VICE PRESIDENT FOR STUDENT SERVICES

1
The Millennial Student Dr. Tom
Robinson Vice President for Student Services
New Faculty Orientation August 21, 2008
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Sources

• Millennials Rising - The Next Great Generation,
  by Neil Howe and William Strauss,
• Vintage Book, 2000
• Millennials Go to College, by Neil Howe and
  William Strauss, LifeCourse Associates, American
  Association of Collegiate Registrars, 2003
• Making the Most of College Students Speak Their
  Minds, by Richard J. Light,
• Harvard University Press, 2001
• Creating Campus Community, by William M. McDonald
  and Associates, Jossey-Bass, 2002
• College of the Overwhelmed The Campus Mental
  Health Crisis and What To Do About It, by Richard
  Kadison
• and Theresa Foy Digeronimo, Jossey-Bass, 2004
• The World Is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman, Farrar,
  Straus, Giroux, 2005
• The Fragile Generation, by Jane Genova, The
  Greentree Gazette, November 2006
• Millennials Coming to College, by Robert
  DeBard, New Directions for Student Services,
  Summer 2004

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Meet the Millennials, born in or after 1982

• As a group, they are unlike any other youth
• generation in living memory.
• They are more numerous, more affluent, better
• educated, and more ethnically diverse.
• They manifest a wide array of positive social
• habits that older Americans no longer
  associate
• with youth, including a new focus on
  teamwork,
• achievement, and good conduct.
• This generation is going to rebel by behaving
• not worse, but better. Their life mission
  will not
• be to tear down old institutions that
  dont work,
• but to build up new ones that do.
• From Howe and Strauss, 2000

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• Are Millennials another lost generation?
• No. The better word is found. Born in an era
  when Americans began expressing more positive
  attitudes about children, the Millennials are
  products of a dramatic birth-rate reversal. Over
  the next decade, new student enrollment in
  American colleges and universities is due to grow
  by roughly 300,000 per year.
• Are they pessimists?
• No. Theyre optimists. Surveys show that,
  compared to Xer teens a decade ago, todays teens
  are more upbeat about the world in which theyre
  growing up. Nine in ten describe themselves as
  happy, confident, and positive.
• Are they self-absorbed?
• Some are, but theyre also cooperative team
  players. From school uniforms to team learning
  to community service, Millennials are gravitating
  toward group activity.
• From Howe and Strauss, 2000

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• Are they distrustful?
• No. Most teens say they identify with their
  parents values, and over nine in ten say they
  trust and feel close to their parents. The
  proportion who report conflict with their parents
  is declining. Half say they trust government to
  do whats right all or most of the time twice
  the share of older people.

From Howe and Strauss, 2000
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• Are they neglected?
• No. Theyre the most watched over generation in
  memory. Each year, adults subject the typical
  kids day to ever more structure and supervision,
  making it a non-stop round of parents, relatives,
  teachers, coaches, baby-sitters, counselors,
  chaperones, minivans, surveillance cams, and
  curfews. From 1981 to 1997, according to
  researchers at the University of Michigan, free
  or unsupervised time in the typical preteens
  day shrank by 37.

From Howe and Strauss, 2000
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• Are they Stupid?
• No. Aptitude test scores have risen within
  every racial and ethnic group, especially in
  elementary schools. Eight in ten teenagers say
  its cool to be smart.
• Have they given up on progress?
• No. Todays kids believe in the future and see
  themselves as its cutting edge. They show a
  fascination for, and mastery of, new
  technologies.

From Howe and Strauss, 2000
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Characteristics of The Millennial Generation

• Special
• Sheltered
• Confident
• Team-Oriented
• Conventional
• Pressured
• Achieving
• Naïve
• Goal-Oriented
• Entitled

From Howe and Strauss, 2003
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Millennials Role Models

• According to Harris Poll (2002) top five models
• 59 - mother
• 43 - father
• 22 - grandparent
• 19 - teacher or coach
• 18 - entertainer
• Half of all 13-17 year olds would call mom first
  if in trouble

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Todays Parents

• Parenting as competitive sport
• Stay home mom the status symbol of the decade
• Millennials dont mind parents handling things
  for them in fact, many like it!
• Safety is of keen, but undefined interest
• Parents plan to stay highly involved in childs
  college experience
• Continues on to graduate school and job placement

