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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Hello, Transform Your Teaching listeners. It's Jared. Whether you are new to the podcast or have been around since day one, we want to hear from you. Please take a minute and fill out our quick survey and help us make the podcast even better. Click the link in our description.
Jared:We'd be very grateful if you did. And for participating, you'll be put into a drawing for a handcrafted transform your teaching mug. And we're doing a drawing in the month of October, November, and December. So be sure to participate and help us out. We'd be grateful if you did.
Jared:And as always, thanks for listening.
Jeremy:And so we have students sometimes that just have huge instability in their home life. That's not every student, but it's probably more than sometimes we realize.
Jeremy:This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning
Narator:Welcome back to the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. We are on the campus of Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. My name is Jared Pyles, and with me is Dr. Robert McDole.
Rob:Good afternoon.
Jared:We are continuing our series on understanding the new college student. We've had some guests on to help us paint a picture of what the new college student looks like and even what the current college student looks like and the generational shifts and the pressures and the the struggles that they have versus previous generations of them. And we are continuing that discussion today with one of our assistant professors of applied theology here at Cedarville-- our good friend Jeremy Oliver. Welcome, sir.
Jeremy:Thank you. Happy to be here with you.
Jared:Almost doctor.
Rob:Almost doctor, yes.
Jared:You're getting there.
Jeremy:Very close.
Jared:You're like me. You're like, let's get this over with.
Jeremy:Yes. That's exactly what that means.
Jared:I wish there was a term for that. I know they say ABD, but, like, I wish there was more of a "let's get this over with".
Jeremy:They need the urgency in there.
Jared:Yeah. And they need the anxiety and the urgency in that. It doesn't really paint a good enough picture.
Rob:It sounds like a Jane Austen novel.
Jared:Anxiety and urgency?
Rob:Yeah. Something like the anxiety and the angst or
Jeremy:It's the academic version of Jane Austen.
Jared:This is all great conversation, but thank you for coming on with us.
Jeremy:Absolutely happy to be here with you.
Jared:So we like to ask all of our guests how they got to Cedarville. So where'd you start? What's your background? All that stuff.
Jeremy:Yes, so I guess I can go really far back. I myself, I came from a home, wonderful home, smart parents, but I was one of these students that I was one of the first in my family to get a college education. I went to Indiana University; I studied history. And the reason I studied history is because I didn't know what else to study. And so I said, I kinda like history, I'll go down that route.
Jeremy:And I'm doing a bachelor's in Indiana University, did a master's in history at Valparaiso University, I did a master's of divinity at a place called Faith Bible Seminary. When I graduated from seminary, ended up serving on a few church staffs. Worked at a couple of Christian prep schools predominantly in Phoenix, Arizona. And during that time, I ended up pursuing a PhD in biblical studies with an emphasis in biblical counseling.
Jeremy:And kind of out of the blue, I got a call from Dr. Trent Rogers, who's the Dean of the School of Biblical and Theological Studies and said,
Jeremy:"Hey, would you consider coming and working here?" Unbeknownst to him, I worked with a group of people thinking about creating a culture of care within the church under a guy by the name of Doctor. Garrett Higbee, Soul Care Consulting. And we had been praying about what it would look like to do more equipping and training of people to think through some of those elements. So it kind of
Jeremy:coincided with prayers that we had and the needs that Cedarville had. So my family and I, we've been here for, this is my third year here and on the ground here at Cedarville. And we love being here and being a part of the university.
Rob:Well, it's a pleasure to have you here.
Jeremy:Thank you.
Rob:So we've had some really good conversations before this podcast just in preparation for this. And and so I'm looking forward to this conversation and your your expertise here. So I'm sure our listeners will as well.
Rob:And just kick us off. What are these emerging issues? We've talked about it. Jared and I have had, you know, a couple of guests on already. We've talked about everything from K through 12 to, you know, Dr. Wood
Rob:and what he's seeing from, you know, the student life side and Christian ministry side. As a professor and especially in your particular area, you know, what are these emerging issues that you're seeing? What are these trends?
Jeremy:Yeah. So one of the things that I would say is I think that there's a long road that's kind of leading to where we are right now. You look and there's a lot of instability that just people have in their home lives. And as you get to know them, hear you just glimpses of this that a number of our students have. But I think that increased even more so with we've got the first students that are coming that lived through whatever happened with COVID and especially students that were doing school remotely.
