Whitworth Doesn’t Want Non-Traditional Students

Or at least that is how it seems to me, a non-traditional student who attends Whitworth’s full-time day program. I am not for an instant saying that the professors act that way. If I had been, the title would have said that. Instead, I have found that Whitworth, as an institution, does not want non-traditional students to attend. I do not think it is a malicious targeted thing, but it is more of a passive inability to let go of a dying past, change with the times, and a radical misunderstanding of non-traditional students. Yes, they have made some token gestures and publicly stated that they want to change. But at the same time, they are not actually doing anything to change. This is not meant to be an attack, a slander piece, or anything like that. It is simply what I have seen in my time at Whitworth and what other nontraditional students have told me they have seen. I also want to take a moment to clarify what I mean by a non-traditional student. In this case, a non-traditional student is someone who has started school after the age of 23 while also having had at least three years between the last time they went to school and when they started college. Other non-traditional students do include but are not limited to, Veterans, students with kids, career changers, and students who have disabilities that make school more difficult. I will also not be referring to what continuing studies or night school students are experiencing as they have a different situation to full-time, day students, though I will touch on why. I would also like to warn you that if you picked this up or scanned the code hoping to see a dry empirical survey of students, charts of statistics, or facts, then I am sorry, but this is not that. Instead, this will be my story and the stories of others who are currently or have recently attended Whitworth. Because facts and stats often hide and dilute what each of those numbers represents, a human. It is not all bad, though; there is hope, and we have suggestions.

To start off with, I should probably clarify where I am coming from and why I am the one writing this. I am in my 30s, married, with three children, and returned to college in 2019 after dropping out of the University of Oregon in 2009. I returned to college in 2019 because I was tired of struggling to pay my bills and telling my children, “No, we can’t afford that right now.” I wanted to do better for them, my wife, and myself. I did not choose to start at Whitworth; instead, I did what a lot of non-traditional students do and went to my local community college, Spokane Community College. I will return to why the CC was the right choice for me, but it doesn’t need to be the normal. I was working full-time while at SCC, helping my parents run their small business. That, too, had to change once I came to Whitworth. I am also a member of the Honors program here at Whitworth and have had more support than other non-traditional students, which is why I am writing this piece to try and extend some of that support to others. Finally, for my introduction, I transferred to Whitworth as a History major, and if you have been tracking this right…that had to change too. While many students have to change majors at some point, it has different implications for nontraditional students because most of us come back to school knowing what we want to do and where we want to end up at. Changing a major means that all those plans we made and prepped for before starting college go out the window.

The reasons I started at SCC rather than trying to go straight to a full four-year college like Whitworth were fairly simple: I wanted to make sure I wanted to teach, I wanted to save money, and I wanted to be somewhere that I knew had safety nets if I couldn’t pass my classes. I didn’t think failure was imminent, but I was worried about it. Many nontraditional students also had that concern, especially the more time they had spent away from school. Of the ten current and past students I talked to about this, only one felt confident that she would not fail. Of the other nine, two had failed classes; five of us had dropped classes before the withdrawal deadline because we were worried we would fail, and all ten of us had switched classes within the first few weeks of the semester. Even though three of us are or were honors students, we were not confident we would pass every class.

But that raises the question of why does it matter if we are concerned? Most students will fail at least one class at some point or have to withdraw to protect their GPA. Well, for traditional students this might mean that they have to find a new class to fill it in later or add an extra year. They have the full flexibility to do that, and I am horrendously jealous of that. Non-traditional students might not get the chance to retake that class or find another thing to fit in. When you have kids or other outside responsibilities, you lack the kind of flexibility that traditional students have, and this often leads to having to take an extra year. But that just means another year here at Whitworth, right?

