Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Thoughts on millenial students

I attended several sessions over the past two days focused on the millenial generation. What was most interesting were suggestions regarding the the of housing and related student experience this generation of students expects as part of the college experience. Most of us would agree that students arrive on our campuses with different expectations. In addition, we see a different level of involvement by parents of this millenial generation, fondly referred to as helicopter parents, who feel empowered to insert themselves into their children's course registration or roommate selection decisions; or as a colleague of mine once shared, calling our food service operation to suggest we offer their daughter's favorite jam in the dining hall.

Yes, students have changed and our institutions need to change accordingly. I offer these thoughts on what I see may be some fundamental reasons behind the changes we see on our campuses making our tasks as planners ever more challenging.

Jeffrey Arnett suggests that the 18-25 year old cohort defines a new stage in the life-cycle. Emerging adulthood is label for this life stage and it is characterized by five psychological dimensions unique to this age group:

Identity exploration;
Instability;
Self-focused;
Feeling in-between, and;
Age of possibilities.

The presentations I heard in the last two days focused on housing and educating these millenial students reflect these five dimensions of the development of the emerging adult. Emerging adults struggle with finishing the developmental tasks of adolescence---consolidating a sense of self during a period of instability and self-questioning while sorting through and determining vocational trajectories, personal relationships, and civic responsibilities. Students want their living and learning spaces to support these challenging developmental tasks. At times, they want the seclusion of a private space to reflect on the course of their lives, yet at other times they want convenient semi-public or public spaces to share time with their peers. The challenge for planners is to design living and learning spaces to support the diverse character of the life of the emerging adult. My observations over the last two days confirm that our institutions, with the help of our design and construction colleagues, are seeking creative solutions to the challenges posed by the millenial generation.

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...: I find discussions about the Millenials interesting. I do not think, however, that Millenials are fundamentally different from other generations, but just exhibit different behaviors.

That said, I have noticed a few themes surrounding these conversations. One in particular is the theme of negatives, as if the Millenials are an intrusion on are already established structures and have little to offer, often cloaked in the language of "understanding them."

This is a typical Baby Boomer reaction. Ironically enough, the Boomers saw themselves as so full of optimism and promise when they grew up in the 60's, but will leave the world much worse off - no sustainable environmental planning, increasing conservatism in government, massive govt. debt (to be paid by future generations), foreign policies that isolated the U.S. in an era of globalism, and an a reluctance to pay for the education of the younger generation, but yet accepting all the benefits accorded to them by receiving subsidies from the generation before them.

The Millenials do not want to change the world, something that probably bugs the Boomers since they view that as the primary charge of youth (even though the Boomers themselves obviously failed). The Millenials view themselves as saviors playing catch-up and reversing the bad policies of the worst generation.

When writing about Millenials, we should focus on their positives and then look in the mirror. The Millenials do not offer challenges. Other than perhaps the Greatest Generation, they will have a substantial mess to clean up and a lot of work to do.; July 27, 2008 10:38 PM