Jeremy:And so I think all that's kind of culminating. And I remember even last spring, had some students coming through and they really just kind of struggled to get basic things done that students did before. And I started thinking about this even this fall, Dr. White talked about the trends that we see with students where just anxiety is off the chart for a lot of students. And I think that students just coping with regular life, I think for some of them it's a struggle, possibly even more so than it had been a few years ago.
Rob:Yeah. I know one of the things that we've heard so we talked to Nancy Gillespie. One of the things that we talked about with her was something along this line of anxiety
Jeremy:Mhmm.
Rob:Or the anxious generation
Jeremy:Mhmm.
Rob:Seems to be what's being said. And and we asked her that question, you know, what's causing it? She actually had some really good data and she seemed to point towards cell phones and social media. What are you saying? Does that sound right to you?
Rob:Are you seeing other things or what other pieces play into that if it's correct?
Jeremy:I think that's definitely one of the things to consider is just the amount of time that we're spending online and probably the way that we're dealing with time management overall. I don't even know that we recognize it even as adults. I mean, how much time we spend on our cell phones with the few apps that we have, we have downtime and where do we go? We go to filling our time with whatever we have before us and before we know it, our time is really truncated with what we had before. But I do think there is this other piece and I do see this a little bit in biblical care and counseling courses that I teach because I'll do like a self -counsel project that you find out that just some of the dynamics of the home lives that students are coming from too.
Jeremy:Now there's sometimes a lot of instability that we may not recognize as there. Students where by all appearances, they have it together, they're doing a lot, but they may have things going on in the backdrop that we don't even know. And so I think that sometimes can contribute to it too.
Jared:When we had Nancy Gillespie on, she mentioned that there was a student who during the pandemic-- talk about unstable homes and stuff like that. She said that they were wondering why this student wasn't turning in anything. Like they just had gone completely remote, nothing was being turned in. So they reached out and the student's like, "I have to work forty hours a week to support my family because I really don't have much that I can, you know, rely on and I gotta keep my family afloat". So that's an example of what you're talking about where you have students that, you know, they're in your classroom, they look like they have it all together, but then they end up having to have so much going on outside the classroom that we don't consider as instructors sometimes.
Jeremy:And I probably do have a little bit of a unique opportunity to be able to see that because in teaching biblical care and counseling students know that I served for years in pastoral ministry. I'll have students that will come and make appointments with me. And they'll come and they'll just say, hey, these are some of the things I've got going on in my life. Can you help me figure out what to do with this? Can you just be praying for me?
Jeremy:And I'll have students that will tell me, "I'm here on campus, but I've got this dynamic that's going on at home with this instability. And when I go back at Thanksgiving or over Christmas, I've got to think about how navigate these realities." And so we have students sometimes that just have huge instability in their home life. That's not every student, but it's probably more than sometimes we realize, the number of students that have that going on in the backdrop. And I know I served in pastoral ministry when everything was going on with COVID and we just saw accelerated numbers of marriages that ended up in crisis.
Jeremy:You you got people in close quarters, they're not going out as much, they've got all of these different stressors contributing to this and things just blow up at home. And if that was happening in the church where I was in Phoenix, you know, my guess is that was happening through families throughout The United States. And this may be where some of the students in especially high school, the home life they were growing up in, that may still be existing today too.
Rob:So I'd like to dig in a little bit more to that, if I may. I think it would be helpful for our listeners if you can provide some examples of some of these things that are destabilizing. Obviously, no names, no people.
Jeremy:Absolutely.
Rob:But what are some of those major ones that are their patterns? Have you seen any patterns?
Jeremy:Yes, a few things that I think that we see is one, just marriages themselves of parents, And that they're just in a rocky place, they're not seeing good marriages modeled for them sometimes. Again, that's not everybody out there, but there are quite a few marriages that are just in crisis and they're just kind of functioning in that crisis. And so a student, they may predominantly just know that instability. And then there may be something else that happens. You know, for example, I can think of a few students that have loved ones pass away.
Jeremy:Brings that extra stressor on the family. Their home life is already unstable and it just sends it into a further descent there. So that's one of those pieces that I see quite a bit. One of the other things, and this connects with some of the elements related to social media and just the time on computers, the sheer number of students that I have conversations somewhere in their background that are struggling with pornography is just astounding, the numbers that are there too. And some of them may say, "I know this isn't good", and they may have even dealt with it in their past, but that reality too is gonna have a factor on just the way that they're functioning in life.
Jeremy:So that's a couple big ones that I see out of the gate fairly regularly.
