MSN’s Encarta has a page up today looking at schools that have gone corporate – including branding campaigns.
It’s not the best written article out there – for one thing, it only pays lip service to the idea that this might not be the greatest model for education, and then the idea is refuted by someone who works for a research and consulting firm. Not exactly an impartial party to the situation. But it gives an overview of what other Universities have done in the face of dropping enrollment, poor alumni relations, etc.
I have no problems with a university going corporate because the negatives surrounding this has nothing to do with going corporate.
In EMU’s case for example, many of the scandals which occured were solely based on Administrator’s obsession with self-image. Garnering a positive image for Eastern Michigan University in the Mainstream Media meant more to them than actually solving the problems which create mainstream media negative fodder.
On another note: Let’s brand the Huron Logo for EMU. That way people will recognize it as EMU and not some umpteen million other schools using the Apple or the Eagle as their logo.
Angela,
thanks for sharing this info! There are major issues, of potential opportunities to be won and potential costs to be paid, regarding the ‘corporatization’ of higher education. If by corporatization, one means that schools should be run efficiently, in order to ‘put education first,’ I have no problem with that.
Of course, the differences between business and education are substantial — one is driven by profit, the other by service that very rarely is “profitable” in the sense of a quarterly bottom line (but immensely profitable in terms of a person’s lifetime and the society’s well being).
And as was noted on some earlier thread, the business model works well for businesses, but not so well for education, because education is not a product: One can buy the opportunity to earn academic credits, but one cannot buy the education itself, as that depends on the student’s work. Academic credits, if awarded, are meaningful only because they represent knowledge acquired and effort expended in the educational process. Virtually everyone recognizes that if the academic credits are awarded too easily, without real work by the students, then the institution is acting unethically. Not so with a business: All customers who pay for the goods or services are entitled to them. Well run schools create environments in which students work hard and learn a lot; this is most unlike a business model (few businesses say ‘come spend your money here and we’ll make you work very hard, and we can’t promise you will like it or be successful’, but that is basically what schools say). .
Hence, education depends as much or more on the student’s labors as on the services provided by the school. It is unethical for a business to withhold a product or service it has sold someone. When a school fails to provide the optimal learning environment for its students – an environment in which student achievement is encouraged in countless ways, but never seen as automatic – then the school is, in my opinion, acting unethically.
In my opinion…going “corporate” and a “branding campaign” are two separate issues.
I teach in the art dept. and have mixed feelings on branding. It is something I do teach…and think it can be an effective visual communication tool. And yes, schools that do not have our problems (research 1 places, Ivy League, Community Colleges, etc.) often employ some form of branding. On that note…I do wish the Art Department as well as the Marketing Department…was consulted before this branding campaign went out. I firmly believe “designed by committee” is the death of creativity…but plenty of faculty had the talent and experience to do this or at least make the visual more appealing…or more accurately referencing the college we all teach at daily, and not just “generic picture of students with books and laughing #183″ slapped on a cover.
That being said…I do NOT want to see education going “cooperate.” Again, this is a separate issue…and a dangerous one. That is a conflict to the nature of education, the tenure system, peer reviews, etc. I think we all agree some better business sense could defiantly be used at EMU, but I bet Profs. are saying this at many other schools not in financial crisis or the news every other month.
Other problems- a colleague of mine in Arkansas told me he has seen administration literature referring to the students as…”consumers.” I have heard similar reports from other colleges. I have encountered this kind of thinking from students, and I know others have- “but I’m paying for this class…” when referencing a grade that was not liked, disciplinary action, assigning work, etc. Or better yet- “I’m a tax payer and I pay your salary…” (to which I reply “last time I checked I’m a tax payer as well!”)
We are HERE for the students…but this is not Burger King, and it’s impossible to have it “your way” each and every time. I am a bit sick of sometimes being treated like a short order cook….but that’s a corporate mentality in which the “customer” is ALWAYS right. Yes, we are here for them, we teach them, we mentor them, we obsess about their academic progress, and most the Profs I respect go above and beyond for them…but we don’t “work” for them like employees. We work WITH them by teaching them.
