Faculty attention

The main entrance to GVSU's Honors College (this picture actually relates to today's topic)

Here we are, at the end of the semester, with less than a week left of regular classes. Exams will start next week, on the 13th, and wow, am I ever not ready. This semester seemed to last forever up until the start of November, and now I can’t figure out where the time went to. Still, my first exam is on Monday, so that leaves six days for me to prepare. That’s still enough, right?

Finals worries aside, there was another topic that I wanted to bring up today, and that was the close attention that students receive from instructors on campus. This is one of my favorite subjects, and probably something that I already bring up so much that I bore everyone to sleep with it, but there are two stories from yesterday that I wanted to share. The first is an Honors related tale: yesterday morning, I dropped by the Honors office to clear up a few details regarding a recognition ceremony, something that I’ve been communicating with the office about by way of email. At first, I thought I would have to run through my entire story again to explain my issue, but the girl at the front desk stopped me about three words in and basically said “no, that’s okay, I know what you’re worried about.”
After kind of an awkward pause, I asked if it was because she knew me, and she very calmly replied “yep.” Which wouldn’t really be that significant, except that I don’t make it into the Honors office very often. I drop by every once in a while for senior project concerns, or to drop guests off to explore the facility or during scholarship competitions, but I don’t live in the structure, and as much as I love the Honors community, I don’t make it into the office very often. Yet despite all this, the staff in the buildings central office knew exactly who I was, without looking me up on file despite the fact that the total Honors population (freshmen through seniors, living in or out of the building) is pushing 1000. If that’s not an endorsement for quality of attention found in the Honors College, I’m not quite sure what is.

The second story relates to an individual class: for about the last month, one of my courses has been “out of class,” not because we haven’t been doing anything, but because the entire class has been taking part in a number of individual presentations with the professor during the time that the class would usually meet. Keep in mind that my presentation was on the first day, November 8, and we just received our evaluations and grades yesterday, December 6. I scored relatively well on it, but I had a few questions, so I walked with my professor while he was on his way back to his office, and talked with him as we moved. The impressive part was the fact that as we’re walking, my professor is talking to me about some pretty specific details regarding my presentation, which occurred 28 days ago, without me having to remind him of my subject or talking points.

So I guess the long story that I’m trying to make short here is the fact that a GVSU student is not, by any stretch of the imagination, just a faceless number (and my imagination can stretch pretty far). Faculty on campus go out their way to learn who their students are, and you mean more than just “seat #117, who got an 84 on his exam.”

But I’m on my way out, so as always, be safe, send in applications, and ask any questions you please.

-Kyle