That should be a good thing, but it’s not necessarily. Beyond the massive financial cost of an extra year, there are other costs traditional students wouldn’t have. I am currently in my fifth year, my extra year, due to changing majors and it has cost me. This school year alone, I have missed three of my oldest son’s band performances, my kindergartener’s school celebration for earning the student kindness award for the semester, and I could not see my third grader’s school play because I needed to be in classes. It’s not just me that is paying for me to be here but my family. Johnathan Jackson, a veteran of the Air Force and my fellow non-traditional English major will also have to take a fifth year. He is not concerned about the money because his service in the military will cover his costs. However, it does mean for him that he is concerned that the fifth year will add more stress to his family life and put him off from moving into his chosen career path. He should be getting support from the Veterans Affairs office and other on-campus systems, but he is not.

There actually aren’t that many on-campus support systems for Veterans or non-traditional students in general. One of the things I did not initially notice until fellow honors student Kari Roney mentioned it, is that Whitworth does not have a tutoring center. When I toured Eastern Washington University, attended the University of Oregon, visited the University of Washington, went to SCC, and talked to friends at Gonzaga, every one of them has a centralized tutoring center where you can go and get help in any subject you need. But here at Whitworth, you have to go to each department and ask if they have someone who can tutor, which most don’t have. They usually put out an open call or have a professor ask someone they think might be able to help you. It can be a long, drawn-out, unrealistic process if you have a simple question about a project or assignment. The English department has the WCC, which is an amazing resource if you are working on a piece of writing for any subject, but they can’t really help you with your Computer science assignment, to figure out that proof for Calculus, or what kind of bond a uranium isotope breaks when undergoing fission. Traditional students will have social connections or more time on campus to try and find someone else to help them. Non-traditional students at Whitworth don’t have that extra time, nor do they have the same kind of social connections.

Which is not necessarily our fault either. Nor would I say it is 100% Whitworth’s. This probably boils down to the age gap, the maturity gap, and the lack of face-to-face time that often accompanies the non-traditional student’s life on campus. One of the startling things I found is that out of the nearly 2200 students in the full-time day program, there are around 100 of us non-traditional students. It’s startling because I was not aware there were even that many, and when I talked with others, they also didn’t know there were that many. That’s because nothing is designed for us to meet and get to know each other. Each dorm has its own representative in the Associated Students of Whitworth University (ASWU); each year level has one, but the non-traditional students are plugged in with the Off-campus students. While yes, the vast majority of us live off campus, not always by choice, pooling us with off-campus students is reductive. As to why we live off campus, Whitworth not allowing co-habitation between married couples, not having child-friendly housing, and not allowing shared housing with non-Whitworth students all contribute to us living off campus. Not having a lot of child-friendly housing is not surprising as most private colleges don’t have that, expecting you to have a house or apartment off campus that is better for children. However, the no cohabitation policy, even when married, makes it so that even if traditional students wanted to become married, they would then lose their housing on campus, let alone those of us who are in the non-traditional category and have been married for years.

So yes, we live off campus, but there is a big difference between non-traditional students and traditional off-campus students. While I did not study them for the purposes of this paper, when I have talked with other students in class or during the few school events I feel comfortable going to, they live off campus to try and get away from the restrictions of the dorm, want to live with a partner or save money by renting a bigger place with non-Whitworth students. However, unlike non-traditional students, they can and do participate in more on-campus events and have fewer responsibilities outside of school. So when our ‘representative’ is a traditional student who happens to live off campus, there is a gap in what non-traditional students need. I don’t think it would be hard to add a non-traditional student representative to ASWU to give us a better voice in student government and maybe try and push for some events designed for non-traditional students.

