Leah Armstrong Orientation

Good morning, everybody. Um, and I am so honored to be here today to speak to you about faculty expectations of students and academic conduct. So, thank you for having me today.

Um, just to introduce myself, I'm Leah Armstrong and I'm an English instructor here at Shelton State. I have been teaching English for 17 years and so I feel like my knowledge as a teacher and as a I have a 10-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old little boy. And so my knowledge as an English instructor, um, a parent, a colleague, um, an ambassador sponsor so that I work with a lot of students in different capacities other than just in the classroom. I feel that all those things combine to help me have a pretty good perspective about what our faculty members here at Shelton expect of you on a daily basis in the classroom. Um, and I am grateful to be able to be here with you today. So, I hope that you actually learn something.

Um, and I need a little help. I need a timekeeper and I need a note-taker. Um, so volunteer to be a timekeeper. Okay. Thank you. And a note-taker. Thank you. All right. So, just make sure that you cut me off so I don't just ramble on and on. Okay.

So, when you think about um when you think about what we expect from you, I I want you to first think about what you expect from your instructors. And I bet that you have a list of things as you entered college. Um, maybe some experiences that you had with high school teachers, some good, some bad. But I want you to tell me now what are some of the things that you expect from your instructors. Okay? Raise your hand and I'll point at you. Um, and you tell me some of the things that you expect us to do in your in the classroom on a daily basis. Okay? Don't be shy. Come on. What are some things that when you go to class each day that you expect your instructors to be doing? Think of it like that. Okay. Take roll. Take roll. Okay. And the point of taking roll is to be sure that you are present and accounted for. Right. All right. What else? Give personal attention if somebody is struggling. That's a great one. She said, "Give personal attention if somebody is struggling in a classroom." All right. What else? Okay. To uh get the point of the lesson across. That's right. I wonder would anybody mention instruction, right? Probably you expect your instructor to actually know what he or she is talking about, right? To be able to convey the lesson and to be able to get a point across. So all of those are very valid things to be attended to you. Okay.

The next slide says, "What do your instructors expect of you?" What do you think are some things that your instructors expect of you? Give me some things. Okay. To be attentive. To be attentive while you're in the classroom. That is an excellent one. All right. What else? To be on time. To be on time. Yeah. To show up when you're supposed to show up. To stay the duration of a class period, right? to stay from beginning to end. What else? What else do we expect from you? What? Okay. To ask questions. To ask questions. Especially if you don't understand, right? To ask questions. What about academically? What do you think we expect from you academically? Okay. To excel. Yeah. To excel, right? To try to do your best, to be there, to be attentive, to try to do your best. Notice that the same many of the same things that we said um that you said you expect from us, those are the same things that we expect from you. So if you think about it, it's really not that far-fetched to say that our expectations are parallel um to what they're the same thing. And so in that way, you know, it's always good to have sort of these like a contractual expectation. I want you to do these things, you want me to do these things. And if you know exactly what to expect, then there's not really room for error or for failure for that matter. Okay.

Um, let's talk about honesty. And we know this everybody as far as absences, tardies are concerned. One of the big things about getting to college is realizing that you know, a lot of your high schools have this no zero policy and this doesn't exist anymore when you get to the college level. And so now it becomes all about the importance of being in the classroom, about showing up on time when you're supposed to, not walking in late, not causing a commotion if you do walk in late. You know, it's important to remember sometimes we have car trouble, we have kid trouble, we have things that might make us a few minutes late, but the even the way that you come into a classroom um when you're late makes a big impression on your instructors. So, if you come in and you just slip in quietly and you find your seat at a at a at your table or at a desk, that's one thing. But if you come in with your bag and you make all this commotion and you hey to everybody coming in and then you plop down your books and throw your backpack down, that definitely is not the way that instructors want you to come in or to leave if you have to leave a few minutes early. As far as turning your work in on time, you know, now you don't really have the opportunity for many second and third and fourth chances like you might have had in your past. um when work is due, it's due. And so you have to make sure that you take the syllabus at the beginning of the semester from each of your classes and you map everything out so that you already know right now your test dates, your assignment due dates, and all those things that will be important. Okay?

