Starting on October 18th, the “Go to Class!” postercampaign reached out to the first-year students on campusencouraging regular classroom attendance. “Take Your Studentsto Lunch Week”, which gives students a chance to personallyget to know their professors and staff, is also a large part ofthis campaign.
Jasper Neel, dean of Dedman College, spoke to incoming studentsabout these campaigns in hopes of inspiring them to take advantageof this organized effort, and anyone taking a stroll around SMUwill notice him as the finger-pointing administrator encouragingall to “Go to Class!” on residence hall walls andboulevard stakes across campus.
Neel’s message is simple — attendance and academicperformance are very closely related, but many students skipclasses and this leads to lower academic performance.
“The [‘Go to Class!’] program was begun infall 1999 by Claudia Kami,” he said, “who has sinceleft SMU.”
Kami, who was a coordinator for Academic Advising, Registrationand Orientation at the time, orchestrated the “Go toClass!” poster campaign. For the next several weeks, studentswill see the posters as a gentle reminder of the importance ofattendance.
Since the campaign began a few years ago, students and facultyalike have taken note of improved interaction between eachother.
“When I first started teaching at SMU,” said DennisFoster, “I figured students were grown up and could come toclass or not as they liked.”
Foster, chair of the SMU English Department, soon realized thatsome still did not make it to class everyday.
“What I learned with experience” he continued,”was that even at the advanced age of 19, students benefitfrom rules, and one of those rules came in the form of DeanNeel’s bow-tied image posted around campus.”
This is the first university that Dean Neel has worked at whichfeatured such a program, though he does not feel Mustangs are anyless likely to go to class than any other college student. “Ithink that every student at SMU understands the close connectionbetween class attendance and academic success,” heexplained.
In addition to faculty members, many students have noticed thebenefits of the campaign, though some have not noticed at all.
“I do not think this campaign is influential in theslightest,” said international studies major Benna Deese,”because it is not highly publicized – I did not evenknow it was going on. Posters are not going to encourage studentsto go to class.”
“My only advice for the incoming first-year is to go toclass! It helps you build personal relationships with yourprofessors and it goes beyond just learning the material. Youbecome engaged in what you are learning and in the end, it makesyou a better student” says Ashley Nestor, a sophomorebroadcast journalism major.
Others, however, view the program as an effective way to get newstudents off on the right foot.
“[The first year] is always a hard year to make yourselfgo to class because you have to take all your basics,” saidpre-med major April Tilley. “But once you start takingclasses geared towards your major, it gets a lot easier to go toclass; it is actually interesting and you are more eager tolearn!”
While some students may disagree on the effectiveness of thecampaign, faculty reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, andthose contacted for comment believe this program will more thanlikely influence attendance. Furthermore, the cost of the postercampaign is minimal and the message is direct, yet subtle. Going toclass fosters class participation, builds confidence and promotesstudy groups.
In addition to the “Go to Class!” campaign, todaymarks the end of “Take Your Students to Lunch Week”,which is aimed toward a better professor-student relationship byallowing them to connect with one another on a personal level.
With a multitude of such programs fostering higher classroomattendance, Dean Neel explained that national trends illustrate theimportance of showing up, each and every day.
“I have been a university professor on eight differentcampuses all across North America for the past thirty years,”he said. “In all that time, I have never met a single studentwho had [perfect attendance and] was flunking out of theuniversity.”
