Content area
Full Text
Around campus, I frequently hear how "students are our customers," and that we should treat students like customers. On the surface, this seems a very reasonable and straightforward suggestion-especially because they're paying to be here. We all know the associated catchphrases, "the customer is always right," "the customer is king," "get close to the customer," "customerfocused service," "customer-driven marketing," "customer-based quality," and so forth. But, given our educational mission, does treating our students like "customers" make sense?
Under the customer metaphor, we find students buying their education and shopping around for classes and majors; our goal as educators becomes attracting and retaining students for our courses. What the students desire out of their college experience starts driving programs. Resources follow students, and departments are rewarded in direct proportion to the number of students (customers) who choose to attend (buy) their classes (i.e., full-time equivalent [FTE]). Classes become popularity contests. Pedagogy becomes entertainment-with MTV and video games as the models. Flexibility and customization are the buzzwords; a flood of self-designed majors, conveniently rescheduled exams, and rule-bending exceptions the result. The ultimate outcome is unrelenting grade inflation-keep the student-cumcustomer happy and give him or her what they want. We're getting the "Nordstromization" of education, where universities become a new breed of shopping mall and our role as educators is to delight our customers. This may not be true everywhere, but doesn't it sound familiar?
Although it is true that students exercise educational choices and pay for their educational opportunities, they are not simply customers. The job of education is not to delight the students-at least not in the short-run. Education entails more than packaging and delivering knowledge to passive consumers. Students play a more active and integral part in their own educational process.
If the student is not our customer, then who is? Is it the parent who pays for their kids' education? Is it the employer who hires our graduates? Is it the board of trustees who oversee the institution that pays our salaries? In a way, it's all of them. Society is our customer. The task of education is to equip men and women to be effective participants in society-citizens. If we do this well, all of our stakeholders can be satisfied. If we don't...