“Corporate” mentality?
That’s not learning and that’s certainly not education.
This is a terrible article. I’m sure there are people Rah-rahing over it as well.
>>>The branding effort appears to be working. Since 2000, applications to the school are up 42 percent overall. Among Vermont residents, applications increased by 21 percent. Retention rates and graduation rates have also increased, Dawley says. “You could call this a branding effort, but it went straight to the heart and soul of the school’s mission.”
>>The new university: outsourcing
For some schools, operating like a business makes perfect sense. Harrisburg University of Science and Technology is hardly the typical university — and is all the better for it, says Mel Schiavelli, CEO of the Harrisburg, Pa., school. That’s right — the university president is referred to as “CEO.”
There’s no tenure for faculty at Harrisburg. >>Harrisburg University runs on a three-semester calendar, as opposed to the typical two-semester schedule. “If you had a company that used its facility only 75 percent of the time, it wouldn’t be an efficient model,” Schiavelli says. And, everything is conducted in what Schiavelli terms “Internet time.” He says, “Universities run pretty slow, but corporations run quickly.”
And another thing … why do all these marketing gurus make the most BORING materials (brochures, catalogues, web pages, etc.)?
All this talk about “what makes ____ unique?” I would have to think you would want your university to not look like “generic web page #432″ or “this looks just like ___ University, and the College of ___, and ___ State…”
It is also embarrassing to see materials that are just boring and go against all rules of design and aesthetics that we teach our art and design students. (how I loathe the “designers” using drop shadows…). Even a SIMPLE design can be elegant and convey information…not to mention a real IDENTITY…and still follow web standards.
FYI- EMU’s web page looks a lot like Harrisburg University of Science and Technology cited in the article.
“And they all lived homogeneously ever after…”
Andrew,
Just 1 thought about combining the Art department with the Marketing Department…
Might be a good idea to throw in the Business and Computer Science Department as well…
A high-tech, php/flash, social networking style University Web Site would be insanely kewl…
Just a thought… Could eliminate the Campus Pipeline and have students log-in straight into the EMU’s home page… Be able to instant message each-other instead of relying on E-mail…
A Social Networking site offers traditional features such as:
A) Knowing whose on-line and whose off-line. So a student can know when his/her professor is available to talk to or not.
B) Providing each user with their own profile page which can act like a home page for everyone. And it can be tailored to the student or professor’s own taste.
C) EMU has all sorts of stuff that’s not entirely easy to access unless you bookmark the URLs.
For example, from the home page try navigating to the web page that allows you to download Electronic Course Material your professor makes available for free.
A Social Networking site using PHP would build the entire thing around a database(s) so everything is easy to see. In fact, you can have the home page contain a “What’s New” section to know if your professor has just made available a file for download.
The sky’s the limit:-) Could be a multi-dimensional, multi-semester project to give EMU’s entire website a facelift.
One more thing (and editing time has expired so please don’t taze me):
I hope this isn’t seen as off-topic either:-(
Mark wrote,
“(few businesses say ‘come spend your money here and we’ll make you work very hard, and we can’t promise you will like it or be successful’, but that is basically what schools say). . ”
That doesn’t make any sense to me. No school system should have as their goal, “Hard Work with no promise of success.”
Try that on for a Radio Commercial and see how your enrollment figures go.
A Corporation is only different than a Public Institution in terms of: Efficiency.
A Corporation’s education is just that. You get the Education…. The “product” and pay for nothing further. You aren’t paying for a Professor’s un-ending, Un-Questioned, Tenure…
You aren’t paying for a Presidential Palace or two.
You aren’t paying for a Megalopolis disguised as a Student Center with a bunch of Student Government Members boasting and bragging about it.
