On February 6 and 7, the Illinois Institute of Technology hosted its annual Leadership Symposium (renamed from Scholarship Symposium) for admitted students applying for one of several different high-ticket scholarships. The two-day event brings hundreds of people to campus and takes over large swaths of the school. And as often happens during this event, current students felt like the afterthoughts. Almost every department alters its function in some capacity for those days. Current students are asked to share their rooms with potential students. Spaces on campus fill up very quickly – I came out of the Commons right about when one of my friends was going to enter, and they asked me “Is it even worth trying to get food or is it too busy in there?” At least a few architecture students who were in no way involved in the tours were asked to show off examples of their work while working in class. These are not things you do if the current students are the priority. The user group that is being designed for are incoming students, not current students. But okay, maybe this is tolerable for a couple of days. The issue is that this isn’t isolated.
Whenever a large group of non-Illinois Tech members comes in and are given Commons passes, they fill the space quickly. Often, there are reserved spaces for them, particularly in cases of visiting high schools. As current students, we’re not allowed into those reserved spaces. However, it’s a common issue that the people they’re reserved for don’t use them, either. These groups will just sit anywhere and leave their reserved spaces empty. They take up student spaces, and we get in trouble for taking up their spaces.
Or for another example, admissions tours visit certain dorm halls. As someone who once was on the so-called “tour floor”, I can attest that I was never told I was going to be on the tour floor when reserving housing. Additionally, we weren’t told if a tour would be going on any given day. On multiple occasions, I went to the bathroom, only to find a tour group blocking the entrances and exits. I had a friend who was once told off by a visiting parent for still being in his pajamas at 10 AM on a Saturday (apparently wanting to sleep in a bit is laziness that needs to be discouraged by a total stranger). Another time, I was part of a “Dungeons and Dragons” group that was playing in a social lounge. That day, our characters were getting intoxicated, so our role-playing was a bit more like that too. We were stone-cold sober but acting a bit rowdy. A Resident Advisor (RA) tried to write us up for making the school look bad to the tour groups because of this.
While the President’s Student Advisory Council (PSAC) was still a thing that existed, I was on it. During one presidential meeting, we asked about the “Billion Dollar Campaign”, and if any of the money fundraised from it would go towards things like campus maintenance. Administration dodged the question and focused on how it would fund new programs.
Part of Raj Echambadi’s goals as president of this university were to increase the number of students. Well, the College of Architecture (COA) tried to do this for one year. Each student in the COA has their own distinct studio desk. We physically ran out of space for everyone.
Last semester, Nova Ammerman wrote in TechNews about their experiences struggling to find federal work-study (FWS) positions on campus. They’re not the only one. The concern that there are more FWS financial aid offers than jobs is one I’ve heard. If true, Illinois Tech is promising something they can’t deliver, to try and get new students.
But I think my favorite example is also the saddest. The same semester as the “Elevate” advertisement campaign went up across the entire city, the COA was struggling to even cover maintenance costs. The architecture model shop felt this pinch particularly strongly. In the end, a ceiling tile fell and hit a girl on the head. Illinois Tech found the money to pay for new advertisements, and maintenance budget cuts led to a serious injury.
So, let’s review. Students are experiencing disruptions ranging from stopping classwork to not being able to eat during the Leadership Symposium. We’re asked to share our bedrooms to accommodate them. We get in trouble for using reserved spaces, when the people they’re reserved for take our spaces instead. We’re put on display as props for tours without warning. If you don’t adhere to the ideals they want students to show as part of these tours, you risk getting into trouble. Administration dodged questions about if funding would go to maintain current facilities, or if it was all for new ones. Pressure to increase capacity has caused some groups to run out of space. FWS is being offered at much higher rates than it can maintain. Advertising is paid for even when maintenance isn’t, encouraging new students while risking injury to current ones.
User-driven design refers to the theory that design objectives – whether in the layout of a building or a marketing strategy or an organizational structure – should primarily be targeted to have the most appeal to its primary users. If we are assuming that theory applies here as well, the groups being designed for are outside the school. Their experiences are consistently being given preferential treatment to existing students.
Now, on the one hand, I do acknowledge it would be shortsighted to not concern ourselves with incoming students. Colleges and universities have a relatively short turnover period. They need to always be attracting new people. This is why maybe, if the Leadership Symposium was an isolated incident, I might not be saying much about it.
The issue, therefore, is not in the incident, but in the pattern. Illinois Tech shows a consistent pattern of preferentially treating prospective students to current students. In some cases, these discrepancies have some fairly severe consequences. Illinois Tech has, at the organizational level, determined that its user group is not current students. Our college is not for us. It’s for the hypothetical next person who might be willing to pay them to come here.