A trend on campus is becoming increasingly more evident and many might say it is a standing policy: Students do not matter.
This would be akin to claiming U.S. presidential candidates do not care about voters throughout the country.
Yet, the University seems bent on casting students aside. Peoplesoft 8.9 has been a disaster for many students, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences is shutting down a much-depended upon career center and students are not being involved in a process that makes recommendations to the University president and therefore the UH System Board of Regents on the status of future tuition and fees.
Student parking lots are being closed to make way for new buildings, forcing students to stow their vehicles farther and farther away from their classrooms. In another bold initiative, CLASS opted to halve the enrollment period for its students in order to have properly inflated numbers to report to the state, forcing many of its students out of classes that were tough to enroll in back in November, but are near impossible to get into now.
The construction can be seen as expanding not only the breadth of the University but its image as well. New graduate student lofts will have Cougars spending more time on campus than they do now, spending their precious few dollars at University establishments rather than squandering their money on other elements of local economy.
Ultimately, the construction will benefit future students who will suffer a new series of missteps not yet conceived by University officials.
Rather than refund fees to CLASS students, the college can develop an even more extensive system for forwarding e-mail messages to CLASS students about ways in which student lives will be affected in cost-cutting measures.
Peoplesoft – which has given problems to Big Ten universities, police departments and schools districts since as far back as 1999 – could very well be up and running properly by the time the University decides to update to a new and flawed enrollment operating system.
The University policy of dropping students who do not make any payments for enrollment will do what it was intended: Keep those who cannot afford a higher education out of UH classrooms.
Though none of the aforementioned developments were meant to be slaps in the face of the student body – one would hope – these are objections that make one ponder the future of UH, which is already suffering from flattening enrollment numbers.
Rather than looking at ways of drawing students to UH, the University ought to focus on retaining those already here. Poor treatment is one way to ensure students jump ship to one of the many other universities in the Houston area.
This is evident in any aspect of life: Should you not like the service you receive at a restaurant, simply go to the next block; if your dry cleaner tatters your garments, there is another cleaner just down the street. If a university continues its egregious practices against its students, there are other schools that will gladly take in scholars who want educations and to not have to deal with bureaucratic entities that put up hurdles for students to leap over while attaining a degree.
I am not advocating a mass exodus of students from UH. In the time I have spent here earning an education to prepare me for a prosperous future, I have grown to love the University. Though my appearances at sporting events are rare and I infrequently patronize the theater performances here, my radio dial is permanently set to KUHF-FM, I constantly defend the value of a UH diploma versus one from those "other" universities in Texas, and though I have been to three other schools before settling on our little slice of Houston academia, UH is where I feel right at home.
University officials, administrators, faculty and staff need to realize without students, there would be no University. If UH wants its students to be involved, students first need to feel they are integral to the University and not made to feel as if they are the proverbial pebble in the school’s shoe.
One day PeopleSoft will hum as flawlessly as the reliable "old" Enrollment Services Online and students will be able to find a parking spot after one pass through the lot. However, until that time when nirvana is achieved, students should be the priority on this campus.
Everything else will take care of itself when the University takes care of its students.