That was one of the big sticking points for Melinda Mullet, a non-traditional English and American Studies student. When I sat down to talk with her, we discussed the fact that I and seven of the other students I talked to all started at a community college or state college before transferring to Whitworth to finish our degrees, but she started as a freshman at Whitworth. I asked her why she wanted to come here rather than SCC or something to save money, and her response was, “I wanted to be part of the community. I was hoping that by coming here, I could make some social connections that I didn’t have and meet new people.” Which is one of the things colleges are kind of supposed to be about. So, I asked if she felt that now, after three years here, she had made those connections. She said, “No, not really. I mean, I talk with my professors more than I have any of the students. It’s not that I didn’t try but there aren’t really any opportunities to do that outside of class for us, and the age gap becomes really obvious, really fast.” We then discussed what events we had been invited to or had done on campus. I had only ever gone to some book discussions or the rare board game club meeting when I could get a babysitter on Saturdays. She had not gone to any but got the off-campus newsletter that I had stopped receiving after my first year here. The kind of events they put on for off-campus students are things like ‘Second chance prom’ or ‘Nerf gun battles in the loop’ or late-night dances. Of the non-traditional students I talked to, only one had attended any of these events, and that was the Nerf gun battle. For the rest of us, it boiled down to the fact we didn’t feel comfortable going to a dance with our partners when the rest of the group would be a decade or more younger than us, single, and looking to cut lose or doing anything late night when we have to be up at 5 am to deal with kids, go to work, or do any of the multiple other responsibilities we have. If there were more book discussions, meet and greets, or other events that are targeted at our demographic, we would be more involved in campus life. Something that would make Melinda more excited and provide those connections for help in the class that we are missing from not having a tutoring center. Instead, we have our professors to talk to and make connections with.

This is where I get to one of the bright spots of life at Whitworth, and the main (nine out of 11 of us) reason most of us stay is the professors. For myself, I have found that all but a couple of my professors are some of the kindest, most understanding, and talented teachers I have ever met. Whether it be Dr. Bert Emerson, who has had to deal with so much of my crap that I am sure I have given him grey hairs, or Dr. Nicole Sheets, who has sparked my writing and helped me get accepted to speak at the national English conference two years in a row. Dr. Casey Andrews who has taken time out of his schedule to talk with me about things I am dealing with at home, issues on campus or what I could do for my other classes. Dr. Meredith Shimizu, whose class I took to fill a slot, but left with a deeper understanding of art and such an interest in art history that I added a minor with it to my degree. Dr. Nicole Bouchard, whose love of Victorian literature and teaching style led to a class environment I have never before or since experienced and was genuinely sad to have the semester end. Or Christiana Andrews, who took time outside of class to help me try and navigate the hectic world of trying to raise an autistic child. For each of us I talked to, we had almost nothing but praise for our professors who sacrificed so much to work here, with only a handful of rare exceptions where we struggled with a professor.

However, those same great professors are handicapped by the environment in which they teach. The utterly criminally low pay that these amazing people get. The offices that feel more like closets than working spaces. The lack of dedicated parking for teachers that leads to some having to park across campus from where they teach. The fact they have to smile and act like everything is ok as they watch their departments get ripped to shreds by budget cuts when others, with fewer majors, don’t get touched. Or the fact that both non-traditional students and professors struggle with finding childcare due to Whitworth not having a daycare or other childcare program.

This was my original project idea, to try and get the information and put together a plan for Whitworth to have a daycare; however, due to the time constraints of this project, that had to change. This lack of childcare and budget concerns is why the schedule for classes and office hours has become highly restrictive for non-traditional students. The lack of childcare means that many professors have to have limited office hours or are only available via appointment due to needing to handle their own home lives while still providing for their students. They still do, though. I have had multiple professors make special trips to campus or bring their kids so that they could still hold a class or meet for a discussion. However, that same schedule issue leads to another major problem for non-traditional students: there is a very limited window in which professors can schedule classes.

This is where another supposed ‘solution’ falls short: online classes. I have heard from the administration and various articles that non-traditional students prefer online courses and that moving more of your classes online will broaden your student base. While yes, there is a group of adults who prefer online learning and need that flexibility, much like the school of continuing studies provides. But for everyone I talked to, and especially myself, we chose the full-time day program because we wanted that stable set schedule. I started school just before the Pandemic hit. I had a semester of in-person learning, then a semester split in half, and then four semesters purely online. I hated being online. I didn’t like asynchronous classes, I didn’t like virtual tests, I hated Zoom, and I couldn’t stay focused as much. When we shifted to online, I lost that reliable ‘you have to be in class at this time, studying this thing.’ It became too easy to blow through a class video or skim a presentation, and I know I lost out on much of what I had learned. I also couldn’t go to a professor with a question about an assignment or a clarifying question. I had to email them and wait for a reply, which sometimes took longer than I had to do the assignment.

