"Colleges find juicy titles swell enrollment; Many opt for courses like 'Economics of Sin'" by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | September 8, 2009
.... In that way, the catchy titles go beyond savvy marketing, a shorthand way to show students raised on text messaging and Facebook that the course has a contemporary edge. They also signal a shift away from stuffy lectures and abstruse textbooks to discussion-based, multimedia classes, and winkingly suggest the class might be entertaining....
As schools compete for students and faculty come under pressure to boost enrollment in their classes, colleges from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to Wellesley are jazzing up course catalogs to entice a generation of students drawn to the dramatic. This year’s offerings include crowd-pleasing topics like massacres, superheroes, and sin.
“The titles are much more playful than before, no doubt about it,’’ said Bob Cluss, a biochemistry professor and dean of curriculum at Middlebury College. “I think it has to do with a younger generation of faculty who understand it’s an opportunity to catch students’ eyes.’’
*************************Boston College German studies professor Michael Resler went searching for a way to boost flagging interest in his “German Literature of the High Middle Ages’’ class a few years ago, and settled on the idea of simply giving the course a sexier name. The resulting “Knights, Castles, and Dragons’’ nearly tripled enrollment.
Resler then replaced his class on “The Songs of Walter von der Vogelweide,’’ a great German lyric poet, with “Passion, Politics, and Poetry in the Middle Ages.’’ Again, enrollment swelled.
Then they kids get in there and discover this class sucks!
That's when they drop it. I know, I've been there!
“I suppose the moral of the story is that we live in an age where everything has to be marketed in order to find a willing audience,’’ Resler mused....
Jessica Holmes, a 38-year-old economics professor at Middlebury, is part of the younger wave. This fall, she will teach Economics of Sin, a titillating title that has sparked sharp interest, with even faculty, staff, and community members looking to audit the class.
“In what other economics class will they have the opportunity to explore pornography, prostitution, crime and punishment, drugs and drug legalization, the sale of human organs, and gambling?’’ Holmes asked.
Actually, that one does sound interesting.
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The trend toward more inventive, provocative course names reflects a broader movement of professors using more creative teaching methods to capture students’ interest, Holmes and other academics say.
“As you can imagine, it is a lot easier to get students to debate the economic arguments for and against the legalization of prostitution than to discuss the latest employment estimates,’’ Holmes said.
Yeah, especially since that's about the only job that will be available to them.
No wonder our kids are stoo-pid.
Also see:
- Back-to-School Series: The 21st-Century School
- Back-to-School Series: A Message From the President
- Back-to-School Series: At the End of the Day
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- Back-to-School Series: First Class of the Day
- Back-to-School Series: Hi Mom, Send Money!
- Back-to-School Series: Late to School
- Back-to-School Series: Held Back
- Back-to-School Series: America's Economic Development System
- Back-to-School Series: Obama Turns on Teachers
- Back-to-School Series: Massachusetts Charts a New Course
- Back-to-School Series: Lynn Awash in Weapons
- Back-to-School Series: No Place Like Home
