Serving the Millennial Generation E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B SS Single Issue Student Services
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 212

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

By 2012 total college enrollment is projected to exceed 15.8million, and a new generation of students and their attitudes,beliefs, and behaviors will be in the forefront of this enrollmentboom. Now is the time for student affairs practitioners to considernew learning and service strategies, rethink student developmenttheories, and modify educational environments. This volume providesa foundation for understanding the incoming generation of studentsand to offer suggestions on how to educate and serve them moreeffectively. This best selling issue is the 106th volume of the Jossey-Basshigher education report New Directions for StudentServices.

Leseprobe

Contents

Editors’ Notes

Chapter 1: A Generational Approach to Understanding Students

Understanding Individuals and Groups

A Framework for Understanding Generations

Current Generations on Campus

Conclusions and Caveats

Chapter 2: Understanding the Historical and Cultural Influences That Shape Generations

History as a Guide for Understanding Generations

History in the Lives of Millennials

The Pop Culture Lens

Pop Culture Trends in the Lives of Millennials

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Millennials Coming to College

The Characteristics of Millennial College Students

Comparing Generational Values

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Constructions of Student Development Across the Generations

Current Models of Student Development

Millennial Implications for Student Development

Chapter 5: Teaching, Learning, and Millennial Students

Elements of Effective Teaching

Teaching Millennials

Chapter 6: Understanding Diversity in Millennial Students

Changing Student Demographics

Changes in Students’ Attitudes Toward Diversity and Social Justice Issues

Implications for Student Affairs Practice

Chapter 7: Student Affairs for a New Generation

Millennials and Student Affairs

Delivery of Services

Organizing Student Affairs Work

Conclusion

Index

Serving the Millennial Generation

Michael D. Coomes, Robert DeBard (eds.)

New Directions for Student Services, no. 106

John H. Schuh, Editor-in-Chief

Elizabeth J. Whitt, Associate Editor

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Editors’ Notes

Time flows in many ways, but two modes stand out for their prominence in nature and their symbolic role in making lives intelligible.

Time includes arrows of direction that tell stories in distinct stages, causally linked—birth to death, rags to riches.

Time also flows in cycles of repetition that locate a necessary stability amid the confusion of life—days, years, generations.

—Gould, 2003, p. 54

As Gould aptly points out, humans have a need for both arrows and cycles. The arrows of time allow us to “forge time into stories,” and the cycles of time “grant stability, predictability and place” (2003, p. 55). The purpose of this New Directions sourcebook is to explore the cycle of generations as a source of insight for making the lives of our students intelligible to student affairs personnel who will serve members of this emerging new generation.

Higher education is on the cusp of a new enrollment boom. It is estimated that by 2012 total college enrollment will exceed 15.8 million students, an increase of more than 12 percent over 2003 enrollment levels (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). The bulk of this increase will consist of traditional age students who are members of the Millennial generation. This generation of students and their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors will require student affairs practitioners to adopt new learning and service strategies, rethink student development theories, and modify educational environments. It is the goal of this New Directions sourcebook to give readers a foundation for understanding this newest generation of students and to offer suggestions on how to educate and serve them effectively.

In Chapter One, the editors present an overview of a generational model for understanding and working with college students. This foundational chapter lays the groundwork for understanding generations and provides a demographic snapshot of the four generations of students, faculty, and administrators who make up the bulk of today’s college population.

Chapter Two, by Michael D. Coomes, builds on the foundation laid in Chapter One. Coomes suggests that an understanding of the recurrent patterns of history and the influences of culture, especially popular culture, is an important tool for analyzing and appreciating generations. In addition to schemes for understanding and interpreting history and popular culture, the author suggests a set of historical and popular culture trends that are shaping the lives of the Millennial generation.

Robert DeBard uses the information presented in the first two chapters to develop a portrait of the Millennial generation in Chapter Three. A readily agreed upon set of generational characteristics have been developed to explain the Millennial generation (Strauss and Howe, 1991). DeBard discusses these characteristics and contrasts them with the generational characteristics of members of Generation X and the Baby Boom generation to explore how the values maintained by each generation can both hinder and enhance our work with students.