You aren’t paying for an E-mail System whose only function and use for you is to forward all e-mails sent to it to your own, much better quality, e-mail system.
You aren’t paying for a needless purchase of Adult Trees planted by Contractors during the Summer.
You aren’t paying for Professors to Protest against the Iraq war during and after Class Time.
You aren’t paying for all sorts of things you end up paying for at a Public Institution like EMU.
You pay for Education. If you like it…. If you find it valueable…. Then you will stay enrolled.
Otherwise you will leave.
And Andrew attacks the Harrisburg Website for its simplicity… Well…. Granted…
Students at Harrisburg don’t pay for esthetics.
They pay for a future! And that’s all EMU really is….. It’s not anything further.
It is a place where students go in hopes to have a future afterwards.
Mark,
You wrote in reply to me :
>>>Just 1 thought about combining the Art department with the Marketing Department…
Might be a good idea to throw in the Business and Computer Science Department as well…
A high-tech, php/flash, social networking style University Web Site would be insanely kewl…
Just a thought… Could eliminate the Campus Pipeline and have students log-in straight into the EMU’s home page… Be able to instant message each-other instead of relying on E-mail…
Jeff, (who I accidentally called “Mark” last time..sorry)
You wrote:
>>That doesn’t make any sense to me. No school system should have as their goal, “Hard Work with no promise of success.
I apologize but I am unable to determine what Andrew is trying to tell me.
?
I agree with Andrew’s assessment that EMU’s website and Harrisburg website need a facelift.
But, I was playing devil’s advocate. I hope I wasn’t too aggressive in my remarks above.
Paying tuition should guarantee students that the best qualified faculty serve as instructors and mentors, that top quality teaching and research facilities are provided and maintained, and access to technology that will permit students (if they choose to master that technology) to compete in the global market.
Inherent in the ‘corporatization’ of academia are some serious problems. Although the definition of a university is and should always be an institution of higher learning, bringing the corporate mentality to a university often warps this definition. When students become ‘customers’, with the all too often heard expression (used by some EMU administrators) ‘maximum service to the customer’, I have found the following:
1) The student-as-customer creates a misconception that has the potential to undermine an education. The most essential difference between a university and a business is that a university provides the opportunity, but NOT the guarantee, to become the best educated person an individual can possibly be. Sadly, the student-as-customer brings with it the false sense of being guaranteed of automatically passing each course, getting a degree and landing the career of their dreams. All these must be earned.
2) The perception of the student-as-customer perpetuates and encourages an all too pervasive sense of entitlement that many students bring with them. Problems caused by this include but are not limited to a) an attitude that attending a university is a right not a privilege that must be continually earned; b) the all too often asked “I paid my tuition, where is my A”; and c) the all too common student perception that paying for a course means not having to really do any work.
3) It engenders the erroneous perception that faculty are replaceable widgets.
Jeff,
I think the point is rather obvious to educators: We can create a climate that encourages learning, promotes it, provides a supportive struture for it; but it would be idiotic to “promise” educational success to all students, since, sadly, some students do not put forth the effort required for educational success. Educational attainment is achieved primarily thru the students’ efforts. To say we “promise” success would be unethical – because it’d be a promise we cannot assure will be fulfilled, as no school can control the effort of each and every student. We can, and should and must, do far better than we do at ensuring opportunities for success at EMU, and other schools K-16. But just as I carefully do not promise success to a student in my class who but doesn’t do the reading and cuts many courses and sleeps thru those classes he does attend, so too must a university NOT promise sucess to all who enroll. Student success can be promoted by the university, but at root it depends on the student’s effotr. To “promise” success to all students would be a severe disservice to the vast majority of students, Jeff, who do the work and learn.
So EMU should do, more effectively than it does now, to promote the opportunity to succeed, but that is not a guranteed outcome. And that’s the difference between education and business: A business should promise delivery of its product or service to all who buy them; products and services are simple items to be purchased and not dependent on the customer’s own efforts and hard work and persistence.
