A University of Arizona course has hundreds of college students learning what being a father really means for men and women.
Can a college class teach you how to be a good father?
The University of Arizona thinks so — and so do hundreds of students who are learning what fatherhood really means for men today and their future families. Many fatherhood studies in the past decade have shown that a father's behavior affects kids in a variety of important ways. Although its creators aren't aware of anything similar at other college campuses, they say this course — which examines fatherhood in various cultures, species and throughout time — is clearly focused on what we know about fathers from academic research.
"This is not a 'How-to-be-a-dad' or 'Be-a-parent 101.' We teach you why it is important to be a dad," says Netzin Steklis, who co-teaches the class with her husband, Dieter Steklis. He is a psychology professor and anthropologist at the Tucson campus, she's a lecturer and primate researcher. They have two sons, ages 17 and 19, and he has a daughter, 32, from a previous marriage.
Their course, "Men, Fatherhood and Families: A Biocultural Perspective," covers a lot of ground, from mating and attraction as a step toward fatherhood, to how expectations of fathers have changed over time and vary by culture.
"We're trying to understand whether what we're doing here in Western countries is very different or whether there are universal themes in human behavior, " says Dieter Steklis.
"What we know historically about parenting has been very female-biased," says Bruce Ellis, an evolutionary developmental psychologist also at Arizona who worked with the couple to develop the course, "This is trying to provide the other half of the story."
The Steklises have taught three semesters of packed classrooms of 150, the most recent this spring. And after beginning with mostly women students, the course has grown quickly to half men and half women.
"There's been a cultural shift that has really promoted a higher level of father involvement," says Ellis, who guest lectures once a semester. "This class is consistent with that cultural shift."
Now the hope is to go national, says Angela Taylor, assistant director of the university's Norton School of Family & Consumer Sciences, which oversees a broad fathering initiative at the campus. Officials are investigating logistics to make the class available next summer as a MOOC (massive open online course) a hot trend in higher education that allows open access to classes over the Internet.
The Steklises aim to make the class relevant and engaging, offering, for example, a "Tip of the day" for guys, such as "Your puppy is your best chick magnet." They explain the academic research behind those tips, Netzin Steklis says: "He's demonstrating that he can care for another being and he's kind and responsible. All good fathering qualities."
They also created an exercise called Man Tunes, where students find a song in popular culture and analyze it using concepts from the class. "They generally see that songs have all these messages about men and mating and parenting that they never realized," she says. "Country western is very much about paternal investment. I want to be a good dad. My daddy was good to me. The rap song Dat Baby (Don't Look Like Me) speaks to the fact that the male doesn't have any paternity confidence and is not going to invest in that kid."
Ammon Brimhall, 22, a nursing major from St. David, Ariz., took the class because "I thought it would be interesting to learn techniques about fathering so I could be the best father for my own kids someday."
Deon Benton and Ashley Anhalt, both 22, who graduated in May, took the class together. "I needed one more general education course to graduate on time and thought it would be a fun class to take with my boyfriend," says Anhalt, who earned a degree in systems engineering and applied mathematics.
Sophomore Daniel Hendrix, 19, a pre-veterinary science major from Phoenix, took the class this spring. "Knowing the information from the course makes me want to try 100% for my kids," he says.
But, he's not ready for fatherhood just yet. "I'm 19 — that's way too young."