Student development has been the primary theoretical and philosophical foundation for student affairs work since the 1970s (Strange, 1994). In Chapter Four, C. Carney Strange uses the Millennial characteristics presented in Chapter Three to examine our existing theories of student development. In addition to presenting an overview of extant student development theories, Strange suggests how those theories may have to be expanded to account for the unique characteristics of Millennial students.

The primary mission of the university is to foster learning. Using the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering and Gamson, 1987), Maureen E. Wilson discusses how to foster learning for Millennial students in Chapter Five. Wilson discusses how to set high expectations for students, involve parents in the learning experience, employ new learning technologies, and meet the special learning needs of students with disabilities.

A defining characteristic of members of the Millennial generation is their diversity. Ellen M. Broido, the author of Chapter Six, presents a detailed examination of that diversity in all its richness (for example, race, sexual identity, political orientation). After detailing the extent of diversity within the Millennial generation, Broido discusses how educators can capitalize on that diversity to foster social justice in the college environment.

John Wesley Lowery concludes the sourcebook with a discussion of how to effectively serve Millennial students in Chapter Seven. Lowery examines how the characteristics of Millennial students require student affairs educators to rethink how they offer learning opportunities, deliver services, and organize their work. Special attention is paid to how student affairs educators can use technology to reach students who are looking for easily accessible, round-the-clock service.

Creating understanding, fostering learning, developing a thirst for social justice, and providing effective services are not new goals for the student affairs profession. What is new is the student cohort that student affairs educators will be asked to guide during the next twenty years. This generation of confident, sheltered, and conventional young adults (Howe and Strauss, 2000) offers student affairs professionals unique educational opportunities. For many midlevel and senior student affairs officers, members of the Millennial generation represent the last generation they will work with in their role as educators. As such, the education of this generation presents a unique imperative for guidance. Generations of youth are formed by exploring the values of their elders, accepting some and rejecting others. By clearly articulating their values, by socializing new students to the values of the academy, and by remaining true to the values of the student affairs profession, Baby Boomer and Generation X faculty, administrators, and staff have the opportunity to help shape the values of Millennials and the future of the nation.

References

Chickering, A. W., and Gamson, Z. F. “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” AAHE Bulletin, 1987, 39(7), 3–7.

Gould, S. J. Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball. New York: Norton, 2003.

Howe, N., and Strauss, W. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.

Strange, C. “Student Development: The Evolution and Status of an Essential Idea.” Journal of College Student Development, 1994, 35(6), 399–412.

Strauss, W., and Howe, N. Generations: The History of America’sFuture, 1584 to 2069. New York: Morrow, 1991.

U.S. Department of Education. Projections of Education Statistics to 2012 (31st ed.). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 2002.

Michael D. Coomes is associate professor of higher education and student affairs at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is the editor of The Role Student Aid Plays in Enrollment Management and coeditor of Student Services in a Changing Federal Climate in the New Directions for Student Services series.

Robert DeBard is associate professor of higher education and student affairs at Bowling Green State University, where he also serves as the interim director of the School of Leadership and Policy Studies. Author of Getting Results: A Guide to Managing Resources in Student Affairs, he was formerly the dean and campus executive officer of Firelands College of Bowling Green State University.

Chapter 1

A Generational Approach to Understanding Students

Michael D. Coomes, Robert DeBard

This chapter establishes the conceptual framework for understanding the Millennial generation by presenting a theoretical model of generational succession that demonstrates the value of studying how the values of one generation interact with and are influenced by others.

Faculty and staff working within institutions of higher education place confidence in the future through the development of college students because they have such a vested interest in their growth and development. This sense of optimism is particularly important to student affairs practitioners since the intentional outcomes of this profession have less to do with objective performance than with the more amorphous development of valued behaviors (Astin, 1995). These valued behaviors are determined through a combination of internal drive and external pressure that makes up the motivation of college students. Creating the perception that growth is positively affected by what happens in college is necessary for students and those who would sponsor their attendance. Obviously, this perception must become a demonstrated reality if intentional outcomes are to be achieved during the collegiate experience and this positive perspective is to be maintained for the future (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991).

