How to enhance the greatness of the OCC and vanquish the naysayers: A proposal
[The Pitt News, Mar. 26, 2013]
The Outside the Classroom Curriculum, a paternalistic scheme that corrupts people’s incentives, demeans human potential, degrades the value of a Pitt degree and overall defrauds students of tuition dollars in the sustenance of a useless program ... right?
Wrong. The brainchild of Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey, the OCC, could actually be unambiguously useful — that is, for a small number of marginal, truly sad individuals.
For everyone I know who completed the OCC, the program failed in its stated mission. They would say otherwise, but don’t let that distract you: Every member of the OCC Honorary Society would have been well-rounded and involved on campus without green sweatshirts, green cords, deluxe breakfasts and special access to employers pushing them along.
Far from stimulating the “whole student” or providing a “systematic way to develop yourself,” the OCC serves mostly as an external recognition device, providing administrative back-patting for the same kinds of activities that students once completed with only intrinsic motivation (such as attending the opera, Pitt Make a Difference Day or basketball games). As Robert Beecher, chair of the Student Government Board’s Governmental Relations Committee, said on WPTS radio before spring break, “You’ve done so many of these things already, why not go ahead and complete it and get the benefits?”
So it’s not that the OCC offers zero benefit for the already-involved student: Padding egos with Humphrey’s approval, resumés with another credential and stomachs with free, tuition-funded food could all be a good thing. But the OCC cannot achieve its stated objectives with any student who already gets out of bed in the morning: It’s just not going to increase well-roundedness, at least as far as we can measure.
The OCC is not a focused incentive scheme directed toward a public-health concern like smoking or toward an environmental concern like recycling. It rides on much grander ambition, grander even than those of Pitt’s academic schools: to build within people everything it means to be a “student,” a word that in education’s case is nothing but proxy for “human being.”
Here’s the OCC in a nutshell: Satisfy requirements in 10 areas, and voila, you are a well-rounded student — a “whole” human being. We should be deeply suspicious of any effort like this. Forcing the expanse of human potential into tidy categories is an exercise fraught with peril and doubt. We shouldn’t trust anyone who tries, be they humanist scholars or non-academic administrators such as Humphrey.
Even if student input buttresses and streamlines the categories, as in the recent changes to the OCC requirements, the categories inevitably fail to account for all the nuance that makes us “whole;” they will assign too much weight to some things, not enough to others, and none to what could be essential to “wholeness.” According to the OCC mindset, if all the art you “appreciate” during college comes from Hollywood studios, or if working two jobs to pay tuition keeps you from attending an event offered by the Cross-Cultural Leadership Development Center, you are less whole (and ineligible for the green cord).
Thus, the OCC claims the impossible power to compare students’ humanity. In reality, all the OCC does is compare whether students say they participated in activities that happen to appear on a certain list. The OCC claims distinction where none exists: Once a student walks outside, he is no more or less “whole” or “rounded” than a student who drowns himself in a sea of campus responsibilities.
So if not to determine who’s “whole” and who’s not, why have the OCC? The division of Student Affairs, which administers the OCC, sure seems committed to convincing us of its value — note the flashy graphics and the recent promotional videos flush with student actors speaking from scripts.
For one, the OCC could increase the use of Student Affairs services. At a time when tuition rates and student debt levels spiral upward and when governmental appropriations dangle in uncertainty, universities feel pressure to cut costs, and administrators must then justify their programs (Pitt spent almost $120 million on student services in 2012). Popularity can be powerful justification: If you offer students cookies (let’s say recognition and credit) to participate in services offered by your campus office, students will likely participate more, and you will easily convince the University to maintain your funding level. Is it then any surprise that the OCC core requirements explicitly list no less than 17 services and opportunities through Student Affairs?
Another reason to have the OCC, so Student Affairs argues, is job opportunities. Of course, this couldn’t mean boosting students’ chances at employment after graduation — if the credential actually had market value, don’t you think the underlying activity would be monitored, like for a real degree? (Students can log on to the OCC website and attest to what they’ve achieved without oversight). Instead, the sure-fire job opportunities that the OCC creates apply to Student Affairs employees, all by the aforementioned pathway of reinforced participation.
So with practically everyone who completes the OCC no more “whole” or employable thanks to it, the program fails in its primary mission. But perhaps the program just isn’t catering to the right audience. Unless we want the OCC to go down in history as no more than a personal record of campus involvement with perks, we must rebrand it.
As a fresh start, we should push the OCC as a welfare program for the few students who could help the OCC fulfill its mission: Those who are marginally, debatably human. I’m talking about zombies, vampires and those of us who, despite normal capacities, lack interest in doing anything other than staring at blank walls.
Otherwise, of course, the OCC is completely superfluous.
Email Matt at [email protected] to tell him what kind of personality he should construct as he checks boxes on the OCC’s website before the April 26 deadline for seniors.
