[lit-ideas] University or business??
- From: "Steven G. Cameron" <stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 21:51:18 -0400
**Sadly...
TC,
/Steve Cameron, NJ
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wed Aug 25, cites an
article, "Higher Ed, Inc.," from the summer issue of The
Wilson Quarterly. The article is not online; information
about the journal is available at
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.welcome
CHE Excerpt:
The Business of Higher Education
James B. Twitchell is nostalgic for a time when higher
education wasn't "enrollment, enrollment, enrollment" or
"endowment, endowment, endowment," but rather education,
education, education.
Mr. Twitchell, a professor of English and advertising at the
University of Florida, describes higher education today as
an exploding industry -- "Higher Ed, Inc.," he calls it --
and blames its corporate-world focus for the great lengths
to which colleges and universities are going to distinguish
themselves from their competitors.
Such "branding" efforts, he says, have led to the
construction of giant jacuzzis and fancy climbing walls,
which may have little to do with education but have
everything to do with luring potential candidates. Branding
has also led to grade inflation, he says, and has distracted
administrators from providing their students with a coherent
academic experience.
Mr. Twitchell says that his English department's curriculum
has lumped such disparate subjects as The Simpsons,
"attitudes toward marriage," and soap operas under the same
learning umbrella. He says this fits with the universities'
desire to create a "total environment, delivering an
experience, gaining satisfied customers."
Mr. Twitchell calculates that Higher Ed, Inc. has grown into
a $250- to $270-billion dollar industry, and he calls it
"bigger than religion, much bigger than art." As evidence,
he points to the nearly one million professors who have been
added to college payrolls since 1950. Seventy percent of
those professors, he notes, are either tenured or on the
tenure track.
"Even ministers get furloughed," he says. "Museum directors
get canned. But make it through the tenure process, and
you're set forever."
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