This chapter presents a discussion of the efficacy of a generational model for understanding students (and those who work with them). A framework for understanding generations is reviewed in order to establish a template within which the Millennial generation can be placed. Finally, this introductory chapter concludes with basic demographic information about the various generations currently to be found on college campuses.

Understanding Individuals and Groups

On any given day, student affairs practitioners, regardless of level of responsibility, may find themselves counseling individual students, advising student groups, teaching in the classroom, or giving a speech before a student assembly. All of these activities require the practitioner to understand how each student is unique, how students function as groups, and how students in the aggregate respond to and shape the campus environment. The knowledge base of the profession has given student affairs educators numerous theories to assist them in working with both individuals and groups of students.

Our work with individual students has been directed by a range of psychosocial, cognitive, and typology theories (Evans, Forney, and Guido-DiBrito, 1998). Through the work of Chickering and Reisser (1993), we have come to understand the developmental tasks in which our students are engaged. Theorists such as Josselson (1987), Cross (1971), Helms (1993), and D’Augelli (1994) help practitioners understand how gender, race, and sexual orientation shape identity. The cognitive processes students use to make sense of the world are explored by Baxter Magolda (1992), King and Kitchener (1994), and Perry (1968). Finally, a number of theorists (for example, Myers, 1980) posit that personality type plays an important role in human development. (Chapter Four examines many of these theories in greater detail and explores how these theoretical perspectives may need to be revised to consider the unique characteristics of Millennial students.)

These theories all focus on different aspects of development but share a common emphasis on the individual. Other theorists have offered us group perspectives for understanding students. Theories and models for understanding groups of students can be categorized under the headings of student peer group typologies, human aggregate perspectives, and cohort models.

Sanford’s seminal The American College (1962) contains a chapter by Newcomb outlining the importance of student peer group influence. That work was extended by Clark and Trow (1966) through their development of a peer group typology that included student subcultures: academic, vocational, nonconformist, and collegiate. Using historical analysis, Horowitz (1987) finds similar student groups: college men and women, outsiders, and rebels. More recently, Kuh, Hu, and Vesper (2000) use data from the College Student Experiences Questionnaire and factor analytic techniques to develop a typology based on the activities in which students participate. They categorize students in these groups: disengaged, recreator, socializer, collegiate (similar to Clark and Trow’s collegiate and Horowitz’s college men and women), scientist, individualist, artist, grind, intellectual, and conventional. Readers are encouraged to examine the Kuh, Hu, and Vesper article as it features an excellent chart outlining a number of peer group typology models.

In addition to peer group typologies, a number of theories and models have been developed that more appropriately can be classified as human aggregate models (Strange and Banning, 2001). In addition to describing individuals, the Myers-Briggs model (Myers, 1980) can be used to explore how groups can be established on the basis of how the individuals in those groups gather information, make decisions about that information, and interact with the external world. John Holland’s model (1973) of vocational choice can be used to describe individuals and also provides us with such useful aggregate concepts as congruence, consistency, and differentiation. At the heart of the human aggregate perspective is the idea that students are attracted to, stable in, and more satisfied with environments where other members of the environment share their personality characteristics or vocational preferences. This “birds of a feather flock together” approach has been used by student affairs and academic educators to direct a range of educational practices, from roommate matching (Rogers, 1990) to academic advising (Creamer and Scott, 2000).

The final group perspective is the cohort approach to understanding students. The Cooperative Institutional Research Program has been tracking the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of first-year students since 1966. By presenting normative data on entering college students since that time, researchers are able to discern changes in patterns of belief and behavior across time. Adelman (1994) engaged in similar longitudinal analysis using the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 to draw Lessons of a Generation. Levine (1981) and Levine and Cureton (1998) used cross-sectional data to paint portraits of college students in the late 1970s and 1990s. Levine and Cureton note that, “There is a preoccupation in this country with searching out the distinctive characteristics in every new generation of young people, the ways in which the current generation seems different from the last. We then apply an appropriate sobriquet that somehow captures the salient features of the age” (1998, p. 2).