Jared:We haven't even talked about academics yet as far as like the pressures that they're under as well. We're talking about everything that's outside the classroom. Yeah. So tell me about stuff that's happening inside the classroom, like academically.
Jeremy:Absolutely. I think there's this tension that exists because on the one hand, as professors, as those working in academia, we want our students to gain this content, we want them to gain this knowledge. But they're individuals with lives and they have so much that's going on in the backdrop, and we may not see all of that being brought into the classroom, being brought into academics. It's the few instances where a student may email and say, hey, I had a really hard week. It may give a small snippet into those things that most professors are only ever gonna see then.
Jeremy:Again, because of teaching biblical care and counseling courses, it opens up a little bit different dialogue for students that I have. But just being cognizant of they may be trying as students, they may also have the factor of just some of the anxiety of not dealing with things, and then compiled with that the instability of possibly their home life, even while they're here on campus, that may all contribute to create kind of a difficult environment for them as a student. And we just need to be aware of that.
Jared:I think to give an example of that, I don't think I've ever told you this before, but when my mom died of cancer seventeen years ago, and my sister was a student at the time, and she remembers the instructors that helped her during that time because she was at home, we were taking care of things as mom was dying. But she remembers more the instructors that didn't show any sort of sympathy towards her and gave her Ds and Fs on her assignments in the class. So I mean, that's that there is just enough of a of a reality that there's stuff going on outside the classroom that we need to take consider.
Rob:I think that's the thing that I don't believe any of our faculty here would want their discipline to be disconnected from reality or the realities that their students are going through.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:So, yeah, that's that's tough to hear. It's tough to hear, but appreciated. Yeah. Nonetheless, and hopefully serves as a, you know, just an Ebenezer to our listeners. And if I need to just define what that is, it's just just a memorial.
Jared:There you go.
Rob:Right?
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:Serves as a memorial to our listeners.
Jared:Not Scrooge, you're not talking about Ebenezer Scrooge
Rob:No
Jeremy:And I will say, I think we see it as professors in the most public issues that come up. So for example, we've had a few students that have gone through extremely difficult issues. And it's usually when a loved one that's close to them passes away. We've had a few of those in the school of biblical and theological studies, this has happened the past few years.
Jeremy:And the professors in many ways they have will rally around them. And we will, I know myself and others have gotten notes from those, from both parents that have reached out or from the students saying, thank you so much for the grace and the kindness that you've showed us. And I appreciate that about the university. I think there's largely that camaraderie to do so. But for that one student where there's that public issue, there may be even if it's five in a class that are going through issues that no one knows in the backdrop.
Jeremy:And just to be aware of that.
Rob:Yes.
Jeremy:There may be greater things that are going on in their lives.
Rob:Yeah. It's something that is underscored to me, as I recently had an issue with a student. Well, students in general in my, you know, I've got seniors and I have them do self evaluations in terms of their participation, because I want to see how their self rubric, their self evaluation rubric changes over time. And they're all really honestly, they do a pretty decent job of connecting. But one student, I have I make them give me a statement as to why they deserve the grade.
Rob:This particular student said, "I deserve an a because it was really hard for me to just show up to class today, and I showed up." And I was like, okay. Well, let me let me help you because, you know, showing up to class is really honestly the minimum requirements. Right? You know, that student wasn't the only one.
Rob:I had other students that were saying that. So I had to, you know, I got in front of the class and I said, "Look, you need to understand that showing up to class is a minimum. That's not an A. You know?" And the student wrote me back and said, "you don't understand how hard it is for me just to get up and make it".
Rob:And so obviously, I felt great at that point. Yeah. But at the same time, there's this there's this juxtaposition or this this balance of wow. Right? You're going, I don't know what that looks like.
Rob:Personally, I just don't. I don't know what that looks like to be struggling that much. So it's not an issue of judgment on my part. It's just an issue of just trying to understand that and then, you know, responding kind and say, and I did. I said, "you know what?
Rob:You're right. I don't know what that's like. And I'm sorry if you're going through that. And, you know, I hope if there's anything I can do to help you with that, or there's anything I can do to help you, you know, do better. I'm here.
Rob:You know, genuinely, I'm here to help. I don't want to make you feel like this is..." I don't think that student does, you know, based on just response in class and those kinds of things. So but I thought it was eye opening to me.
