This is part two of the rest of my interview with Dave Embree, the parts that didn't make it into the final version that's available in the August 2019 edition of Christian Standard.
TR: How are students different today than they were in 1978?
DE: Students are pretty much different in every way.
Although, just this past week I was talking with a student who I had lunch with, and he was wearing tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a t-shirt, and had kind of a scruffy beard, and I said, You know what? You could have been one of mys students in 1978. You look exactly the same.
When it comes to things like lifestyle and expectations of the university experience, everything is different.
In the 70’s, when we still had the tail end of the baby boomers coming to the college, then we went through Gen-X and the Baby Busters and Millenials and now we’re getting Generation Z. So four different transmutations of youth culture.
Let me give you four changes.
In 1978, up through the mid-80’s, there was real meaning to the term “poor college student.” Students left home expecting to have virtually nothing when they were in college. We had people who were staying someplace for 50 bucks a month, and it might be a basement that occasionally flooded.
One guy I knew lived at the top of a stairway that didn’t lead anyplace except to an attic, and had put sheets of plywood out in the rafters of the house, where he had a mattress on one, a small dresser on another, and I think he had a hot plate on another. And he was proud of the fact that he lived on 50 bucks a month.
In the 80's we started using the term ‘premature affluence’. There was this assumption that when you went off to college, that should not reduce your level of comfort. So residence halls at the university got nicer and they started developing more suite-style housing.
It suddenly became big business in Springfield. They switched away from from converting old houses into rooming houses, now instead building nice apartments. Over the years I could point out to you which apartment buildings were the hot student housing at the time, but each successive set of complexes that was built was more and more luxurious.
These days our ministry houses are a little enclave of 1-story buildings in a sea of four and five story apartment complexes, most of which have been built within the last 10 years, all of which are set up with suite-style living. Students rent a bedroom with private bath, and then they have access to a common space. So it sounds like the old boarding house, but these students spend 600 bucks a month per person, so a 4-person suite is $2400 or more. Some are $750.
How is that possible? It’s student loans! So the student loan burden becomes heavier and heavier.
The two reasons why students who have made commitments to God about missions or other forms of ministry are marrying the wrong persons or student debt.
The second way students have changed is academically.
Students have always grumbled about general education requirements. They’ve always grumbled that college is too hard. These days we even have parents who say college is too hard. You shouldn't fail students. And some of these students are coming from ‘no fail’ high schools, so they come and they’re not academically prepared for college. When they don’t do well, they’re angry at the institution or at the instructors.
I’ve taught at the university part time in the department of religious studies since 1984. In the early days the students might shine about this or that, but these days I’m just as likely to have students come to my office and say, I was a straight A student in high school and I’m getting a D in your class. You tell me what’s wrong.
Well, let’s look at the grade book. We’ve had 5 pop quizzes, you’ve had zeroes on all five.
Well, you expect us to read. I just don’t read.
Well, if you want to get an education, you need to read. Also, you didn’t turn in this assignment.
You didn’t tell us it was due.
We read through the syllabus on the first day. I assigned it to you on the first day.
Well you didn’t remind us.
It’s in the syllabus. Everyday we have a full teaching schedule, why would I take time out to remind you of something you already knew about.
Well that’s unfair.
Socially speaking, this is where things have dramatically changed. Let me recommend a book. An acquaintance of mine named Tim Elmore, who has a ministry called Growing Leaders, has written a book called Marching off the Map, in which he has really nailed Gen-Z, a lot of what they’re about.
One of the big issues the university faces is getting students to come to class. Studetns like to stay in their rooms. One of the things you’ll hear frequently on campus is, Over the last 2 days I binge watched Game of Thrones or binge watched Breaking Bad for the 3rd time. Maybe they’ll go down to the dining room, or maybe they’ll just call out and have food delivered to the room, once again paid for with college loan money.
There’s a ridiculously high number of students who believe they’ll never have to pay off their student loans, perhaps based on what some presidential candidate said in the last election.
They prefer to have the buffering effect of social media. They prefer to have editing capabilities about themselves before they expose anything. A few years ago I read something that claimed the average student spent an hour a week polishing their Facebook profiles. So I bounced that idea off some of our students and the answer I got was, Oh, no. People spend a lot more time than that.
You’ve probably heard acronyms like FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. Interestingly, that’s more true of missing out online.
I get bad reviews from students because I won’t allow them to text during class. That makes me a bad professor. They’re afraid. What if somebody gets engaged? What if there’s a really good meme that gets around and they don’t know about it until after class?
There’s a corollary, FOLO – Fear Of Living Offline. Researchers use FOMIRL, Fear of Meeting in Real Life. Students have often so carefully constructed online versions of themselves that they believe that would be shattered if some of the people they know online were to meet them in real life.
Many of the "None of the Above" students grew up in a family that was practicing Catholic or Baptist or whatever, but they’re quick to deny labels. There is still significant popularity of the term spiritual but not religious, which in many cases means what I call a Chinese buffet approach to spiritual life. You pick and you choose whatever you want to add together.
Let me share with you my greatest disappointment in the campus ministry. When I began in 1978 we were still sort of the first wave. In 1963 there were exactly three campus ministries associated with the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. When we established in 1977, maybe we were around the 60th. Still a pretty new phenomenon.
I thought, this is one of the best kept secrets. We need to get the word out to the Restoration church in general.
Many of our kids have been to big conferences or church camps where they heard about bible colleges, and praise God for bible colleges, praise God for the training they do. But 85% of our kids don’t go to bible colleges, and those kids are often never told about campus ministries.
We get 5 or 6 thousand freshmen at Missouri State every year, and many of them are from church homes. But in an average year, we probably have fewer than half a dozen students whose parents or youth minister or anybody. come to meet us before they come. That’s my biggest disappointment in campus ministry, the lack of networking with the church.
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