Capturing the distinctive characteristics of a generation has been used by Jones (1980) to examine the impact of the Baby Boom generation on national politics, the economy, and culture. It has also been employed by Hirsh (1998) to explain the experiences of suburban youth in the mid-1990s and by Kitwana (2002) to examine the crisis facing young blacks in America.

The most extensive articulation of a generational model is that of William Strauss and Neil Howe. Their model has been the basis for examinations of generations of college students (Komives, 1993; Howe and Strauss, 2003) and forms the conceptual framework for much of this sourcebook. As such, the Strauss and Howe model warrants further discussion.

A Framework for Understanding Generations

By studying what Strauss and Howe (1991) describe as the “peer personality” of an emerging generation such as the Millennials (students born after 1980), student affairs practitioners can better identify their students’ needs and reconcile the potential intergenerational conflicts that can emerge when values are not aligned. The relationships between Boomer generation or Generation X faculty and staff and the Millennial students now beginning to attend higher education can be better understood within the framework of generational analysis.

According to Strauss and Howe, each generation has its own biography, a biography that tells the story of how the personality of the generation is shaped and how that personality subsequently shapes other generations. In their model, generations are defined as “a cohort-group whose length approximates the span of a phase of life and whose boundaries are fixed by peer personality” (p. 60). By length, they assert that a “phase of life” involves central social roles that span a twenty-two-year period of an individual’s life. Strauss and Howe build what they admit is a “simple lifecycle framework of four life phases of equal twenty-two-year lengths. Accordingly, we define ‘youth’ as lasting from ages 0 to 21; ‘rising adulthood’ from ages 22 to 43; ‘midlife’ from ages 44 to 65; and ‘elderhood’ from ages 66 to 87” (p. 56). Echoing the work of such life-span developmentalists as Erikson (1964), Levinson and Associates (1978), and Chickering and Havighurst (1981), Strauss and Howe suggest that the life roles at each life stage are distinctly different. For youth, the central role is one of dependence and includes growing, learning, accepting protection and nurturance, avoiding harm, and acquiring values. For the rising, activities include working, starting families and livelihoods, serving institutions, and testing values. For those in the midlife stage, leadership, parenting, teaching, directing institutions, and using values become important life tasks. Finally, elderhood entails stewardship, including supervising, mentoring, channeling endowments, and passing on values.

A generation also has a peer personality, which Strauss and Howe (1991) define as a “generational persona recognized and determined by (1) common age location; (2) common beliefs and behavior; and (3) perceived membership in a common generation” (p. 64). Each of these is important, but it may be the third one that is most important. To be a generation, its members must recognize it as distinct from other generations. What leads to this recognition is the interaction the members of a new generation have with members of other generations and how they experience “social moments,” which Strauss and Howe define as “an era, typically lasting about a decade, when people perceive that historic events are radically altering their social environment” (p. 71).

This two-part interplay of one generation with another and with important social moments results in what Strauss and Howe term the “generational diagonal.” The generational diagonal acknowledges that generations are not static; they move through time influencing and being influenced by important historical events (events Strauss and Howe see as inner-oriented “spiritual awakenings” and out-oriented “secular crises”) and other generations.

The most interesting part of this theory is the idea that a generation is shaped by its interactions with other extant generations. In their newest book on Millennial students, Howe and Strauss (2003) posit a number of rules for understanding how generations move through the generational diagonal and interact with other generations:

First, each rising generation breaks with the young-adult generation, whose style no longer functions well in a new era.

Second, it corrects for what it perceives as the excesses of the current midlife generation—their parents and leaders—sometimes as a protest. . . .

Third, it fills the social role being vacated by the departing elder generation (p. 21).