Did any of your profs, Jeff, “promise” you success in your courses? I bet you had to “earn” it. Academic credit is NOT a commodity that can be bought and sold (at least not ethically!). (My vague impression Jeff is that you were at one time an EMU student, and that you graduated; graduation is the reward for academic success. But it is NOT guranteed upfront by any reputable admissions officer. If graduation was guranteed, it would be a nearly meaningless reward. Likewise, if graduation from a university could just be purchased, it would be meaningless, or at least fraudulent. Be glad that EMU, like all universities, makes graduation contingent upon a student’s success, rather than something that is guranteed to all who enroll.
All that said, I favor making the campus as student friendly and accessible as possible. This requires major changes, both within the academic side of the house and elsewhere. I’d go so far as to say that all this talk of treating universities like businesses is a major obstacle to our real mission – educating students and removing obstacles to student achievement. All the reforms I advocate for EMU are aimed at putting students first.
My theory is that the reason university websites, including EMU’s, and university marketing materials, including EMU’s, look pretty much the same is CYA. The brightly colored fish gets picked off by the barracuda, while the individual fish in the school has a survival advantage by hiding in plain sight (there’s pop-biology-speak for you). Or like middle school children wanting to look like other middle school children — there’s safety in sameness.
That said, I do like “Education First” a lot. It’s a great reminder to the powers-that-be of something fundamental to higher ed.
And a final comment on Andrew M’s good observations: If university administration is serious about “corporatizing” higher ed, they had better move quick to “standardize parts” by merging functions across multiple universities. The unnecessary duplication of function at the administrative level is outrageously expensive. Step one is merge EMU, CMU, Oakland and WMU into one system: one president, one board, one University Computing, one Purchasing, one Business and Finance, one Physical Plant, one Student Affairs, etc. Students could earn credit at *any* campus in the system,and could eventually earn their degrees from the university system. There are a lot more savings and efficiencies possible by merging administrations than by nickel and diming academics (because nickels and dimes are all that’s left to academics these days).
Susan, your take is as thought provoking as always – on both the website CYA and duplication of functions between state universities.
As for merging EMU, Oakland CMU, WMU into one system: That may or may not be a good idea, but the state constitution of 1963 names those schools and defines them as autonomous universities. So there is a huge constitutional hurdle to merging them. Some savings may be possible by such a merger, but maybe not that much – each of those schools would still need its own physical plant staff, for instance (don’t want to get an electrician from Mt Pleasant when a wire is faulty in Strong Hall). From what I know of these other universities, i think that EMU is, on average, less efficiently managed than they are, and i believe that considerable savings, with no harm to student services or academics, are possible on this campus.
I agree with the general sentiments against corporatization of higher ed. For me, the biggest problem with it is that the advocates of these sort of management decisions see it only as a “one way street.” Folks say “universities ought to be run more like businesses” for all kinds of money-saving reasons, pleasing student customers, cutting labor costs by getting rid of things like tenure, blah-blah-blah. But then when faculty-types like me point out that if my department, which has about 150 or so “employees” of different sorts and which serves thousands of “customers” (e.g., students who are majoring in one variety or another of English, students in gen ed courses, students in first year writing, etc.) were run like a business, we would have much MUCH more in terms of resources. For example, there isn’t a for-profit company in this country of this size that does not have at least one full-time technology specialist/support person. And yet in the entire College of Arts and Sciences, I believe there are two such people. The reason for this? We’re told that we can’t afford it.
So my point is this: when “powers that be” (administrators, members of the board of regents, etc.) see a chance to save money on something that they don’t like spending money on (quality faculty, supporting educational programs that are important but are not “money makers” in some way), the university ought to be run like a for-profit corporation. When people working at the university (students, staff, faculty, etc.) complain about a lack of resources that would never be tolerated in the business world, the powers that be shrug and say “well, what do you expect? We’re an impoverished public university.” Essentially, heads I win, tails you lose.