So, just remember communication is so important. Um, and making sure that you let your teachers know where you are. If you're running late, why? If you need to leave early, why? Yesterday I had a student who had a job interview. Um, and he's in my 11:30 class. He had to leave about 20 minutes early. He let me know by email before we got to class. Then he reminded me at the beginning of class, he was all dressed up. Don't forget I'm going to slip out just a little early for my interview. That's the way to handle that kind of situation. Your instructors want you to interview. We want you to do well in all aspects of your life. Um, so it's important that you communicate.

All right, here's a great joke about honesty and being on being where you're supposed to be. All right, hit it for me. Here's an all-time. Four friends have been doing really well in their class. They have been getting top grades for their homework and on tests, but when it was time for the final exam, they decided not to study the weekend before the final. Instead, they drove to a friend's birthday party in another city, even though the exam was scheduled for that Monday morning. As it happens, they drank too much at the party. And on Monday morning, they were all hung over and overslept. When they finally arrive on campus that day, the exam is already over. So, they missed their exam. They go to the professor's office and they offer him an explanation. "We went to our friend's birthday party and when we were driving back home very early on Monday morning, we suddenly had a flat tire. We had no spare and since we were driving on the back roads, it took hours until we got help." The professor nods sympathetically and says, "I see that it was not your fault. I will allow you to make up for the missed exam tomorrow morning." So the students are so happy um and think that they've you know arranged this with no problem. When they arrive early on Tuesday morning, the students are put by the professor in a large lecture hall and they are seated in the lecture hall so far apart that there's no way even if they try that they could have a chance to cheat because they're so spread out. The exam booklets are already in place and confidently the students start writing. Now remember, these are good students. They know the material. The first question for five points out of 100 is a simple exercise and all four students finish it within 10 minutes. As they complete the first problem and turn over the page of the exam booklet, they look at the next question, problem two, for 95 points out of 100. Which tire went flat? You get it? So, they're all in separate seats, right? They can't communicate. They can't get their stories together. And there they sit caught in a gigantic lie, right, to the teacher. And of course, when they turn the papers in, all of them will make a zero because not only have they been dishonest, right, but they can't get their stories coordinated. And you know how that it's normally like that in life. When you tell one little lie, then what do you have to do? Tell another one to cover that one and so on and so forth. Just like I tell my at-home children, I tell the same thing to my students at at school. I would much rather you tell me the truth and let's just deal with the consequences than to tell a lie about where you've been or why you're late or why you've been absent or anything like that. And I think the majority of instructors here would agree on that. Okay.

Um, let's talk about respect. So, one of the things when you get in a college setting is that you really come together with all kinds of students from different backgrounds. Same thing for your teachers. We all hopefully have your best interests at heart, but we're very different in the way that we instruct, in the way that we relate to students. Um, and that's okay. The world is made up of all different kinds of teachers and students. One of the things that you have to recognize is that a lot of your high schools had a very similar background. But when you get here, the makeup is very different. Yet, you still have to be able to work in groups with different kinds of people. Just today, for example, I put my students in groups for the first time this semester. They didn't even know each other. Many of them had to say, "My name is so-and-so. I'm from here." Um, and so they came together for the first time and they have to make their personality match and correspond with other people. So, one of the big aspects is respect for your fellow classmates and for your teacher. And that's a big deal. I think that when instructors treat you with respect and we value your time and your commitment to education, generally you do the same thing back. But when you think about this, like let's say that you get a bad grade and you immediately walk up and you take your um graded paper and you're mad about your grade on your essay, so you come up and say, "I don't understand why I made this 62 on my essay. My My high school teacher said, 'I'm a good writer.'" How do you think that I would react if you acted like that about your grade? Some of you know me. Comment. How would I react to that? I'll answer. Not well. Okay. I would not be a happy camper. However, what if you walked up and you said, "Miss Armstrong, I have a question about my essay. I know that I made a 62, but can you show me why I missed this on comma splices or subject-verb agreement? And even better, can you help me um try to learn this so that I don't make the same mistake on my next paper?" Okay, that's a much more efficient way um of of talking to an instructor with respect and keeping something organized.

