Will Caffey Engl 1102 Elizabeth Hinnant 3/5/14 EIP Forty-Niner Focus/49er rebound

UNC Charlotte has a Forty-Niner Focus program that is required for students on academic probation to enroll and participate in. for students to meet these requirements they had below a 2.0 GPA the previous semester. The class meets once a week and is supposed to help give students motivation and structure to help them be more successful in school. The program does not seem to achieve its goals of making students more successful but rather just giving them busy work to test commitment. This program is also entirely administered by career advisors who are not used to having this role. The Career Center Every Tuesday afternoon at 12:30 the 49er rebound group meets in a cramped conference room in the back corner of the career center. The career center advertises upcoming events and reminders in colorful balloons painted on the large front windows. Right inside the door sits the lobby where there is always the same sweet elderly woman that always smiles and asks what she can help you with today. She sits like a watchdog and wont let anyone pass without discussing why they have come into the career center. After passing the secretarys desk on the right sit a handful of people in ties and coats anxiously waiting to interview for internships at big companies downtown. The anxiety is evident by the foot tapping and the rereading of the resumes each person has clinched in their hands. There is an interesting irony in this because each of these high achieving students is sitting nervously in the cramped waiting area, while underachieving students

walk by comfortably on the way to a meeting to discuss their academic shortcomings. Mary a large red haired lady is walking down the hallway smiling reassuringly to the people waiting. Her smile is the first thing you notice until you hear her meandering southern accent that is sincere and soothing. She welcomed each member of the group by name and asked the students to write down their information on the sign in sheet. The Group Mary the redhead is the leader of this section of the 49er rebound program. She is very talkative and energetic seeming to constantly be multitasking with papers in both hands scurrying around the office. Mary rarely stops smiling like most of the people who work with her in the career center. They seem to be a very tight knit group, which is really impressive with how chaotic it can often get in the main room of the career center due to its open floor plan. The career center workers talk amongst themselves about their families after a picture on one of their desks sparked the conversation. After writing down names and eight hundred numbers on the piece of copier paper the pen is left on the sheet of paper and all of the students find their seats on one side of the conference table. Students sit comfortably in rolling plush office chairs around a long conference table pieced together by several smaller tables. There is a very solemn Asian girl who is quite short and wears black framed glasses and teal scrubs to every meeting because she is coming from her organic chemistry class next door. She shared with the group that she is working on getting a nursing degree. She is young like the rest of the group but is a transfer student with a degree from another university already. She is usually one of the first ones to the class and she is the oldest member of the group. She is confident in herself and it is obvious

that she often bites off more than she can chew. She often talks about herself and she always mentions how tired she is and talks about all of her obligations that she has to remember to take care of. She is very organized and uses a bound agenda to write out all of her homework assignments. It is apparent that at least part of the reason she struggled in the last semester was because of how she over commits to clubs and volunteering while taking a rigorous course load. To her left is a tall dark haired boy slumped back in his seat doodling with a red pen on the borders of his old assignments. He is the most reserved out of the group and Mary has to continually perform CPR on their conversations as every short reply he gives snubs out the talking point. He is often talkative one on one but rarely speaks out in front of our group. He often strolls in looking a little bit confused and always sits at the farthest point from the Group leader. His unshowered hair and slightly messy demeanor are the direct product of his lack of organization. When he looks for a paper from the last FortyNiner Focus meeting session he opens his backpack exposing a large stack of mix and matched papers. Some sheets are notebook paper and others are printed out color pieces of paper and handouts from his classes. After a few seconds of looking through the jumble he asks for another copy of the sheet. He is very quiet and mild mannered but seems to be pretty smart when he is forced to give a response to the group. He seems to be struggling in school because of his lack of organization. It is difficult for him to complete assignments that he cannot find in the large stack of papers he keeps stacked in the main compartment of his back pack. Sitting to my left is a girl who is active in the UNC Charlotte equestrian club. She is very kind but has severe social anxiety. She speaks very quickly and sometimes

doesnt filter what she shares with the group. At the first group meeting during an icebreaker with the group discussing stress coping mechanisms she told the group that she copes with stress by crying in the bathroom. The rest of the group was very mature about it but she was instantly mortified and getting redder by the second. She is an extremely sweet person but she becomes frantic as soon as she opens her mouth. When interacting with the group she is always smiling but her body language shows insecurity as she watches everyone at the tables reactions wide eyed to whatever topic we are discussing. She rarely makes eye contact with anyone but the teacher for very long and silently clears her throat whenever there is an awkward silence. She is far more worried with what the group members are thinking about rather than what the group is currently discussing. She seems to be organized with her papers but absolutely cannot handle the stress of interacting even in small groups of people. Her anxiety is a huge hurdle for her to cope with in the classroom. The pressure of being in a classroom setting with several other students paralyzes her ability to focus on the subject matter. This makes it very difficult for her to be academically successful. Sitting across from all of the students on the far side of the table Mary asks them to make sure that everyone has signed in to receive credit for attending the meeting. Then she passes each student a sheet of paper with a username and password on it for the MBTI and STRONG assessments. As a group the students and Mary head to the computer lab and each login to begin taking their preliminary surveys. After each person has began to take the assessments Mary leaves the room to take care of something else. Roughly half way through the Myers Briggs personality test (MBTI) Mary reenters the room and tells the

