COLUMN: USU 1330 – easy class, lousy manners
Not too long ago, I attended a class that turned out to be a waste of both my time and my tuition dollars.
The culprit: USU 1330, Creative Arts.
Many of you can relate. According to USU’s Banner system, 991 students are currently enrolled in the class. Another 485 are enrolled in the USU 3330, Arts Symposium, an upper-division look-alike of USU 1330. The main gist of each class is to expose students to the arts by requiring them to attend various events on campus and at Logan’s Eccles Theatre.
Really, this is the only difficult part of the course. On a busy weekend, you have got to find a few extra hours (and a few extra dollars) to attend Les Miserables downtown. Beyond that, USU 1330 is a breeze. Students recognize it as an easy “A,” and since it fills a general education requirement, nearly 1,000 students cram into the Kent Concert Hall each semester to take it.
Most people complain that public schools are too crowded, with more than 30, sometimes 40 students in a classroom. Now, imagine their shock at seeing a thousand students packed into an auditorium.
Of course it won’t take much imagination for most of you. With 1,000 students taking the class every semester and only 12,000 undergraduates currently attending USU’s Logan campus, many of those reading this column have likely taken the course.
Call it USU’s rite of passage. If you can make it through that class, you can make it through anything here.
Of course, the larger a class, the more babysitting a teacher will have to do. Tom Peterson, the instructor, threatens students with a final exam throughout the semester. If you misbehave too many times in class or at performances, the whole class has to take the exam.
Several attendance checks are performed throughout the semester as well, to make sure students come to class. He weights the checks enough that the students inevitably go, whether they feel it’s worth their time or not.
Then, Peterson has the granddaddy of all incentives: the swiping of ID cards. Students do it at both the beginning and end of a required performance. Those who have attended any such event know what a stampede it is at the conclusion of the production. Many don’t even stay to clap.
If we treat students like children, is it any wonder they behave like it, too?
Students have complained before in The Statesman. One such student said, “When the concert was finished, nearly half the audience jumped from their seats and hurried as fast as they could for the door. They didn’t spend any time applauding. I can only imagine how the performers must have felt, watching everyone leave as soon as they could to scan their ID cards.
“I desperately hope this kind of behavior doesn’t continue. USU is slowly gaining a reputation for having rude, unmannerly audiences” (Marisha Parker, Nov. 11, 2004).
All the same, I’m sure the USU’s fine arts department and the Eccles Center love the class. Sure, the rude behavior might embarrass them a bit, but at least they can guarantee a sold-out performance.
And USU’s administration must love it too. Students might get a crummy education, but at least they all pay tuition and help finance our fine arts programs. It’s quite the double-whammy.
Multiply a thousand students by the $100 a student pays for a three-credit course (a very conservative estimate), and you get $100,000. Throw in another $50-$100 per student in ticket costs for the required performances. I’m no businessman, but I think we are turning a sizeable profit from that class.
And we haven’t even addressed the 500 students enrolled in USU 3330. They don’t even hold a formal class for that one. Just give us your tuition dollars, and we’ll give you an “A.” Take away another university expense, and chalk up another huge profit.
By making the classes both required and an easy grade, it’s no wonder they are so well-attended.
I think Professor Peterson is a great professor who does the very best he can given the circumstances. But no professor should be forced to handle a thousand students in any classroom.
For USU 1330, cut the class size down or drop the course requirement altogether.
After all, if the arts are important enough to merit a general education requirement, they ought to be important enough to merit quality instruction.
Jon Cox is a senior majoring in journalism. He took USU 1330 and sent his roommate to all the performances in his place.