In a recent opinion piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education, David M. Perry cogently argued against the use of "corporate-speak" at colleges and universities. Responding to a job announcement that included the provision of "excellent customer service" as a requirement for faculty candidates, Perry concluded by saying, "Faculty members are not cashiers, ringing up the bill when students check out with knowledge—and not because that would be demeaning to the professor, but because the responsibility of a teacher to his or her students is far greater than the employee to the customer." I agree, but think the argument could be extended beyond language.
It is not just that references to students as customers has infiltrated higher education discourse, principally amongst administrators. Indeed, it is increasingly the case that college and university professionals assume that students are consumers who demand consumer amenities. There is a subtle difference between talking about students as customers and assuming that they are consumers, but it is a significant difference. The logic of student as consumer is powerfully shaping the geography of campuses and college towns. It also influences student conduct in potentially alarming ways.
Whereas the customer exchanges one type of valued good or service for another, the consumer buys an identity, or a sense of middle class belonging and comfort. As noted in a rejoinder to Perry's article, colleges and universities should not have to build their service delivery model around customer demands, but they do need to be sensitive to providing high quality products and pay some attention to satisfaction. Yet what does it mean for colleges and universities to assume that students are consumers who demand consumer amenities? It means, for one thing, creating opportunities for students to express their identity, and hopefully their affinity to the institution, through spending on consumer goods. The manifestation of such opportunities would most obviously be the outrageously priced campus book store, where students can proudly advertise their achievement through sweatshirts, hand bags, and bumper stickers.
Moreover, it means allowing, and sometimes encouraging, students to buy the consumer goods that cultivate a sense of belonging and comfort. This means setting up places where students can purchase all of the accoutrement that signals their membership in middle class America. It should come as no surprise that there is a strong cultural link between higher education institutions and middle class status, as colleges and universities have long been considered an essential pipeline to upward mobility. Evidence of encouraging consumerist behavior can be found in the agreements many schools establish with Apple, making it possible for students to easily purchase iPhones and iPads. It is also why Starbucks has become ubiquitous on college campuses: the white Starbucks cup with the brown sleeve is about more than caffeine. It says something about being able to buy a fairly expensive cup of joe and to be seen drinking it. The meaning attached to Starbucks is why there are so many imitator white cups and brown sleeves. It has little to do with coffee and everything to do with symbolism.
When college and university administrators think of students as consumers, they encourage students to spend their way to feeling normal and accepted at a time when many struggle with self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and the exclusivity common to institutions striving for selectivity. The implications of this orientation extend beyond language to the physical constitution of campuses and outlying areas. As I have previously argued, many colleges and universities are now partnering with private industry to create mixed use housing and retail developments. I call these concentrated campus-based consumption areas, as high end student apartments are fused with Chipotle, Starbucks, and other businesses to which students flock. The quaint college town and the brick and pillar campus is slowly being replaced with every variety of space dedicated to consumer capitalism. When higher education spaces as transformed into concentrated campus-based consumption areas, what happens to student behavior?
Quite naturally, those who can, spend freely. These trend-setters and norm-makers tend to be those whose parents provide plenty of discretionary funds, recharging student ID/campus debit cards as needed. Less well-off students seek to emulate their upper crust peers and follow suit by finding ways to spend in similar fashion, sometimes working jobs in order to have the disposable income required to sustain an active consumer lifestyle. No student wants to feel outside the norm, so on campuses where spending dictates belonging, the assumption of students as consumers can shape behavior, yielding a vicious cycle. Perhaps more alarmingly, it can alter student subjectivities, such that one only feels like a true college student if they buy the UnderArmour hoodie, live in the luxury student apartment high rise, surf Facebook on a MacBook, and patronize Starbucks.
In other words, for all the reasons cited above, our sense of outrage should not stop at the encroaching dominance of "corporate-speak," however damaging such public discourse can be. We should challenge the prevalent logic that students are consumers who demand sites of consumption in order to attend this or that higher education institution. It is true that faculty are not cashiers, but language of students as customers is simply one byproduct of an entire logic system that has found traction in higher education. If the college experience, and campus geography, is increasingly dictated by the swipe of a card, it will be difficult to suggest that education is somehow different from anything else or outside the realm of consumption.
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