Attending WSU
Attending Winona State University in 2018–2019
Jim Herbert
When I retired from my job (at age 66) as Pretreatment Coordinator for the City of Winona in October of 2017, I had a sense that my work in environmental protection was not completely done. I wanted to write about what I had learned working in the field for 30 years, and I wanted to expand my knowledge of environmental protection beyond the boundaries of my specialty in the water quality area. I also wanted to come to know and understand this generation of college students better. Since I live in Winona, I concluded that attending Winona State University (WSU) would help me to achieve all of those aims. So, in the Spring of 2018 I enrolled as a student at WSU and registered for a class offered in the Fall.
I got my BS degree in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire (UWEC) in December of 1973. I felt that I generally knew what to expect at WSU, but I also realized it was a different school from the one I initially attended and that there have been changes in post-secondary education over the last 45 years. I was curious to see what changes really stood out to me.
The first change jumped out at (ambushed) me while I was enrolling. It was immediately clear that digital technology was completely integrated into all functions at WSU. UWEC had one computer on campus when I attended there. I had to type code and make punch cards to use it. I used it once. I have used word processors, spread sheets, and databases for over 30 years, but I never acquired an intuitive grasp of the underlying operating systems and have only been a user. Suddenly, I was exposed to lots of different software and it was clear that I would have to use all this software to navigate. The WSU ship was leaving the dock and I had to get on board if I was going to be a shipmate. WSU is a digital vessel. With lots of help from WSU staff I went to sea in the Fall of 2018. And believe me, there have been many moments when I have felt “asea” (bewildered)! I sometimes wonder if I will be here long enough to get my digital sea legs under me?
My first class at WSU (Biol. 104) was a combination of online and classroom experience. The textbook, lectures, and tests were all on line but there were quite a few classroom activities as well. I had never taken a class that was anything like this before. At first, I felt like I was not making a connection with the professor (Jennifer Biederman), but I soon realized that she had liberal office hours and welcomed interaction in that setting. I still have questions about on-line courses, but I learned much in the class and had ample opportunities to interact with the teacher. On line pedagogy seems to be an efficient way to transfer information, but information transfer is not the heart and soul of higher education. If the student is not equipped to acquire wisdom and understanding it is unlikely that they will become productive workers, responsible citizens, or otherwise reach their potential as creative human beings. Interpersonal interactions are essential in nudging a person toward wisdom and understanding. Wisdom is caught as much as taught.
They finished the new Mcintyre Library at UWEC between my freshman and sophomore years. It quickly became my go to place for research and study. There were many quiet nooks where I could concentrate and reflect undisturbed. My go to spot was on the west side of the top floor by a window. When I needed a break, I would simply browse through the stacks on that floor looking for little treasures. There were no computers in that library. You found books by searching alphabetically through the card catalogue (3x5 cards). Imagine doing research without a web browser. The reference librarians were gifted, skilled, and generous with their time. The library at WSU seems to be a very good library and it is the place I usually go to study. But libraries have changed drastically over the last 45+ years. Most of the resources immediately available through the library at UWEC were in books and other publications found in the facility. Only a small fraction of the information immediately available through the WSU library physically exists in the library. For most purposes, you don’t even have to go to the library to use the library. It seems to be mostly a digital entity. There are almost 350,000 print books and about 120,000 bound periodicals in the Krueger Library, but I rarely see anyone in the stacks. To me, it is comforting to feel books in my hands, and less comforting to have to depend on a digital readers to access the contents of the book. But I can think of no reason, once all information becomes digitized, that there needs to be physical libraries in the future. So, when the kids of the present students attend college, there may be no library on their campus. Library science may be a shrinking field of opportunity in the future. Librarians are apt to become an aging cadre. Those in it may stay in it, but younger people will likely stop going into it.
The food services at UWEC in 1969–1973 were terrible!! It seemed like everything was some combination of grease, starch, sugar, and salt. That is an exaggeration, of course, but it is scary to think that it was even a fair approximation of the actual situation. I knew several students that just couldn’t eat there. It was not a matter of taste. Most of the foods didn’t taste to bad, but their digestive systems just couldn’t handle it. By contrast, the food services at WSU are wonderful. I eat at the Kane dining hall probably once or twice a week. There are many wholesome and delicious options. Unfortunately, they make excellent desserts as well and I do not stay away from them as much as I should. But that is my choice. At the UWEC food services IN 1969–70 I didn’t really have many good choices. This begs the question, why the difference? The food services at UWEC certainly could have produced and served comparable food at that time. Why didn’t they? An article in USA Today suggests some reasons. I ate at the UWEC food service in the new student center about a year ago. Based on that one sampling, I would say that the current UWEC and WSU food services are comparable in choice and quality.
One thing I noticed immediately as I began to attend class at WSU is that there are many more females attending than males. Enrollment data for WSU in 2018 showed that 64% of the student body was female and 36% of the student body was male. In the 1969 school year 53% of the enrolled students at UWEC were women and 47% were men (from a phone call to UWEC admissions). This shift from close to gender balance to female gender predominance must affect college culture in ways I can’t identify and don’t understand. When I was at UWEC I became aware of the fact that many students, during that time, were looking to identify life partners. Once I understood this fact, it became easier for me to understand the attitudes and behavior of college students around me (and even my own). The women at UWEC had a larger pool to fish in and there was quite a bit of competition for their attention. The male pool at WSU today is smaller and there is apt to be less competition for the attention of women. I see no evidence that young people have less interest in the opposite sex (or in some cases the same sex) now as compared to then, so what that implies I am not sure. I got hooked 41 years ago and have been sharing my life with my best friend ever since, so these are academic questions as far as I am concerned.
Some things have changed, but some things have stayed the same. The teachers, administrators, and other staff at UWEC were committed to my education and general well-being. It is also true at WSU today. As I have thought about my experiences both then and now, I have concluded that, although there have been changes in higher education in the last 50 years, what has changed more than anything else is me. For better or worse, I am a much different person than the guy that walked into Scofield Hall on the campus of UWEC to register in the Fall of 1969. Then I was mostly looking ahead trying to figure out what kind of life I was going to live. Now I spend more time looking back at the kind of life I have lived. It is always good to look in both directions before you enter a crosswalk. In this time of transition in my life I am looking in both directions, forward and back, as I cross into the next phase of my life.