The Outside the Classroom Curriculum, a paternalistic scheme that corrupts people’s incentives, demeans human potential, degrades the value of a Pitt degree and overall defrauds students of tuition dollars in the sustenance of a useless program ... right?
Wrong. The brainchild of Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey, the OCC, could actually be unambiguously useful — that is, for a small number of marginal, truly sad individuals.
For everyone I know who completed the OCC, the program failed in its stated mission. They would say otherwise, but don’t let that distract you: Every member of the OCC Honorary Society would have been well-rounded and involved on campus without green sweatshirts, green cords, deluxe breakfasts and special access to employers pushing them along.
Far from stimulating the “whole student” or providing a “systematic way to develop yourself,” the OCC serves mostly as an external recognition device, providing administrative back-patting for the same kinds of activities that students once completed with only intrinsic motivation (such as attending the opera, Pitt Make a Difference Day or basketball games). As Robert Beecher, chair of the Student Government Board’s Governmental Relations Committee, said on WPTS radio before spring break, “You’ve done so many of these things already, why not go ahead and complete it and get the benefits?”
So it’s not that the OCC offers zero benefit for the already-involved student: Padding egos with Humphrey’s approval, resumés with another credential and stomachs with free, tuition-funded food could all be a good thing. But the OCC cannot achieve its stated objectives with any student who already gets out of bed in the morning: It’s just not going to increase well-roundedness, at least as far as we can measure.
The OCC is not a focused incentive scheme directed toward a public-health concern like smoking or toward an environmental concern like recycling. It rides on much grander ambition, grander even than those of Pitt’s academic schools: to build within people everything it means to be a “student,” a word that in education’s case is nothing but proxy for “human being.”
Here’s the OCC in a nutshell: Satisfy requirements in 10 areas, and voila, you are a well-rounded student — a “whole” human being. We should be deeply suspicious of any effort like this. Forcing the expanse of human potential into tidy categories is an exercise fraught with peril and doubt. We shouldn’t trust anyone who tries, be they humanist scholars or non-academic administrators such as Humphrey.
Even if student input buttresses and streamlines the categories, as in the recent changes to the OCC requirements, the categories inevitably fail to account for all the nuance that makes us “whole;” they will assign too much weight to some things, not enough to others, and none to what could be essential to “wholeness.” According to the OCC mindset, if all the art you “appreciate” during college comes from Hollywood studios, or if working two jobs to pay tuition keeps you from attending an event offered by the Cross-Cultural Leadership Development Center, you are less whole (and ineligible for the green cord).
Thus, the OCC claims the impossible power to compare students’ humanity. In reality, all the OCC does is compare whether students say they participated in activities that happen to appear on a certain list. The OCC claims distinction where none exists: Once a student walks outside, he is no more or less “whole” or “rounded” than a student who drowns himself in a sea of campus responsibilities.
So if not to determine who’s “whole” and who’s not, why have the OCC? The division of Student Affairs, which administers the OCC, sure seems committed to convincing us of its value — note the flashy graphics and the recent promotional videos flush with student actors speaking from scripts.
For one, the OCC could increase the use of Student Affairs services. At a time when tuition rates and student debt levels spiral upward and when governmental appropriations dangle in uncertainty, universities feel pressure to cut costs, and administrators must then justify their programs (Pitt spent almost $120 million on student services in 2012). Popularity can be powerful justification: If you offer students cookies (let’s say recognition and credit) to participate in services offered by your campus office, students will likely participate more, and you will easily convince the University to maintain your funding level. Is it then any surprise that the OCC core requirements explicitly list no less than 17 services and opportunities through Student Affairs?
Another reason to have the OCC, so Student Affairs argues, is job opportunities. Of course, this couldn’t mean boosting students’ chances at employment after graduation — if the credential actually had market value, don’t you think the underlying activity would be monitored, like for a real degree? (Students can log on to the OCC website and attest to what they’ve achieved without oversight). Instead, the sure-fire job opportunities that the OCC creates apply to Student Affairs employees, all by the aforementioned pathway of reinforced participation.
So with practically everyone who completes the OCC no more “whole” or employable thanks to it, the program fails in its primary mission. But perhaps the program just isn’t catering to the right audience. Unless we want the OCC to go down in history as no more than a personal record of campus involvement with perks, we must rebrand it.
As a fresh start, we should push the OCC as a welfare program for the few students who could help the OCC fulfill its mission: Those who are marginally, debatably human. I’m talking about zombies, vampires and those of us who, despite normal capacities, lack interest in doing anything other than staring at blank walls.
Otherwise, of course, the OCC is completely superfluous.
Email Matt at [email protected] to tell him what kind of personality he should construct as he checks boxes on the OCC’s website before the April 26 deadline for seniors.