students that when they finished the test they were free to go. One by one as they finished they left through the main lobby for the day. The next meeting was very similar the students met in the conference room and signed in and did the same thing except they took the STRONG assessment to see what majors corresponded with their interests. They were again free to leave after completing the survey which took around half an hour. The following meeting another career advisor came in to the group with a power point presentation about interpreting the results for both tests. The students discussed their results with the group and talked about if those were the results that they expected. One size fits all The 49er rebound program seems well intentioned but the curriculum is not focused on the students as individuals. In the group each student has their our own unique reasons for why they werent in good academic standing with the University last semester and to date they have not even touched on them as a group. Every week the students are given more material that is hardly beneficial busy work. In such a small group environment it would not be very difficult for students to get some specialization from the teacher (if they are required to come). The hour that the group meets for 49er rebound could be used instead to talk about study skills and organizational habits to help each student get back on track. A reinforcement of organization would benefit the brown haired boy greatly in school as his is organizational habits are so under developed for academic success. This hour a week could even be better utilized by the nursing student if she just studied for her classes during that time. The other girl would benefit from meeting with someone to discuss her anxiety and try to give her ways to cope with it. Mary tries to be engaging with the group and always tries to make the group meetings as

helpful as possible to the students but the program has major flaws. The 49er rebound program uses a blanket approach to help each one of the students but never even tried to assess the root cause. Professor Cynthia Demetriou stresses that academic rehabilitation programs are tied to finding the individual problem through specialization. She states that
academic advisors

need to be knowledgeable of the ways students learn, and what

motivates the students. In order to do this questions need to be asked to each student as an individual to specialize their path to academic recovery. Professor Demetriou would agree that 49er Focus needs to ask the questions and based on the attributions students provide, academic advisors could refer students to campus resources, create a probation contract, design advising sessions, or make a plan with the student to return to good academic standing. It is almost like taking your car into the shop to get your engine repaired and the mechanics instead ignore you and just paint your car with a new shiny paint job. The new paint job looks good but your car isnt any better off because the engine is still bad. The 49er rebound program is trying to motivate the students by showing them what they are working towards both through a major and then into a career. The other major focus of this rebound class is to have students show the university that they are willing to take the steps necessary to get back into good academic standing. Most of the talking points that the group has discussed were about improving their GPAs has been about dropping classes if students did not think they could be successful in or grade replacements. These technical fixes while they do help the students improve their GPAs, do not teach the student much. Professor Demetriou talks extensively about students on academic probations need to reflect on past academic situations. She stresses the

important of a students reflection for clarifying a students attributions for learning, failure,and success . These tips could be given to the students by their academic counselor rather than a special weekly group at the expense of an hour a week. This class also allows the university to show in their records that they tried to help struggling students with their academics. In that sense the 49er rebound program is beneficial to both parties, but often lacks real substance at the end of the day. This problem comes down from the design of the 49er rebound program not necessarily from the group leaders inadequacy as she always seems sincere in her efforts to help each of the group members. This program is well intentioned but lacks the key component of trying to identify and then fix the problem. This is especially surprising considering nearly every article about advising students on academic probation discusses the need for counselors to first identify the problem and then work with the student to start fixing it. (Cruise). The Asian girl and the brown haired boy often seem to be zoned out in most of the group meetings because they realize the routine of the group. The students expect to come in to the class to just be given an assessment on the computer or other busy work. It is apparent that the entire group is conditioned like this because most of Marys questions to the group become rhetorical after no one gives her a reply. This also might stem from the fact that the group members feel forced to be there but dont seem to get anything out of participating in the class. When asked in an interview the brown haired boy said that this group was a waste of time because all we ever do is take online tests and get lectured to (Oleski). The Asian girl also felt it wasnt a very beneficial use of her time because the credit for the class only helps you if you have another bad semester(Yuan).

The students lack of effort tells me that they dont have faith in the 49er rebound program being able to rehabilitate some of their academic shortcomings. The brown haired boy told me in his interview that this group isnt going to be the reason anyone does better next semester, most people just had to make a decision to buckle down after they saw how their first semester went. He made it more of a personal obligation to improve his academic standing rather than relying on a poorly constructed program. Loretta Zost who is a researcher at a University in Peru found similar evidence when she interviewed several students that were on academic probation and the ones that thrived were the individuals who took it upon themselves to improve their academic situation (Zost).

Deep down everyone who has been to a 49er focus meeting knows that the group meetings are a waste of time. Good attendance in the program provides a safety net should there be more academic problems this semester when being reviewed by the Dean for academic suspension but the program itself did not benefit the students or help grow their academic skillsets. At the end of the day the responsibility lies with the students to improve their academics but this class seems to take time away from students without even trying to address the real problem at hand.

Bibliography

Zost, Loretta. "Perception Is Key to Overcoming Academic Probation." Perception Key to Overcoming Academic Probation. Academic Advising Today, Dec. 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.

Cruise, Christie A. "Advising Students on Academic Probation." The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal. Penn State, 28 Oct. 2002. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.

Oleski, Kyle Personal Interview 18 Feb. 2014 Yuan, Lilly Personal Interview 18 Feb. 2014

(B responses) (A responses)

Interview Do you think that this group is helpful? (A) No. (B) No this group is a waste of time because all we ever do is take online tests and get lectured to. I also dont like that it is once a week on a school day when sometimes I need to do Homework at this time. Is this (online assessments) what you expected from meetings every week? (A) No I think that they just give us busy work. (B) I had no idea that they had this many assessments online, its ridiculous. How could this group be more helpful? (A) I could just study during this time especially if Im already on campus. (B) I just think that they never really tried to help us out they just give us online assessments. How do you expect to do this semester? (A) I am taking some hard classes again this semester but I think Ill be fine. (B) I am taking engineering classes and they are pretty tough but well see.

What do you think has the biggest impact on you improving academically this semester? (A) I think getting more sleep and just studying longer (B) I need to get organized and stay organized, but also probably less procrastinting