Recently however, some OU students were invited to discuss their perceptions of OU professors openly at a meeting of one of OU's Faculty Discussion Groups on Teaching. The major themes that emerged during the meeting and the reactions of the faculty members are described below. The single most frequently mentioned need was for increased personal contact between students and professors.
Students see personal contact with professors as being very important.
The size of the OU campus is one factor that contributes to this problem. On small campuses, the personal contact happens naturally. At OU, however, because of the size of the campus and the size of many of the classes, personal contact between teacher and student does not happen naturally or easily. The students feel that faculty members should take a more active part in establishing personal contact with their students. Many students believe that the teacher-student relationship is naturally antagonistic and that professors should work to counter this antagonism.