Same thing for your surroundings. This is one of my pet peeves. You know, we have nice things at Shelton State. Nice classrooms. Like look at the lab that you're in right now. So, I really think instructors maintain that when you're in a setting such as this. Um, and out in Shelton State, we want you to take care of the environment as well. We don't want to be walking down the hall behind you and see you throw a piece of trash down. Or most of us will tap you and say, "Sorry, you dropped that by accident. Why don't you pick that up?" Right? Um, and same thing for the classroom, leaving things out on the desk, drinking near the computer, um, tablets and that kind of thing. All of these are things that you need self-respect, which is a big thing. And then you'll take care of your environment as well. This is a little um a little cartoon. It says, "I couldn't do my homework because my computer has a virus and so do all my pencils and pens." You know, this has come up before where I'll they'll say, "Well, my computer broke down and so I don't have an essay today." Oh, well, I'm sorry. Did your pencil and pens break down as well? Right. At your hand and the ability for you to write break down? Because think about this everybody, rather than just saying my computer broke down and I don't have it, a paper, hand write it in black ink, which is better than nothing, right? And same thing in other subjects. Go the extra mile to try to prevent this from happening. Teachers are a little smarter than you give them credit for sometimes. It's funny because, you know, students will think that they're texting and nobody sees them. It's the old down in the lap text. Um, we know you're texting. We know if your purse is on your lap. We know the phone is in your lap and you're texting. We may not choose to interrupt the whole class to to correct you right then and there. Um, but we definitely know what you're doing. And so, don't think that people don't know and are not attentive and watching. That's a big part of it.

Accountability. And this really becomes something that I hope that your parents started to you at a very young age, but being accountable for your actions. And notice I added, or lack thereof. You know, most of you now are 18, 19 years old. Some of you a little older than that. It's time that you're responsible for your own actions. Um, you can't blame other people. And it gets to a point where you just have to own what you do, good or bad. And that's an important part of being a college student. You will not always be perfect, nor do we expect you to be. But I think that the majority of your instructors will work with you. Um, if you have if you make a mistake, if you have some kind of problem and you show the initiative that you come to us, try to work it out. Um, I generally think that most instructors here will work with you on that. Okay? So, just being accountable. Your parents are not responsible for you anymore. Mom and Dad are now out of the picture because you're in the big leagues. And trust me, it's hard to let go. I mean, I even work on this with my little children. You've heard of the term helicopter parent. Have you ever heard of that? Um, I try so hard not to be that parent because as an instructor, I see what happens when when students get older if they've had parents who are like that. And so I'll see something and it's my natural inclination to want to fix it because that's what parents want to do for their children, but then I step back and I think, no, I don't want him to turn out like fill in the blank who can't solve his own problems in a college setting. And so accountability is a huge thing. Making sure that now you know you're responsible for you.

