Lazy learning leads to A’s

In most lecture classes, attendance doubles on test days.

Many college students have found tools designed to supplement learning, like Blackboard and other online tools, as excuses to not go to their classes.

Law and political science professor David Adamany said a lack of attendance reflects the general attitude of students toward college.

“Students are quite casual about attendance at classes. This may reflect a change in attitude toward college generally,” he said. “At one time, the opportunity to attend college was fairly limited, and the students who enrolled were motivated to get an education.”

In associate professor Ralph Young’s classes, turnout is high.

“Attendance is usually excellent. There are always a few who are chronically late or absent,” he said. “I never find more than 10 percent absent.”

When it comes to attendance and preparation, Temple students’ opinions vary.

Freshman architecture major Daniel Donovan said attendance in his lecture classes is not as important as others.

“I don’t always go to all my lectures,” Donovan said. “And while missing a few isn’t the end of the world, missing too many can become a problem especially if you don’t use the time it creates wisely.”

Megan Baumel, a freshman therapeutic recreation major, said she regularly attends her classes, however, does not find the assigned readings to be essential to earning good grades.

“Three out of four of my classes have readings to keep up with on the syllabus. I have not opened any of my books since the first week of classes.”

“I feel like I need to be in all of my classes except for math, which is algebra,” she added. “I have a very easy time, and all the notes are online so there is really not a need to go to class.”

Senior math major Tiana Britton said she feels differently about attendance.

“I can’t afford wasting my money by simply not going to class,” Britton said.

She said she regularly attends all of her classes and keeps up with her assignments.

Britton said she did not find her classes as challenging when she was a freshman, but now, feels the need to keep up with all of her work.

Attendance and preparation for classes depend on the strictness of the professor and the availability of resources outside of class. Many professors put their presentations on Blackboard, which helps students keep up when absent. However, Britton said she still feels she needs to be present.

“It depends on the class and how the professor teaches, with PowerPoint or not,” she said. “But I usually feel like I need to go.”

“Lack of attendance could be due to a number of things such as students’ laziness, other involvements, whether or not the professor takes attendance and even the professors teaching style, lecture, PowerPoint etcetera,” Baumel said.

Adamany agrees technology might make students feel less guilty about missing class.

“An additional factor may be technology. Students are accustomed to believing that everything will be found on the Internet or will be communicated as copies of PowerPoints or will be somewhere available,” he said. “Believing they will get the information they need elsewhere, they may not see a need to attend class.”

Young said poor attendance is only hurts the students.

“Of course it depends on the student. Some grasp an awful lot just from the lectures and class discussion. Some need to do more work than others,” he said. “When students shirk their work, and I did this myself in college, they’re only hurting themselves. If you’re paying good tuition money to go through college why not maximize your investment?”

Students who do not regularly attend class still claim to do well enough with their grades. “There is no doubt that there is a very significant grade inflation, so students who put in minimal effort and have only erratic attendance nonetheless expect to receive honors grades,” he said. “This is a national phenomenon. Three years ago even Princeton [University] had to impose a limit on the percentage of ‘A’ grades instructors could award in undergraduate classes.”

Adamany said reports on Temple grading practices several years ago showed 74 percent of undergraduate grades are ‘A’s or ‘B’s. Some Temple academic programs have higher percentages than others.

“Yet class attendance is spotty, so many students earning high grades are not regularly attending,” he said.

“I cannot make choices for students,” Adamany said. “I set down expectations, carefully prepare for each class, assist students that seek assistance and give examinations that seem to me to give students an opportunity to reflect knowledge gained in the course. The rest is up to students.”

Valerie Rubinsky can be reached at valerie.rubinsky@temple.edu.

Alumni need to fill seats

Then $10,000 was gone, just like that, drained into novelty checks to be dispensed at center court of the Liacouras Center during halftime of the men’s basketball game against Charlotte last Wednesday.

Lewis Katz, a 1963 Temple graduate and current Board of Trustees member, offered the money for the best student suggestions for a problem he would like solved, as The Temple News first reported in January. Why does Temple Athletics, among the most competitive in the nation, have such meager fan support?

“That’s the $5,000 question,” said Michael Reilly, a junior actuarial science major and one of the contest’s six finalists, describing the first-place prize. His suggestion, to create a one-credit seminar class for freshmen students on athletic enthusiasm, wasn’t the $5,000 answer, though, at least in the minds of the competition’s nine judges. Reilly received $500 and an honorable mention, as The Temple News reported last week.

First place and the big money went to Rachel Eschenbach, a senior sculpture major and herself an athlete whose sport is little appreciated among general fans. The fencer’s plan was a swipe card system that would allow students to earn points for attending athletic events. The points could be used for discounts for Temple merchandise.
But, if you pay someone to volunteer, it isn’t volunteering anymore. I don’t think we want that kind of fan at our games.

She further suggested that students get a bandanna when entering an athletic event, to wear around campus, in order to raise fan awareness.

“You could tie them to your backpack,” she told the crowd and panel of judges. “It would start a movement.”