Jeremy:And I think you're right. And I think a lot of the students that are struggling and they really want to make it, they're trying to meet those benchmarks. But when they're reaching out and they're struggling and you typically see them do well, and then all of sudden they reach out, all of a sudden say, "hey, "I had something big going on", Chances are pretty good they're not just slacking off. There is something major that's going on.
Rob:Yeah.
Jeremy:And I think one of those keys to look for is, are they typically doing well and all of a sudden they drop off? And I think that can be a big factor that kind of give us an indicator there's something else that's going on here.
Jared:What have you seen that students are using to kind of cope or to handle the anxiety and the stress or the things that are going on outside the classroom?
Jeremy:So the ones that will actually share with me some of those things that are going on, you know, I think sometimes it's not even so much, the ones that kind of spiral downward, it's they're looking for something. They're trying to find something to cope and they're not sure necessarily where to turn in that. So that may be part of it. The other thing is, and I see this fairly regularly, those that are doing well, it comes up when they've got to go back home. And they know, I've got this dynamic with my parents.
Jeremy:I've got this with my siblings, with just where I came from. I love it when I'm here with my friends. I thrive when I'm here, but when I leave this environment, I know it's gonna be hard for me. So I've had that conversation with a few students that really it's the ecosystem that we have here with some of the things going on in dorm life and some of the student ministries and maybe through their local church that have really been a support to them. I have a number of students that I've had over the years too that are really looking and longing for someone who can be a mentor, somebody to disciple them in some way.
Jeremy:And I think, know, here at Cedarville, I think we've got some wonderful resources like our D -groups and other people that are involved. The more that they can find those mentors, think it provides them some anchor of stability, even though they can't change things at home. That can be really helpful to them as well too.
Jared:What do you think about students that don't necessarily come to Cedarville but are at a school like Ohio State or University of Cincinnati? Like, their coping mechanisms, like, they may not have the same like, Cedarville has a thriving community. I remember reading that myself, like, going home, man, I kind of miss the stability and the, you know, the, you know, whatever. But what about someone that doesn't go to Cedarville, a college student like that?
Jeremy:Yeah, I mean, when we look at some of the stats and what's there and I mean, they're going to, I mean, you know, they're going to coping mechanisms that you find in the world overall too. I mean, drinking may be a part of that. Drugs. Drugs are gonna be a part of that as well too. Whatever they can to kind of take their mind off these things to numb the pain, I think that's a lot of what you're finding there.
Jeremy:And it's probably not gonna be that different than what you would find people in general and life, some of the struggles that they're gonna have. When I was in ministry, the church where we had everybody from very affluent Scottsdale to people that were coming off the street that were homeless, that would come in seeking ministry of some certain. We had this group that we had of people and we had some from a local rescue mission that would come that would partake in this thirteen weeks of really teaching how Christ meets them and whatever their pain may be in life. And they were towards the end of finishing up a program they were going through at this local rescue mission. And you would hear the stories of some of these individuals.
Jeremy:They would say, you know, it just started out with instability in life sometimes. I remember one guy that, you know, he gave this testimony often, but he lost his wife and he lost his son. And just trying to cope with that, he turned to drugs, he turned to alcohol to the point that he wasn't functioning in his life anymore. And so you might people that are more functioning with ways that they're trying to cope on some of these campuses. And if it continues down that trajectory, you're gonna find that certain percentage of people, they can't function anymore.
Jeremy:And so I think you see some of the starts of that stuff that will happen where somebody doesn't have some of these resources at their disposal. That's not to say that it can't happen on a campus like Cedarville either. We have these resources, we try to provide them for students, but there may be some that are hurting, that are stuck, and may even be in a place that they're afraid to bring this up with others. Yeah. This is what I'm doing when I go back home, probably deal with my parents or other dynamics that they have in their lives.
Rob:I can say that's probably true. Yeah. I mean, just knowing some of the students that I know through my my kids. Mhmm. Yeah.
Rob:I've heard some stories and they're real. And Mhmm. Like, you gotta be kidding me.
Jeremy:Yeah.
Rob:I'm glad you're here. You know, like, genuinely, I'm glad you're here.
Rob:It also makes me very thankful. Personally, but also very empathetic, I think, and compassionate.
Rob:And I could kind of understand a little bit more, I think, from Jesus' perspective how he sees. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're even having this particular series is because I think genuinely, I know our faculty care, but I think we do as well. And we're just wanting to put it out there and figure out, you know, what can we do? And I think that leads to the to my next question with you is, you know, what can we do?
