A few weeks ago I was surprised to be awarded the 2013 Faculty Member of the Year Award for the School of Health Sciences at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey where I am the Assistant Dean and adjunct faculty member. I would never have guessed that this honor, bestowed upon me by the Student Senate, was an option for me. I am instructor whose students groan when I assign course work or group projects. I am the instructor who nags about professionalism, submitting the best work possible and effectively addressing problems without being rude to faculty and staff. I am the one who lectures about subject matter and non-subject matter related to managing life. I hold my students to a standard that seems to be disappearing in our classrooms and I always demand their best. I remind them that I expect things of them at the college level that may not have been expected in high school. I require them to carefully review their work prior to submission! (I ask them why I would want to review it if they didn’t even review it!) I pound critical and analytical thinking into their brains and tell them that their opinions are their own, but require them to have been developed from factual information. I truly want them to be empowered and educated about their beliefs in a time when information is not reported or documented factually.
During my lectures I take many walks down memory lane contrasting the differences in just about everything relative to how it is today. You can imagine how painful this is to most of them! When I was called up to receive the award (no one had tipped me off) I was overtaken by emotion. No matter how high I held the bar, they reached up to meet it and often times surpassed my expectations. Resisting the temptation to remove an assignment or lighten the reading load for a module was supported on that day. Students appreciate when we demand more from them. They are becoming indebted by higher education and I feel obligated to give them their money’s worth! I say all of this to say, don’t sell them short. Most students appreciate the course rigor and critical feedback that you give them. I am an example.
