Picture an environment in which college professors are evaluated based on financial output, like sales representatives hawking used cars or hedge funds. Faculty members would receive higher marks if they teach more students (presumably with popular subjects and large sections, not to mention courses required by law), since it brings in more tuition. University faculty could factor in research grants when they close a deal. Instructors at all levels would be graded based on student evaluations—documents that would resemble customer satisfaction surveys distributed after each sale.
Following the trail of logic, one can imagine the result if a humanities or fine arts instructor with rigorous standards had a plethora of students with failing grades or withdrawals.
If the above seems fanciful, read on.
There has been plenty of commentary about "students as consumers" over the years, but Texas A&M is taking it up a notch. For six months the university administration has been scrutinizing the financial contribution of every faculty member on its 11 campuses, hypothetically subtracting the salary of each teacher from the tuition and research money each individual hauls in.
It's all included in a recent article in The Texas Tribune. Here's an excerpt:
A&M administrators maintain that the accountability exercise merely seeks to promote efficiency and shouldn’t be viewed as a “grade” for individual instructors. Faculty members counter that the career and hiring implications of such metrics are obvious, disturbing and unfair. Both agree that, for better or worse, the effort represents only the latest in a statewide trend toward laying bare the inner workings of higher education in the name of transparency—and of controlling runaway costs and rapidly rising tuition.
The Tribune piece by Reeve Hamilton also examines the political back story, including HB 2054, the controversial "transparency" law stipulating that course and faculty information be posted online. Every public college and university in Texas is presently implementing the statute. Institutions are also required to formulate a plan to post student evaluations of each faculty member. (See this previous post for background on HB 2054.)
The Tribune article also explores the role of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a private, business-oriented think tank at the forefront of the transparency movement in higher education. A link to the organization's "Seven Solutions" for higher education is found in the Tribune report, and is also provided here. Most of the group's purported solutions are specific to universities, but many have major implications for community colleges.
The Tribune article refers to Peter Hugill, a Texas A&M geology professor, president of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and president-elect of the Texas Association of College Teachers, who recently attended a disciplinary conference in London, "where reporters from around the world were asking him about the plan. The professor said that Texas was becoming a laughingstock," according to the article.
The topic of student-as-consumer is worthy of abundant discussion, since it potentially affects, in a very basic manner, how teachers teach at community colleges.
As noted in TCCTA communications frequently, professionals tend to believe there is a fundamental difference between a consumer and a student. In the marketplace, the vendor of a product asks only for money from the consumer. There are no demands involved beyond this transaction (which may or may not entail a money-back guarantee or discount coupon). However, inherent in the instructional enterprise is the overt act of placing high demands (also known as standards) upon students—individuals who often, quite naturally, disapprove of these demands. Standards and consequences are part of the deal, to put it mildly, unless one wishes to pursue a path of least resistance when it comes to a college education. And you don't want to go there.
This is an existential issue for community and technical college teachers. Educators should take every opportunity to help policy makers and community leaders understand the distinction between consumerism and learning.
I have heard very few people talk about students as consumers." I have, on the other hand, heard a lot about "students as customers," a phrase which brings just as much opprobrium from faculty.
The two terms, however, are quite different. Central to the notion of a customer is the idea of choice. In higher education, much more than in the K-12 environment, the student has a choice of where to go, what to study, even whether to be there at all.
While I don't agree that in education, "the customer is always right," I do believe that successful professors will always do their best to ehelp students feel that they are getting genuine value for the time and money that they put into a course.
I make this point only to caution readers that the "student as customer" argument is not a simple as it seems, and is not only advanced by administrative troglodytes. Having said that, however, I also believe that the model advanced by Texas A&M is simplistic and misleading, and will not lead to better policy-making decisions.
Posted by: David Ross | September 11, 2010 at 02:14 AM