When talking with the other students, they had concerns with this, too, even though most of them had started at the tail end of the pandemic and only had a semester or two of online learning. Johnathan Jackson told me that for him, “it was like trying to focus on a conversation in the middle of a theme park. There is so much around you to grab your attention that I couldn’t stay focused on the class. An hour-long recorded lecture would take me three hours to watch because my dog needed to go out, the mail came, a friend called, or any number of things. But I don’t have all that extra stuff when I am in a classroom. I can just focus on the class and ask questions.” This was a common theme with each person I had spoken with, although Melinda put it the best, “If I wanted to do online learning, I would go to SNHU, University of Phoenix, or one of those other, dedicated, cheaper, online schools. I came to Whitworth to be at Whitworth!” Providing more online classes makes sense for the school of continuing studies or, as an alternative, might help. But as a catch-all for non-traditional students, it just doesn’t work. We want to be in classrooms with the best part of Whitworth, its professors.

There are other minor issues with the campus that stem from the age gap and such like not feeling welcome in the recreation center, weird conversations in class when you have to explain to the other students that your wife was born before the Berlin wall fell and you both were born when the U.S.S.R. was a thing, to having to change in a locker room with people nearly half your age when taking a P.E. class. But those are not so much a Whitworth issue as it is just a social and community issue. We can handle that, and yes I am stalling to try and hit the next page.

Because, I know that, like most scholars, many readers will jump to the end of the paper to try and see what the jest of the argument the author is making. First off, you shouldn’t. Part of why I did this project is to try and encourage you to actually speak, like humans, to myself and other non-traditional students. But if you want cold stats, yes, the number of traditional students is down nationwide by almost 24%, while the number of non-traditional students is up 31 % from 2016. Of that, Whitworth’s traditional student attendance rate is down significantly from its 2016 numbers (I couldn’t find an actual % but if you look at attendance numbers, it slopes down pretty heavily), so much so that they just cut 30% of the budget across the academic side of school, while their number of non-traditional full-time day students has had no statistical change. But if you rely purely on data and statistics, you neglect the…oh, what’s that Whitworth saying?

THE HEART AND MIND OF THE STUDENTS AT YOUR CAMPUS!

I hate the fact that when I have been asked to go talk at SCC or to parent groups who are thinking about going back to school and, they ask, “Is Whitworth a school I should consider going to?” I can’t, with a good conscience, tell them yes. For most of them, if they are not traditional students, I encourage them to go to Eastern, WSU, or UW. I want to brag about my college. I want them to come learn from the professors I love. But I can’t. If the national trend continues, Whitworth will run out of traditional students and will be unable to keep its doors open. Unless things change at Whitworth, this reputation for being unfriendly to non-traditional students and professors will continue growing, and the campus will miss out on some of the best students and staff that will cross through that mythical Pinecone Curtain.

Works Consulted

1. Facts and Rankings, https://www.whitworth.edu/cms/about/facts-and-rankings/
2. Frequently Asked Questions, https://www.whitworth.edu/cms/administration/institutional-research/frequently-asked-questions-general-public/
3. Nontraditional students: Supporting changing student populations, https://naspa.org/images/uploads/main/Hittepole_NASPA_Memo.pdf
4. Nontraditional Students: Who Are They and What Do They Need?, www.educationcorner.com/nontraditional-students-guide/
5. Postsecondary Outcomes for Nontraditional and Traditional Undergraduate Students, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/ctu
6. Whitworth University Diversity, https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/whitworth-university/student-life/diversity/#age_diversity
7. Whitworth University Statistics, https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/whitworth-university

And a massive thank you to each student, past or present, who sat down and talked with me. I did not reference many of them by name in this writing due to personal concerns they expressed during our talks. I am sad that they felt they needed to remain anonymous, but I wholeheartedly respect their decision. They are why I wanted to do this, and for any future non-traditional students that may come across this. I sure hope this did something to make it easier for you.

Signed,

Casey C. Prociw