Maybe the problem is not our students but us: Developing faculty personal-interpersonal capacity

As faculty, we often hear conversations and perceptions on student performance from our colleagues. The topic of student success, or lack of it, is generally framed with the assumptions that students today are too entitled (wanting high grades for substandard work), are looking for shortcuts (and not interested in learning), cannot be trusted (and must be monitored), and are not well positioned to provide reliable and valid evaluations of faculty teaching (as they are not our customers). It is a common set of assumptions about students that we have heard too often in our interactions with colleagues. But what if the problem is not our students, but us? What if it is our own lack of self-awareness, consideration of others, relationship building, and influence orientation that results in an increase in dysfunctional conflicts, and a reduction of meaningful communication with our students? This chapter leverages the model of personal-interpersonal capacity to provide a constructive lens to unpack our assumptions about our students and shift our focus to what we can control, us.