YETMO

”Driving Mister Jason"

A quarter of a century has passed since I've been on a college campus for any reason other than merely passing through. However, three times in three weeks this summer, my family and I made the trip between Falls Church, Virginia, and Morgantown, West Virginia, to check out the University of West Virginia University (WVU), that is, home of the Mountaineers.

When my son graduated from high school, he was uncertain of his higher education plans. As a teenager, he was uncertain of a lot of future plans of any type. Shortly before graduation, he and his high school counselor, scouted around for colleges with so-called "rolling admissions." That allows you to apply at the last minute and still stand a chance of being accepted.

That's what happened with my son, Jason. After multiple trips to Morgantown, meetings and discussions with university officials, and orientation sessions, he's now a bona fide college freshman at a university known for its partying reputation. Egad!

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the parent/teenager relationship, and some would say the only, is the process of college shopping. Parent and child work together to evaluate possible schools and even plan a joint visit one or two. It's exciting for both parties. It's also scary -- financially for the parent, and emotionally for the child. The child, I guess I should say "young adult" (looks like there's a bit of a parental emotional adjustment too) realizes that his/her life begins NOW and the choices to forge a future belong to him/her, not to the parents. This can be heavy, frightening stuff.

Of course, we parents, as former young adults, somehow made it through and we know our offspring will also. We know, too, that despite the fear, this is an exhilarating time because at last you, the college student, as a person, are making your own decisions and that can be very satisfying, not to mention extremely educational at times.

As a parent, I'm petrified financially. So are all other parents of college-bound students. So what! Next subject.

Speaking of "subjects," what was most curious to me in this whole process was how WVU freshmen classes were determined. Placement tests were administered in Math, Reading, English, and Chemistry.

You've heard so much about the educational crisis in this country today. As an "off-campus" graduate student in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, I've been bombarded in books and class discussions with accounts of the perceived sagging quality of American education. You undoubtedly have heard that many American educators note that the Japanese secondary school system is so rigorous that their high school diploma is equivalent to a U.S. University baccalaureate degree.

Not having been to college for 25 years, I do not know how other universities are dealing with this issue, but WVU will take those students scoring below a certain level in the placement tests and assign them to non-credit "workshop" courses which they must successfully complete before moving on to college-level material.

Ambivalent is how I feel about this. Certainly I am discouraged because this reinforces the conventional wisdom that some "young adults" are admitted to college without being fully prepared for the wide range of subjects awaiting them. But I also feel a strange sense of comfort that at least one major American university is doing something positive to help students know where they stand academically and assist them in succeeding at the university level.

Some may say this is a form of "tracking," which, in my masters degree program, is considered anathema. Ah, tracking! That controversial practice that identifies students by "ability" and segregates them accordingly. I won't discuss the pro's and con's because they are fairly apparent, but opponents' biggest criticism is that it preconditions children, especially underachievers, to believe that their educational and intellectual condition is likely to remain static, and that the true value of classroom "effort" (read: "hard work") is overlooked. In short, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, where the weak students stay weak and the strong stay strong.

Whatever argument you support, as a paying parent, I was favorably impressed by this University's acknowledgement of what is, and taking meaningful steps to address the relative academic readiness of their freshmen. Once the placement tests are taken and workshops assignments made, students still have a wide-range of available support services in addition to normal academic counseling with their advisors: free tutoring, dormitories with study halls and assigned quiet hours, psychological counseling, and more.

This is not an advertisement for WVU, but as you can see, I'm a convert. Despite the revolutionary intellectual activity we associate with universities, they are also notorious for being staid, conservative, and stuck in their ways. It's nice to see that one school looks at the world with open eyes and meets the needs of its consumers -- the undergraduate students.