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Take Back NYU Update: Thursday Evening.

February 19, 2009 in Administration, Campus Protests, Student Power, Students | by Angus Johnston | 3 comments

Our ongoing coverage of the NYU takeover continues here and on our twitter feed.

TBNYU held a press conference at 5 pm, but no news came out of it. The two sides seem pretty dug in at this point: The university is refusing to negotiate and warning of academic and/or legal consequences if protesters remain after the Kimmel Center closes at 1 am, while the students are refusing to leave without concessions from the university.

9:30 pm Update: Dozens of students just forced their way past security into the occupied area. Two guards were injured in the scuffle. Video here.

10:15 pm Update: Apparently an ambulance has been called for one of the injured guards, though it’s not clear whether that was a cautionary measure. Take Back NYU has posted a statement reaffirming their commitment to non-violence.

11:45 pm Update: Reports suggest that negotiations are underway, apparently in an attempt to establish terms for an orderly end to the occupation.

12:15 am Update: Liveblogging here, live feed here. NYU’s deadline for the protesters to leave is 45 minutes away, and the students have rejected an offer to walk out and be given probation. Supporters of the protest and assorted gawkers are blocking traffic in front of the occupied building, and the mood among the protesters is raucous and defiant.

12:58 am Update: Ten students reportedly left the demonstration a few minutes ago, which means several dozen are still inside. The live feed has been video-only for about half an hour, and the video just went down. No update from the embedded liveblogger in ten minutes.

1:00 am Update: Take Back NYU website claims 500+ supporters in the street. Says NYU is threatening occupying students with expulsion, non-students with arrest. Live stream back up. Some occupying students leaving.

1:17 am Update: Multiple reports of protesters fighting cops in front of Kimmel. Protest liveblogger calls it “rioting.” Others say pepper spray, mace, nightsticks in use. Washington Square News reported that all NYU students still in Kimmel after 1:10 am would be arrested and expelled.

1:26 am Update: Washington Square News on recent developments…

Protesters, many of whom were masked, unsuccessfully pushed against the barricades, attempting to get into the Kimmel Center. The police sprayed an unidentified substance in protesters’ faces. Two police officers were brought inside: one, a female, rubbing her eye, and the other, a male, also thought to be injured.

1:31 am Update: NYULocal liveblogger has photo of “safe harbor” flyer passed out by NYU, promising to suspend disciplinary action against Kimmel protesters unless there is “a subsequent violation of University policies.” Not sure who the offer applies to, or whether it’s still operative in the wake of the violence outside Kimmel.

1:45 am Update: About twenty protesters remain on the third floor of Kimmel. They’re said to be asking for no action to be taken to remove them tonight. No recent word on conditions outside the building.

1:57 am Update: NYULocal is reporting that the remaining TBNYU protesters will be allowed to stay in Kimmel overnight. NYU will not roust them.

2:01 am Update: New post at Take Back NYU website —

The police pepper-sprayed the crowd earlier and a few supporters in the street were injured. There are still between 400-500 people out there and it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere. We, the students of the occupation, remain firmly against non-violent action and we hope the crowd stands in non-violent solidarity with us. Negotiations are ongoing and we thank you all for your support!!

2:16 am Update: WSN just asked Farah Khimji of TBNYU what the current status of the protester’s demands was. Her response: “At this point, I can only speak for myself, but I don’t know what I want.”

And that strikes me as a pretty good place to end the night. See you all in the morning.

Friday 9:30 am Update: Ongoing coverage, and a recap of events to date, can be found in our Friday morning post.

Entitled Students? Maybe Not.

February 18, 2009 in Faculty, Media, Students | by Angus Johnston | 3 comments

Note: I’ve put up a second response to the Greenberger article, addressing the skewed demographics of the sample it relied upon, here.

A journal article by Ellen Greenberger et al, “Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors,” got a big writeup in the New York Times this morning, and it’s been making a pretty serious splash online as a result.

In a nutshell, the article explores what it refers to as the “sense of entitlement” that many professors believe students today exhibit. It reports the findings of a study in which students at one California university were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with fifteen statements regarding their “expectations of special consideration and accommodation by teachers,” and examines some of the factors that may underly such expectations.

I read the study this afternoon, and I’ll have more to say about it tomorrow, but for tonight I just want to highlight one aspect of how it’s been reported. Here’s a passage from the Times article that summed up what many journalists took away from the study:

A third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

Pretty startling, I’ll admit. But it’s a serious misrepresentation of the original article’s findings. Here’s why.

As I noted above, the folks who conducted the study asked students to respond to fifteen statements designed to determine their level of “Academic Entitlement.” Two of those fifteen statements were these:

If I have attended most classes for a course, I deserve at least a grade of B.

If I have completed most of the reading for a course, I deserve a B in that course.

For each statement, students were asked whether they strongly agreed, agreed, slightly agreed, slightly disagreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed. The study’s authors aggregated all of the “strongly agree, agree, and slightly agree” responses into a percentage, and that’s the percentage the Times used as the basis for the passage quoted above.

Let’s set aside for the moment whether the phrase “If I have attended most classes for a course, I deserve at least a grade of B” means the same thing as “I expect B’s just for attending lectures.” I’m not certain that it does, but let that go for right now. The more important point is that the Times reporter, following the lead of the study’s authors, interpreted even slight agreement with the first statement as identical to the second.

There are other problems with the study, but this is a big one.