Caspar Benson/Getty Images
- Sami Schalk, a professor at UW-Madison, tweeted about her students struggling more than ever.
- She thinks students are struggling after the pandemic and many have to juggle jobs.
- Students also feel like there is no guaranteed future for them after graduation.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sami Schalk, an associate professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It has been edited for length and clarity.
As an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I instituted a 48-hour, no-questions-asked policy in 2020 when it became clear that my students were struggling to keep up and make the shift to online learning. If they were late to submit an assignment, they could submit it within 48 hours without me asking any questions.
In the past, I would say out of 40 assignments, maybe three or four students used it per semester. But this semester, nearly a third of the class needed an extension on every assignment.
I wondered what was going on and decided to tweet about it to ask: Is this just my students; am I just having a weird semester?
The responses were clear: There's definitely something more going on culturally, and it's not just my students or my class.
I talked to some folks at other universities who also said, "Yeah, I notice students just seem to be having a harder time this semester." Students also commented on why they were struggling.
The effects of the pandemic have lingered
Some of it, I think, is residual from the pandemic. The students that I have now who are seniors started college in 2020. They started their academic career online — having no grounding and working with professors who had never taught online before. Their entire college careers have been shaped by the pandemic. My juniors aren't that far behind; they probably had their entire senior year of high school online.
Another factor that I think is really important is that students are in a different demographic. I've only been here for six years, but when I was teaching as a grad student at my Ph.D. institution, most of my students were full-time students who were not working jobs. If they were, it was an internship here and there or a couple of hours on campus. It wasn't like they were working to make rent. But now, I see more and more of my students working. Many of them are responsible for paying for more living expenses while the cost of living is increasing dramatically.
More of my students are not simply students.
They're also fatigued over the state of the world
I teach in women's and gender studies, so my students are very politically active. In Wisconsin, we're having fights over diversity, equity, and inclusion issues now. The legislature has also proposed several transphobic laws that my students have been involved in protesting.
Not that students before weren't politically involved, but I think there's a level of fatigue around their involvement. There doesn't seem to be the same confidence that things will actually get better.
Lastly, they seem to lack a feeling of postgrad security
For a lot of my students, having a college degree may or may not make a difference in getting a job and making ends meet. Getting a high GPA might not mean anything anymore.
I had a student who was making money on TikTok who told me: "I can devote more time to this and make money right now and never get a college degree." And that's absolutely true. He stayed in school, but it speaks to the economic environment and the reality that getting a college degree is not a guarantee that you're going to win at capitalism.
I think students are a little more disillusioned. What's the difference between an A and a B anymore? Who cares? Because of that, I don't think they're as likely to prioritize school and deadlines.
I'm not changing my no-questions-asked extension policy
Depending on the student, when you combine all those things, it's a lot. And it's not that students aren't turning in good work. Students are still turning in brilliant work; they're clearly still reading and learning. But actually getting it in on time is just not quite happening.
I can give some flexibility, but there's a date on which the university says grades are due. So if I don't have what I need to give you a grade by then, then that's it — that is a hard deadline.
Next semester, I'm going to do the same thing and give my students flexibility on deadlines. I'll also talk to my teaching staff about how we can communicate better with students to figure out some ways to create a structure that is still fair to all of us.