SORRY DAD
Calvin Coolidge, in 1926, popularized the phrase "The business of America is business." My dad, who was a young fellow at the time, accepted that premise and failed to recognize the irony when only a few years later, banks and a legion of other businesses flopped.
Fast forward to my boyhood. The core of my dad's arguments about politics was that business people should run everything.
If he were still around and hadn't changed his mind, I would argue as follows:
Business people are okay as long as they know their place. But they certainly should not be in charge of everything.
I am a fan of private enterprise, especially small businesses, and I quite understand how the profit motive can boost production and efficiency. But production and efficiency are at best problematic motives if the purpose of an organization is to help people.
Though I hold strong opinions about the wisdom of prisons, postal service, public health, or public utilities being capitalized, I'm no expert in those areas, so I won't write about them.
But I do have plenty experience with higher education and with the Christian church. And since Rats is about higher ed . . .
When I was a student at SDSU, I took two History classes from Dr. Raymond Starr. Some years later, while both of us served as academic advisors, we became friends. So I will call him Raymond.
We had plenty to talk about. One of his fields of expertise was California history and I wrote historical novels set in California. He also had written a history of the college, and I knew stories dating back to its beginnings as a "normal school" which my mom attended. Both my son and one of my daughters studied there.
Raymond taught at SDSU for about forty years. When he told me the education I received was far more rigorous than what my kids experienced, I found myself most interested. He claimed that currently the SDSU History professors assigned half as much reading and less than half the writing as during my student years. I queried my son and learned that the same held true in the English department. During my years as an English major, in literature classes, say in a class about novels, we were assigned to read around ten books and to write five or six essays. The same classes during my son's time as an English major required him to read around five books and to write two or three essays.
I suspect this drop in academic rigor may have begun with the advent of student evaluations, which in turn propelled the shift in attitude about institutional purpose.
When I was an undergraduate, and probably for hundreds of years before that, higher education functioned under the presumption that professors were exceptionally knowledgeable in their fields. About students, the converse was presumed: that their knowledge in a given field was quite inferior to the professors'. What logically followed from this attitude was that professors should lead, and students should follow.
Since my undergrad years, colleges have gradually become less and less about learning from experts and more and more driven by a business model based on the contention that the student is a customer, the customer is king, and the college, to survive and compete, must cater to student needs.
A primary flaw in this model is, most students don't know what they need.
Though many long years have passed since I started college, since then I've raised three kids and consulted with thousands about their educations. So I'll propose that students now entering college aren't much more aware of their futures than I was when I intended to become a pro golfer, baseball player, rock musician, or vagabond playboy millionaire.
By the time I graduated, my world view had changed radically. Some of this change was due to the wisdom of my professors. And I certainly wasn't wise enough to tell them what I needed to learn.
The contemporary student-as-consumer business model has led to distressing consequences, such as: the exploitation of adjunct faculty; outrageous tuition increases; the waste of public funding and student tuition money on competing for students by beautifying campuses and creating hideously expensive ad campaigns; and the growth of the student loan racket, which has left so many educated people deeply indentured.
But most of all, the student-as-consumer business model is allowing those who graduate to live the rest of their lives as less educated than they otherwise might be if they had been challenged and mentored by professors instead of being catered to by business people.
And the quality of education is of profound relevance to the future of every society.
Of course, many would argue that neither professors nor students, but parents, should decide what students should learn. Which is another topic will certainly address in a forthcoming issue, perhaps on a day when I feel so mellow I can rant without triggering a spike in my blood pressure.
A CHURCH
Dr. Starr and I hardly agreed on everything. Raymond believed that most of the horrors of the past 2000 years were the fault of the Christian church. I argued against that position, but over time, though my belief in Christ hasn't changed, my thoughts about the church certainly have.
I hope some of you will be pleased to know that I and Perelandra College are launching a new and mighty unique church. Please join me there. Actually here.
PAM
Last month I promised to report on the outcome of the dispute between Dr. Pam and Pepperdine University over her using a Kinky Friedman song in her Humanities class.
Well, so far there is no outcome. She appealed, they shined her on, she appealed to a higher level, they shined her on once again. She is now interviewing attorneys.
OTHER STUFF
Any any issues regarding higher education you would like me to address, I’m at ken@kenkuhlken.net.
If you are not already a subscriber to Rats, here is your chance.
Please note that Rats is sponsored by Perelandra College, an online destination for those who want to become really smart.
And if you are a reader of novels that include history, fascinating characters, and suspense, stop by my website for a book or two. Some of them are free.
I completely agree with everything you wrote about the student-as-consumer mindset in higher education. That, of course, is accompanied by the parents-as-consumers perspective. Your college student has "too much" work? Your baby didn't get an A in English? You object to your child being taught diverse viewpoints in poli-sci? Raise holy hell with the university administrators--or worse, withdraw donations you've pledged to make. The customer, or consumer, is always right, so you as the consumer shouldn't have to tolerate excessive workloads (!), less-than-excellent grades, or course content that allows for worldviews contrary to your own. Heaven help us.