Seems a stretch. What’s more is that she seemed to ignore bringing in alumni, a more consistent source of support than fickle students.

Beyond smaller sports like volleyball, field hockey, soccer and baseball, the last two of which play a 40-minute shuttle ride away in Ambler, the real focus is on attendance at football, men’s basketball and even, with its recent success and legend-in-the-making coach, women’s basketball. All of those three programs seem to be on the rise.

The issue goes beyond that, though. Temple is only now in extended pursuit of its alumni. For decades, we have lost connection with those who have walked North Broad Street before us. They won’t be fighting over seats in the Liacouras Center just yet. Because of that, more than most schools, Temple needs to win. Student turnout is hot and cold, but graduates should be a steadier pool of viewers. We are suddenly asking for friendship with past Owls, so we have to give them something in return, like pride with victory.

So, it was either patently ironic or distressing that Katz, who is by all accounts an important and busy man, couldn’t be in attendance himself at the finals of his event, meant to increase attendance. He is just one of Temple’s 240,000 alumni in the region who had something else to do.

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Attendance spotty at event to improve attendance

Earlier tonight, a pep band member submitted his name three times to a raffle in the Fox Gittis Room of the Liacouras Center. He won each time.

Attendance was indeed thin at an event intended to help improve just that, attendance at Temple athletics.

“We are very disappointed,” said Jaine Lucas, who coordinated the event, the finals of the Temple’s sports enthusiasm competition. Lucas is director of the university’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute.

At times, less than 30 people, including just a scattering of fans, watched five Temple students present the six top ideas to help further attract fans to the games, matches and meets of NCAA sports at this university.

Rachel Eschenbach, a senior sculpture major, won $5,000 for her plan to create a loyalty rewards program, in which students earn points for attending games that can be redeemed for discounts on campus from participating vendors. She was presented an oversized novelty check at halftime of tonight’s men’s basketball game against Charlotte, which the Owls won 75-61. The other four students who presented were also announced on the Liacouras Center court.

As The Temple News reported last month, this enthusiasm competition was the brainchild of Lewis Katz, a 1963 Temple graduate and current member of the Board of Trustees. He put up $10,000 to award the top six most innovative ideas to boost fan turnout.

“Lew Katz loves sports, and Lew Katz loves Temple,” Lucas said. “So much so that he made a generous donation to help us find ways to increase attendance at Temple sporting events.”

Katz, who has had stakes in the New Jersey Nets, New Jersey Devils and the New York Yankees, couldn’t be in attendance at the event.

By the Feb. 13 deadline, more than 170 entries were submitted.

The top 24 were given to a preliminary panel of judges, which cut them down to the top six ideas that were presented tonight. One student, Sean Massenburg, a junior marketing major, presented two of his proposals, both of which were among the top six.

Massenburg’s proposal to put athletic schedules on cafeteria trays won him $500 and an honorable mention, and he was awarded $1,000 for his suggestion to replace the commuter lounge on the second floor of the Howard Gittis Student Center with a “sports enthusiasm lounge.”

“It’s the living room of Temple,” Massenburg said of the student center.

Second place went to Colin Clancy, a backup quarterback on the Temple football team and an entrepreneurship major in his third year, who suggested creating a university sports promotion class in the marketing department, charging 50 students each semester with increasing attendance in a for-credit, academic environment.

Michael Reilly, a junior actuarial science major, and Todd Putman, an MBA student, both also received $500 and an honorable mention for their pitches. Reilly proposed making a sports enthusiasm 1-credit seminar class for first year students. Putman suggested a swipe card that included a point system similar to Eschenbach’s, though her idea included bandanas to be distributed to students who attend events.

“You could tie them to your backpack,” she told the crowd and panel of judges. “It would start a movement.”

The panel included six professionals with marketing backgrounds and three members of the Cherry Crusade, a group that organizes student fans. The professionals were Dennis Brown, the marketing account manager of corporate sales for the Philadelphia Phillies, Shawn Tilger, senior vice president of business operations for the Philadelphia Flyers, Ed Donovan, founder and principal of EGD Communications, Terry Lefton, editor at large of Street & Smiths Sports Business Journal, Jamie Robinson, founder and managing partner at Alliance Marketing Partners, and Dave Spadara, editor of PhiladelphiaEagles.com, who is also a graduate of Temple.

The Cherry Crusade panel members were Luke P. Butler, a sophomore psychology major and vice president of the group, Amy VanDerhei, an actuarial science, risk management and insurance, and economics major and treasurer of the group, and Kevin Woerner, a freshman journalism major who is a general member of the group.

If, how, or when Eschenbach’s, or other suggested plans to improve attendance, will be implemented was not announced.
Tonight’s men’s game against Charlotte drew a crowd of little more than 4,000, well below the season average of nearly 6,500.

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Read about the men’s basketball team’s win over Charlotte: “Men’s basketball team stops Goldwire, beats Charlotte”

Read about sophomore Ryan Brooks’ performance against Charlotte: “Building Brooks”

Read about the women’s basketball team’s victory over Saint Louis: “Staley’s squad remains atop A-10 with win over Saint Louis”