Jeff, thank you very much for the excerpts from the _Peerpoint_ article,
along with your commentary and reaction. I am interested to see other
TIPSters' reactions.
There are so many levels on which we must examine this problem.
Interestingly, I am teaching a course right now, in what I consider a
collectivistic fashion: seminar style, shared decision-making, very
active student participation, _not_ professor centered, etc. My
students are doing pretty well, but there are times that they just do
not know what to do, because they are accustomed to the consumer model
you described: "Just tell me what to do so that I can receive my
credit." I think that it is important to utilize this collectivistic
format, but we all have to be prepared for our students' reactions, from
benign confusion to outright hostility.
Here's another level of analysis: As you said, there are institutions
that explicitly take a business/consumer approach to recruitment and
retention. But even among institutions that _say_ that rigor,
challenge, and excellence are important, it is possible to discover that
"the squeakly wheel gets the grease," in other words, if students
complain to the "right" people in administration, and/or if students
give lousy responses on teaching evaluations, then the business/consumer
model becomes the practice.
Here's yet another level to consider: If we correspond with our
graduates, both those who have gone on to grad school as well as those
who have sought employment, I suspect that they would tell us the value,
or lack thereof, of the consumer approach to education. If students go
on and realize that they are unprepared--or alternatively, if we are
true to our mission and we prepare students "in spite of" what they say
they want at the time--then they could serve as useful informants for
our current students. _If_ there are any "consumers" about whose
opinions we should be concerned, then it most certainly should be the
potential employers and grad schools, and of course the communities in
which we reside.
I just wanted to offer my $.02, and to say that this issue is very much
in my consciousness right now...as it should be for all of us, IMHO.
Barbara Watters
Mercyhurst College
Erie, PA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
