Last week marked the beginning of the training process for the CASL faculty, staff, and students who will be leading the college’s strategic planning discussions over the ensuing academic year. It was an energizing and inspiring event that reinforced what I already knew—that the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters is an incredibly special place. Among the many topics discussed within the group was one that has long worried me—whether students should be thought of as customers?
The university certainly talks about students in terms of head count and credit hours generated and students do pay a fee (tuition) to enroll in their classes. Many also view their diplomas as credentials paid for to ensure access to good paying jobs. There are also many in the university who talk about providing good “customer service” to our students or who use the “customer experience” as a foundational paradigm to implement changes. These are worthy frameworks to be sure. We want our students to have the best experience possible at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Still, this sort of “transactional” language also rubbed many in the room the wrong way. A college education was not merely something that one purchases nor is it something that can (or should) be imagined purely in vocational terms. Of course we want all of our students to be happy and gainfully employed once they graduate from the university. At the same time, as graduates of CASL make especially clear, there is often no way of predicting precisely the direction that one’s life and career (or, more appropriately today, careers) will go. I am certain that my History degree did not train me in a direct way to become a college dean. It did, however, teach me to think in a critical and analytical way and it taught me how to write and speak clearly. Likewise, the Economics courses that I took prepared me to think about forces at both the micro and macro levels that must be considered in making decisions that impact the financial future of the college. Do I use those science courses in my day-to-day work? Absolutely, a day does not pass where I do not test some hypothesis made about any number of things against data collected or against real life experiments run. In short, it all matters and it is all relevant.
It thus pains me to see how much the consumer mentality has crept into higher education. Many examples spring to mind: grade disputes (I paid for that A) and the correlate, grade inflation (who wants to pay for bad grades and what will that mean for enrollment); the now overdone stories about rock climbing walls and hard wood floor, granite counter top standard housing units; the focus on university branding over education; the demonization of the liberal arts and the growing tendency to treat higher education as little more than expensive vocational training (sorry Walsh College—those live, breathe business commercials drive me mad! Though, as you can see, they are effective.); etc. These are the very real forces at work in today’s higher education landscape and they are forces that threaten the core of what we do. Therefore, I was beyond gratified to hear the nuanced dialog about the nature of education at our training workshop.
For me, the discussion in the room was reassuring and inspired. As we plan for our future it is clear that CASL faculty, staff, and students are committed to the principle of a broadly framed and expansive liberal arts education and to providing each and every CASL student with an opportunity to learn, explore, grow, and transform. They are committed to the belief that an education is not just something you buy, it is something that you engage in, shape, and interpret. As the day closed I was reminded of a quote that I had tucked away in a drawer during a recent version of this debate as it is playing out in our k-12 public school system, though it is relevant to CASL’s works as well: “Excuse me, but I thought education was a public and social good, like the environment, democracy or the armed forces. It's not a cellphone. Different considerations apply.” I am looking forward to the work ahead on strategic planning and to ensuring that CASL keeps its eyes firmly fixed on this lofty goal.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
The Commodification of Higher Education
Last week marked the beginning of the training process for the CASL faculty, staff, and students who will be leading the college’s strategic planning discussions over the ensuing academic year. It was an energizing and inspiring event that reinforced what I already knew—that the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters is an incredibly special place. Among the many topics discussed within the group was one that has long worried me—whether students should be thought of as customers?
The university certainly talks about students in terms of head count and credit hours generated and students do pay a fee (tuition) to enroll in their classes. Many also view their diplomas as credentials paid for to ensure access to good paying jobs. There are also many in the university who talk about providing good “customer service” to our students or who use the “customer experience” as a foundational paradigm to implement changes. These are worthy frameworks to be sure. We want our students to have the best experience possible at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Still, this sort of “transactional” language also rubbed many in the room the wrong way. A college education was not merely something that one purchases nor is it something that can (or should) be imagined purely in vocational terms. Of course we want all of our students to be happy and gainfully employed once they graduate from the university. At the same time, as graduates of CASL make especially clear, there is often no way of predicting precisely the direction that one’s life and career (or, more appropriately today, careers) will go. I am certain that my History degree did not train me in a direct way to become a college dean. It did, however, teach me to think in a critical and analytical way and it taught me how to write and speak clearly. Likewise, the Economics courses that I took prepared me to think about forces at both the micro and macro levels that must be considered in making decisions that impact the financial future of the college. Do I use those science courses in my day-to-day work? Absolutely, a day does not pass where I do not test some hypothesis made about any number of things against data collected or against real life experiments run. In short, it all matters and it is all relevant.
It thus pains me to see how much the consumer mentality has crept into higher education. Many examples spring to mind: grade disputes (I paid for that A) and the correlate, grade inflation (who wants to pay for bad grades and what will that mean for enrollment); the now overdone stories about rock climbing walls and hard wood floor, granite counter top standard housing units; the focus on university branding over education; the demonization of the liberal arts and the growing tendency to treat higher education as little more than expensive vocational training (sorry Walsh College—those live, breathe business commercials drive me mad! Though, as you can see, they are effective.); etc. These are the very real forces at work in today’s higher education landscape and they are forces that threaten the core of what we do. Therefore, I was beyond gratified to hear the nuanced dialog about the nature of education at our training workshop.
For me, the discussion in the room was reassuring and inspired. As we plan for our future it is clear that CASL faculty, staff, and students are committed to the principle of a broadly framed and expansive liberal arts education and to providing each and every CASL student with an opportunity to learn, explore, grow, and transform. They are committed to the belief that an education is not just something you buy, it is something that you engage in, shape, and interpret. As the day closed I was reminded of a quote that I had tucked away in a drawer during a recent version of this debate as it is playing out in our k-12 public school system, though it is relevant to CASL’s works as well: “Excuse me, but I thought education was a public and social good, like the environment, democracy or the armed forces. It's not a cellphone. Different considerations apply.” I am looking forward to the work ahead on strategic planning and to ensuring that CASL keeps its eyes firmly fixed on this lofty goal.
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I wonder how the group would feel about thinking of students and others as "stakeholders" rather than customers.
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