was able to highlight issues for faculty and staff that they hadn’t previously considered.
“I think it was a really awesome opportunity to just let them know about all the other facets of the student’s life and the other stresses that we go through outside of the classroom,” she said.
Clayton King, a third-year UI student majoring in agribusiness and minoring in political science, said the event was a unique opportunity for him to make his voice heard. He, who is also running for ASUI president, said he often feels like he is “talking to a brick wall” when it comes to university leadership. But at this event he said he felt as though the faculty and staff in attendance really did listen to him.
“We were talking about how students want a connection with faculty, and we want to connect with our advisors,” King said. “We want to build connections with them, and I think they took that to heart.”
Gavin Green can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @gavingreenphoto
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of both Brian Smentkowski and Cher Hendricks.