Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a three-part series on academic responsibilities.
Freshman students often have trouble adjusting to college coursework their first semesters, and this fall a whopping number of them had difficulty passing one class in particular: LA 101.
Advising and Tutoring Coordinator Sandy Davidson is teaching LA 101 this spring to those students who did not pass the class in the fall. Eighteen students are enrolled in the course, but Davidson said two of them did not fail originally.
“I’m taking a different approach with this group,” she said. “I think they’re going to be good, though. They seem glad to be there.”
Donald Hatcher, director of the liberal arts and critical thinking program, said a couple of students failed the section he taught.
“They basically just stopped turning in their stuff,” Hatcher said.
Ten years ago, Hatcher taught a section of LA 101 to students who failed their first time taking the course.
“I was humbled,” he said. “I wrote the book, so I thought if anyone could teach the material, it would be me. Some kids just don’t get it, though.”
Hatcher said he was surprised at the number of students struggling with the liberal arts program this year.
“I’m concerned about this,” he said. “We really set the course up so that nobody should fail. There is so much one-on-one interaction between the student and professor that it should just be impossible.”
Freshman Elliott Harvey agreed the class was not too difficult.
“Some things were hard, of course,” he said. “It wasn’t so hard that you should fail, though. I think people just stop trying.”
Hatcher said the number of students failing the course this fall was much higher than in previous years, 27 to be exact.
“We’ve been doing (the liberal arts program) for 17 years,” he said. “Usually, we have about three or five kids fail. Almost nobody failed before, which was good.”
Sophomore Kolby Lanning said he could sympathize with the frustrations students had in LA 101.
“I learned a whole different method of writing in high school,” he said. “I got confused in LA 101 because I was so plugged in to the other method.”
Not all students thought the liberal arts classes were difficult, however. Senior Bliss Hartnett said she thought that LA 101 was helpful.
“I actually enjoyed my paper,” she said. “I learned a lot from my professor, too.”
Davidson said she knows several Baker graduates who said the liberal arts program was helpful to them in the real world.
“You have to learn how to write arguments,” she said. “No matter what job you have, writing is essential.”