Communication. Look, this is the biggest thing here at Shelton State. This is really truly the key to success. It says, "Communicate during class. If you have questions, do not sit silently and not understand your biology lab or your history, the war that someone is describing or teaching or your how to write an essay. You can't just sit silently. Everybody, you have to make sure that you ask questions in the class." You've heard the expression, there's no such thing as a dumb question. Have you ever heard that? Well, that's not true. There definitely are dumb questions, and I've been asked a lot of them. But I'd rather answer a dumb question and go ahead and give you the answer and get it worked out than to not answer a question and you go home not understanding. Okay? So, that's a big part of it. Communication before and after class. If you have a parent in the hospital who is getting who is having surgery, but your teacher has a no cell phone policy in the classroom like I do. I don't allow them to keep them up on the table. All you have to do when you walk into class that day is say, "Look, Miss Armstrong, my dad is having surgery. Do you mind if I keep my phone up on the table so that I can get a text from my mom?" What do you think the answer will be? Sure, you keep it out. Okay. Or you're expecting a call about a job. I think that virtually any instructor here, if you make them aware, that they're going to respond. Now, if you're in the middle of class and I'm teaching, let me see. If I'm teaching and you, you know, I'm in the middle of teaching about a five-paragraph essay and you say, "Hello," is that going to go over well with your instructors? Not at all. Right? So, we need warning. We need communication about what you're doing, okay? About where you're going or what you're doing. Please make sure that your teachers know your name. At this point, I know my students' names. And so when I see them in the hallway, I speak to them. And when your teachers speak to you, make sure you speak back, right? If they wave in the hallway, you wave back to them. Um, face-to-face communication is the best. Go visit them in their office so that you know um they know you and you can make contact with them and know where to find them. Don't forget to use email. It's the fastest form of communication between you and a teacher. Teachers are all over this building. I may be upstairs for ambassadors, but if I get an email and my phone pings, it could be Matt saying, "Hey, can you meet me in your office?" Sure. I'm on my way down. Opposed to him just walking around aimlessly searching for me. Okay, so visit faculty offices. It's a maze in there. Have you ever been in? You have to get familiar um with the environment in there. But you can ask those of us who are in there, ask us for directions to find your way and then once you figure it out, you'll know where it is. Email if you are sick. The other day I got an email at 3:30 in the morning and it was kind of funny. My little boy happened to be awake. Um, it was one of those nights he was just sort of walking the floor wide awake. And so I heard my phone and I got an email from a student saying, "I am violently ill with a stomach virus. I have been up all night long. I will not be in class, but we had a paper due that day." She said, "Can I email you my paper?" Which I don't accept papers by email. "Can I email you my paper and then bring you a hard copy when I can stand up again?" Potentially, that's what it said. What do you think my answer was? Yes. It's taking initiative. She took the initiative to reach out even sick like that. She didn't wait until we met and I marked her absent and then I realized, wait a minute, she didn't turn her essay in. Um, she she she did what you call um pre-planning. She went ahead and let me know. Your instructors appreciate that more than you ever will know. I've had students email me and say, "Hey, I'm running 10 minutes late. I will be there and I'm on my way." I appreciate that. That's saying that you care enough about my opinion of you that you want to let me know where you are and that you're coming and that you're sorry and you're going to be there in a minute. Don't overlook little things like that and the way that instructors value that because I'll end up thinking a lot more of you when you take that just one minute to reach out and let me know where you are. And I know I speak on behalf of other instructors. We also, you can call our offices um and we all have voicemail that will call you back. I still think email is the way to go. You can definitely call and leave a voicemail, but email is so much faster. So, a professor could be somewhere else and get an email and quickly respond to you.

Okay, here's another little cartoon. It said, "Last year you bozos only gave me 75%. This year, I want 100% from both of you. You got it." Says, "You got it, coach. Put us down for 50% a piece." Yeah. Um, here's the thing. We do want 100% from you. You may not be able to give it every single day. We all have bad days. We all have days where we think, "Oh, if I just didn't have to go to school this morning, if I didn't have to teach today, I could get so much done. I wish I didn't have all this grading, this homework, these kids' baseball games, whatever." Everybody has a string of things that we could comment on, right? But you still have to remember when you look at something like this class, for example, you're in a 50-minute class. So you come in and for 50 minutes only, you can do anything. You can make it through. You can get done what you need to get done. And then at the end of those 50 minutes, you can walk out and do the next thing on your to-do list. It's important that you think of life in small spurts. I never look too far ahead. I can't handle all the gymnastics and baseball and this and that and the teacher conference and I just go day by day in my life and it's a good idea to have a planner so that you can know exactly what's on your itinerary for that day. Okay, that's a good tip.

Um, I think I addressed this a little bit. Come to school whether you feel like it or not. Now, if you're violently ill, that's different. Obviously, you can't get here and we don't want you here, right? When you have flu, stomach bugs, terrible. But if you're just having a day where you're tired, you still have to get up and come to school and you'll be glad you did. It's like exercise. Once you do it, you feel better even though you dread it leading up to it. It's the same kind of thing. Um, and when you're there, pay attention and listen. You don't want to have to do makeup work. Your instructor certainly does not want to have to grade and make that new test. Um, and we already discussed this about if you're leaving early, let your instructor know. Send an email, visit, touch base with him or her at the front of at the beginning of class to let him know.

Integrity. This is a huge thing um that you continue to learn every year of your life, but making sure that you're doing the right thing when nobody is looking. That is one of the best life lessons that you can ever receive. Doing the right thing when nobody is looking. You know, we live in this social media generation where a lot of people do what I call showboating on Facebook and Instagram. Do you know what I mean by that? They're always putting something to try to make themselves look good. Um, and and a lot of times their real life behind that. It doesn't necessarily reflect it. Remember, your integrity is everything. Not what you're showboating out there um but what you're how you're really living and what you're doing in a classroom and in the college and at home for that matter.