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Millennials and Technology

• TV used for breaking news, catching up with news
• Newspaper what is on sale
• Cell Phone communicate quickly with close
  friends
• Web-based communications and hosted services
  Facebook, YouTube, iTunes
• Magazines latest products, trends, celebrities
• Staying constantly connected through cell phone,
  IM, and blogs extremely important

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View of Technology

• Learning resembles gaming more than logic trial
  error rather than linear approach
• Multitasking is a way of life
• Typing is preferred to hand-writing
• Staying connected is essential
• Zero tolerance for delays
• Consumer and creator are blurring (file-sharing
  and cut-and-paste world)

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Implications for Service Classroom

• Expectation of 24/7 service
• Expectation of self-service online
• Expectation for fast service
• Desire for experiential, interactive, and
  authentic learning with online connections and
  community

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Challenges Related to Use of Alcohol and Illegal
Drugs2006 National CORE Alcohol and Drug Survey

• Key findings on the use of alcohol
• 84.1 students consumed alcohol in the past year
• 71.8 students consumed alcohol in the past 30
  days
• 64.9 underage students (younger than 21)
  consumed alcohol in the
• previous 30 days
• 44.5 students reported binge drinking in the
  previous two weeks.
• Key findings on the use of illegal drugs
• 23.5 students used marijuana in the past year
• 11.6 students are current marijuana users
• 9.4 students used an illegal drug other than
  marijuana in the past year
• 4.8 students are current users of illegal drugs
  other than marijuana

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Consequences of Alcohol Illegal Drug Use

• 34.7 reported some form of public misconduct
  (such as trouble with police, fighting, argument,
  DWI/DUI, vandalism, etc.) at least once during
  the past year as a result of drinking or drug
  use.
• 24.7 reported experiencing some kind of serious
  personal problems (such as suicidal thoughts,
  being hurt or injured, sexual assault, etc.) at
  least once during the past year as a result of
  drinking or drug use.

2006 National CORE Alcohol and Drug Survey
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Mental Health Issues

• Mental health problems for students today are
  more severe and
• more complex than those seen 20 years ago. In
  growing
• intensity, larger numbers of students are coming
  to college
• counseling centers with severe psychological
  problems.
• Three factors may contribute to this phenomenon
• - Advent of significantly better and more
  sophisticated psychotropic
• medications which enhance functioning for
  people struggling with mental
• illness
• - Better awareness and diagnosis at an earlier
  age
• - Americans with Disabilities (ADA) which gives
  mentally ill individuals
• the right to be in higher education

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Mental Health Services

• Working with disturbed and disturbing students
• Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS)
• Office of the Dean of Students (ODOS)

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Students Taking Psychiatric Medication

• Based on national data, students who were seen in
  college counseling centers last year
• 25 were taking psychiatric medication, up from
  20
• in 2003, 17 in 2000, and 9 in 1994.

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Depression and Suicide

• National survey conducted by the Research
  Consortium at the
• University of Texas at Austin
• 55 of undergraduates have had some type of
  suicidal thinking
• 18 of undergraduates had seriously considered
  suicide
• American College Health Association 2006 national
  survey
• 9 of students had seriously considered suicide
• 1 in 100 had attempted suicide
• 15 were diagnosed with clinical depression, up
  from 10 in 2000
• Suicide Prevention ALIVE_at_Purdue

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Behavior Assessment Team

• Mission
• Membership

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Campus Emergency Preparedness

• Integrated Emergency Response Plan
• Purdue ALERT

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Defining Events for the Class of 2012

• War in Iraq
• Hurricane Katrina
• Virginia Tech Shootings
• 9-11
• Both Bush elections
• Tsunami of 2004

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Millennials Contradictions

• High-achieving vs. low autonomy
• Community/service orientation vs. self-interested
  and sense of entitlement
• Renewed interest in spirituality vs. materialism
  and consumerism
• More savvy and better-behaved (violence, sex,
  drugs, diversity) vs. fewer coping skills

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In Summary.

• The highest achieving Millennials
• Are bright, morally earnest, and industrious
• Prefer to study and socialize in groups
• Create and join organizations enthusiastically
• Open-minded
• Feel no need to rebel -- regard the universe as
  beneficent and orderly
• Do not perceive themselves as a lost or radical
  generation - may be next greatest
• Always felt sought after, needed, and
  indispensable

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From Baby Boomer to Gen Xer to Millennial Teen
From Howe and Strauss, 2000
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• QUESTIONS DISCUSSION