Helpful support for students or an expensive way to interfere?
Inside Higher Ed reports on a new app which updates parents on their student’s progress. But is it a helpful addition to student support or just a license for interfering parents? It’s not cheap either:
When families sign up for the program and pay the monthly $29.95 subscription fee, the student gets access to a series of Mentoring Interactive Programs, or MIPs, which can be accessed online or from a mobile phone. Each MIP consists of a short video on a topic such as “Coping With Homesickness” or “How to Ask for Help in College.” At the end of each MIP, students are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their health, social adjustment, academic behavior and academic goals.
After the student completes the week’s 10 multiple-choice questions, the data are analyzed by the csMentor technology and a report is generated for the student and the parents. The report doesn’t list the students’ answers, but instead provides a summary of how the student is doing in the four key areas, each of which is coded green, yellow or red.
“We see the service as a way of enhancing communication between parent and students,” said Steve Wattenmaker, CEO of csMentor. “We think it will enrich the conversations. It can go beyond the typical, ‘How’s everything this week?’ “
When families sign up for the program and pay the monthly $29.95 subscription fee, the student gets access to a series of Mentoring Interactive Programs, or MIPs, which can be accessed online or from a mobile phone. Each MIP consists of a short video on a topic such as “Coping With Homesickness” or “How to Ask for Help in College.” At the end of each MIP, students are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their health, social adjustment, academic behavior and academic goals.Interesting. It seems to entail a much greater degree of involvement than would perhaps normally be the case. Surely this can’t be a good thing?
Wattenmaker and the rest of the csMentor team, which is made up of educational psychologists, counselors and university administrators, hope the program will help students and parents spot potential problems earlier, so they can deal with them before they escalate.
But Marjorie Savage, parent program director at the University of Minnesota and author of the book You’re on Your Own (But I’m Here If You Need Me), wonders if parents should be involved so early in the problem-solving process.
“It feels to me like it’s going further than what a typical college student should need,” Savage said.
I think Savage perhaps understates the point here. It really isn’t good for the student to have parental involvement in this way. Particularly when universities have their own teams of student services professionals whose job is to offer this kind of support. Moreover, most students are adults and independent and should be treated as such. Really this just looks like a very expensive