Um, faculty expectations of students. You can go ahead and list the whole. It says, "Read the syllabus." That's the reason we give you that on the first day. It's the contract between us. So read your syllabus. Know what my expectations are and then you can't let me down. If you know what to expect from me or what to expect from your biology teacher or your math teacher, then there there's no there are no grounds for a breakdown. Okay? Um, and make sure you know college policies and cell phone policies and that kind of thing. And be respectful. You wouldn't want me checking my phone every 3 seconds while I'm doing this um with you or while I'm teaching you. And so, you know, make sure that you have the same courtesy. Okay? And we we've talked about that in that. Read the handbook. Um, make sure that you know about cheating and plagiarism and misrepresentation, particularly things like this happen in English and history classes. Don't let the internet write a paper for you. You write the paper yourself. There are some very serious consequences with these three things, and we'll look at some of them. Um, yeah, I mean, there's really nothing to say except don't cheat. You don't want to do this in college. The penalties for cheating and plagiarism are so big that they can even get you thrown out of the school um out of college period. So, it goes back to the honesty thing and you can click ahead for me. It goes back to the honesty thing, everybody, and that is if you're using your integrity, then you wouldn't do this anyway. You wouldn't try to pass off somebody else's information as your own. Um, you would use citations. One of the things you'll learn here if you didn't learn it in high school is MLA citations. And so you'll learn that to avoid cheating in any kind of making sure that you don't falsify information, alter, misstate, or misrepresent yourself in some ways. It all goes back to that slide about honesty and making sure that you are honest in in all that you do in every aspect of your life, not just the classroom.

Academic standards, everybody. And these are, you probably already seen them, but just based on your GPA and your number of credit hours that you've attempted. And I have this on the PowerPoint. Um, it has the hours that you have attempted and what your GPA should be or or like the lowest that it could be, I should say. Not I want it to be higher than that for sure. Um, but the lowest that it could be without you getting on academic probation, which we do not want to happen. On the next screen, you'll see the academic standards. We want everybody right here in this clear within guidelines. We don't want probation and we certainly don't want suspended. And the thing is, you have control over that. You never have to let it get that far. It does not have to get that far because you should be working with an instructor, working with your navigator, your advisor, so that it never gets away from you in the course of a semester. Says it's up to you. According to the article I wrote for Wikipedia, I'm destined to be one of the smartest men in the world. So, you should probably start giving me some better grades. Um, and you know, Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. I could go right now to Wikipedia and write something about physics and trust me, it would not be accurate. Okay? That's why I teach English. And so, the point is, it it's up to you. What you want to be in life starting today is completely up to you. Okay? You you get to make that choice and that's it.

Um, now let me take questions and let me just add a final comment here. You know, one of the things that you need to remember is that and the thing that I love about community college is that I feel like the instructors here work for your benefit. We work for the good of you. We want to see you be successful. Okay? So, in that in those regards, we'll do anything we can to help you be able to find your way here at Shelton, to do well in your classes, to help your attendance, but if we don't know you're struggling, we don't have a way to help you. Okay? So, you have to maintain that communication with your instructors. Be sure that you're open, that you communicate what's going on in your life. Don't allow outside forces to um impact your education. You'll be so thankful. Education is one thing that no no person can ever take away from you. I even tell my little kids that. You get an education and no one can take that. They take your house, they take your car, they cut off your electricity, but they cannot take an associate degree, a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, a doctorate degree, whatever you have. No one can take that away from you. So, that's why it's so important to do a good job while you're here and really buckle down and get it done. What questions do you have for me? Anybody? I must have done a bang-up job on this discussion, right? I did such a good job. I answered it all. Thank you, everybody, so much for having me today. I hope that I'll get to have some of you in my English classes. I teach 101 and 102 and 262, which is WID. So, hopefully, if I don't know you yet, I might get a chance to teach you at some point um while you're here at Shelton State. I would love that. You have been a great audience. Thank you so much for having me today. [Applause]