Rob:What are the things that our faculty should be doing? What should our listeners be doing? Because we do have folks that are listening that may be in a, you know, non Christian higher education setting or even K through 12.
Jeremy:Mhmm.
Rob:K through 12 schools as well, Christian schools, maybe even homeschoolers, I don't know. Mhmm. What would you what would you say to them?
Jeremy:Yeah. So I think there's a few things. One, I mean, rooting ourselves in God and who he is, as we face these things is huge. So realizing our dependence upon him, spending time in prayer ourselves, enriching that relationship with him, I think can be helpful to us. I mean, when we look at the things that are going on in our fallen broken world, it can be over overwhelming at times.
Jeremy:So I think that's one of the things right out the gate. Secondly, and we've talked about this is recognizing that our students, their identity is not wrapped up just in our class. This is a piece of their life. I told you guys when we were having discussion a few weeks ago, I worked at a prep school. One of the prep schools that I worked at, it was juniors in high school that I taught.
Jeremy:And when I got there and I had a number of people tell me something about this class is different. And you guys kind of know that classes kind of take on their own persona. And they said, there's something different about this particular class. And they're just not as great a class as some of the other ones. So I thought, okay, what am I gonna do with this?
Jeremy:So I remember going into the classroom and I thought, all right, they're not as great as students, but what else is going on? And I tried to take the time to get to know them a little bit more students. I found out quite a few of them were involved in fine arts. They were involved in sports and they did struggle a little bit as students. And I tried to get the perspective to see them as people that are taking this class.
Jeremy:And I had certain criteria that I had to meet, but seeing them a little bit more broadly, it gave me rapport with them. It gave me grace for them to recognize that they might not be as great as some of the other students that have come through, and that's okay. God's gifted them in other ways too. So that's something else that that I would I would tell people. Take the time to, even if you don't know, but you suspect, pray for those students.
Jeremy:I mean, that's huge just to pray that God will work. You know, and there may be an opportunity depending upon the environment that you work in to be able to reach out to them and to share Christ with them. You know, and the hope that we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ could be part of it as well too. And I think we've all talked about doing this in different ways and other students when students, when we get a small glimpse into their lives of some of the things that are going on, of just being gracious and show that we care with them can be part of that. Put yourself in your student's shoes for a moment and think about what they're facing.
Jeremy:What are some of the things that you know they have going on? What are the pressures they even have in other classes, and some of their extracurriculars? And are there things you can do to help alleviate some of those elements while still holding the standards that you have to have for those classes too?
Rob:But Jeremy, these students are trying to get an A and take advantage of me any way they can.
Jeremy:You will have those few students that may do that and you're probably gonna know who those students are. It's not gonna be the students that are working hard and they come in. And I've had students that are like this and say, I'm so sorry. And they'll even tell me, I know that you have policies in this. I had this going on.
Jeremy:In other times, I'm gonna be duped by students, probably. That's okay. I wanna love them. And if there's something where I can show them some measure of grace and still hold those standards, I'm okay doing that. I remember hearing somebody talk about this with ministry years ago.
Jeremy:I said, I know people probably lie to me all the time. But that doesn't mean that I can't still show them grace and love them. And until I see a consistent pattern where I need to lovingly go take that to them, there's ways that I can still show them grace in the midst of it.
Jared:Well, if you wanna be a pushover, that's fine. That's on you, my friend. I'm kidding, of course.
Jared:You're absolutely right. I mean, I saw that in when I taught, high schoolers. They're they're really good at being manipulative. About like, oh, I couldn't do this because x y z or whatever. And after a while, you're like, this is the third time you've said that your dog died this semester.
Jared:So
Rob:How many dogs do
Jared:How many dogs do you have? Do but yeah, you're right. If it all comes back to servant teaching, it all comes back to like I've said this in every single episode we've done so far, but you're teaching the whole student. You're not just teaching the academic vessel that's in your class. You want to throw all your knowledge into it and hope they regurgitate it back to you in some sort of A format.
Jared:You're teaching the whole student. You need to consider everything that's going on, not just what's in the classroom. So
Rob:Yeah. That's really good. Yeah.
Jared:Thank you so much for coming on.
Jeremy:Absolutely.
Jared:Appreciate it.
Jeremy:Appreciate you having me.
Jared:That's gonna do it for us on the Transformer Teaching Podcast. Be sure to connect with us on LinkedIn. The information is in our description. And make sure you are checking out our blog, cedarville.edu/focus blog, and be sure to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
Jared:Thanks so much for listening.