As one views the current generations on college campuses, the dynamics of the interactions among these generations appear to give some credibility to these rules. Relative to the first rule, many members of the Millennial generation see themselves as a counterpoint to the generation that immediately preceded it (Generation X, or “Thirteeners”) and not an extension of it. For instance, Millennial students prefer to work in teams rather than function as free agents, as do members of Generation X. The Millennials seem to have traded the apathy and aloofness of the Xers for a desire to become involved and tend to value authority rather than to be alienated from it (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002).

At the same time, Millennials are also attempting to correct some of the excesses of Baby Boom parents and grandparents. The narcissism and iconoclasm that marked the college years of the Boomers are in the process of being replaced by the conventionality and expectation of structure on the part of members of the Millennial generation (Howe and Strauss, 2000).

Most importantly to Strauss and Howe’s theory of “generational cycles” (1991) is the relationship between the emerging Millennial students and the elderly GI generation. Howe and Strauss (2003) contend that “the most important link this ‘G.I. Generation’ has to today’s teens is the void they leave behind: No other adult peer group possesses anything close to their upbeat, high-achieving, team-playing, and civic-minded reputation” (p. 22). Perhaps because of this perceived void, adults are encouraging Millennials to adopt the values of the GI generation. For their part, Millennials, in surveys, have responded that they have the highest regard for members of the GI generation and the lowest for members of Generation X (Howe and Strauss, 2000).

To fully understand this model, it is necessary to grasp the idea of dominant and recessive generations. Strauss and Howe indicate that certain generations become “dominant” because their members need to respond to crises as they move into rising adulthood and elderhood, whereas others are recessive because of the absence of such social moments. For instance, the dominance of the GI was the result of responding to both the Great Depression and World War II. The subsequent generation, whom Strauss and Howe label “Silents,” are a recessive generation as a result of coming of age during a period of postwar peace and prosperity.

The final part of the Howe and Strauss generational theory is the manner in which the dynamics of diagonal movement result in a cycle of generational types that are recurrent in nature. In this regard, a dominant idealist generation, such as the Baby Boom generation, “grows up as increasingly indulged youths after a secular crisis” (Strauss and Howe, 1991, p. 74), as was faced by their parents, who were members of the GI generation. They are followed by a Reactive generation (Generation X) that “grows up as underprotected and criticized youths during a spiritual awakening, matures into risk-taking, alienated youths, mellows into pragmatic midlife leaders during a secular crisis and maintains respect (but less influence) as reclusive elders” (Strauss and Howe, 1991, p. 74). In the Strauss and Howe theory, this recessive generation would be followed by a dominant Civic generation, like the current Millennial generation. Members of such a generation “grow up as increasingly protected youth [who] will come of age during a secular crisis [for example, the War on Terrorism], will unite into a heroic and achieving cadre of rising adults, will build institutions as powerful midlifers and emerge as busy elders attacked by the next spiritual awakening” (Strauss and Howe, 1991, p. 74). Finally, there is a generation Howe and Strauss refer to as “Adaptive.” Their example is the Silent generation, which they describe as recessive in nature. The Silents grew up as “overprotected and suffocated youth during a secular crisis, matured into risk-averse, conformist adults, and provided indecisive midlife leaders during a spiritual awakening before moving to less respected, but sensitive elderhood” (Strauss and Howe, 1991, p. 74).

These peer personalities move along a diagonal line of life stages that are buffeted by the influences of other generation peer personalities and social moments. What is important for this sourcebook is the proposition that, if knowledge of the values and motivations of student service providers as well as those to be served is understood, some guidance can be extended to make the provision of and reaction to these services most effective.

Current Generations on Campus

Four generations currently predominate on the nation’s college campuses. In order, from the oldest to the youngest, they are Silents, Boomers, Thirteeners, and Millennials. This section presents a brief introduction to the demographics of each group as a way of setting the stage for the subsequent chapters in this sourcebook.

Silents (Birth Years 1925 to 1942)