The Non-Death of American Manufacturing and Its Role in University Decision-Making

Last year, I spoke with a range of university executives for my dissertation. Because of the nature of my project, we frequently spoke about the state of the U.S. economy and what it means for their decision-making. One theme in these conversations was that the economy had shifted from production line manufacturing to information processing. We were, as one executive put it, in the midst of a new industrial revolution with information technology. Some called this the knowledge-based economy.

In the knowledge-based economy, the jobs for which universities prepare students are quite different. Many of the manufacturing jobs, they argued, have been sent overseas. Increasingly, students need to train for jobs of the future, like cybersecurity and data management. This shift in the economy was cited as a reason for training students to become entrepreneurs. The goals were to teach students how to make a job, not take a job. To think creatively and not be afraid to change jobs or start anew. And to embrace a “free agency kind of employment.”

When I heard these statements, I didn’t reflect on them much. On some level, I must have agreed that the American economy is knowledge-based, signaling the death knell of manufacturing. However, I have come to realize that university executives were not reading regular updates on the manufacturing sector. They really had no substantive experience with the labor market outside of the university. Most of them had spent their lives in academe. In other words, I came to suspect that these executives were making decisions based upon a priori understandings. They operated according to assumptions about “the economy” that they either self-generated or, more likely, recycled from a grand narrative related to innovation, prosperity, and higher learning.

Let’s take a look at the status of American manufacturing. It is the case that America’s share of global manufacturing has declined, and China’s share has increased. Data also shows that the number of manufacturing jobs overall has fallen, and the contribution of manufacturing to GDP has declined. However, as many observers have noted, these metrics are not sufficient to argue that American manufacturing is dead. Many would instead argue that the manufacturing sector is in transition. Some industries are faring well, while others are struggling. There is a small revival of manufacturing, and the sector continues to produce at high rates. Nevertheless, current trends do not suggest that the number of jobs created in this revival will replace the millions lost in the economic crises of the past 15 years. 

President Obama has been quick to capitalize on the notion that advanced manufacturing can be nurtured to create new middle-class jobs. In fact, his administration has announced that it will create three manufacturing institutes that bring together resources from corporations, universities, and the government. One of these institutes is currently being created in the research triangle of North Carolina and will focus upon the creation of energy-efficient, high-power electronic chips. The Department of Energy is investing $70 million in the initiative. Overall, we can say that manufacturing is alive in America, but it is likely the case that good jobs in manufacturing sector will never fully recover.

The university executives with whom I spoke weren’t entirely wrong in believing that manufacturing jobs are gone. They may not have nuanced knowledge of the place of manufacturing in the American economy, but they seem to be reacting to a real trend. However, there is something to be said for the fact that many higher education institutions, at least those oriented to research and prestige-maximization, have not been training students for manufacturing jobs in a very long time. So, we can question the relevance of manufacturing jobs in their assessment of the economy and its impact on their decision-making.

Briefly, let’s turn to this idea of “free agency employment.” Again, university executives were not closely following mobility or flexibility trends in the labor market. Otherwise, they probably would have realized that they are among the worst perpetrators of inequitable, contingency labor practices. I’m talking about the adjunctification of academic labor. Setting this issue aside, university executives clearly believe that students should be prepared for a volatile labor market. It is frequently said that Americans now change careers as many as seven times over the course of a lifetime. As it turns out, this widely cited number appears to have little basis in research. The Bureau of Labor Statistics even says on its website that this is a thorny empirical question because no consensus exists as to what constitutes a career change.

What I’m proposing here is that assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions about the status of the economy are vitally important in university decision-making. This proposal throws a bit of a wrench in higher education research, particularly a popular branch of organizational theory that attributes institutional behavior to external factors. Many "open-systems" researchers today see a rather direct relationship between how institutions operate and the nature of economic change. While I don’t dispute the influence of the economy in higher education restructuring, I think we need to reveal the a priori knowledge about the economy that drives some decision-making.

It is possible that closer scrutiny of this a priori knowledge shows that there are certain economic tropes onto which university executives latch. Such tropes may originate in a set of powerful institutions, such as the OECD, and may help higher education institutions demonstrate their value to an economy structured around knowledge production. By repeating these tropes, and making decisions upon them as if they are fact, universities serve an important role. They don’t just reflect some discrete, external economic reality. They bring that type of economy into existence. This point bears repeating because it is woefully under-represented in research: higher education institutions are not merely responding to the economy, they are making the economy what it is.

We can extend this line of thought into multiple arenas. We can look at how the creation of degree programs effectively validates certain types of knowledge and leads to the establishment of new industries. We can look at how universities don’t just “place” graduates in the labor market. They co-create the labor market. We can look at how universities institutionalize and normalize contingent labor and encourage mobility. The possibilities are multiple and critically important, I think, in understanding the relationship between higher education institutions and “the economy.”

The Power of Proximity

There’s an old adage that says, “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.” People used to offer me this slice of unsolicited wisdom when I was in a long distance relationship. It was their way of introducing optimism into a difficult situation. My response was often to smile and nod—not because I agreed with them, but rather because I knew how rarely distance actually strengthens a relationship. In my case, distance was a constant challenge. It was an obstacle that we learned to overcome. Thankfully, we eventually found our way to the same city, and we’re still together today.

I share this personal reflection because, as someone who lives far from my family, I often think about distance around the holidays. It’s an almost inescapable part of this time of year. Friends are talking about travel plans over dinner. Post offices are bustling with business, as people hurry to ship gifts to loved ones. I even get a few out-of-state holiday cards. Most of us, it seems, contend with the fact that those who matter to us are not ideally located. We go to great lengths to throw ourselves back into their lives around December, even though we may not have seen or talked to them in months.

What this means, to me, is that when the festive lights come down and trees are carried to the curb, proximity once again governs our everyday relationships. Those who really know our story experience it with us in real-time. They are the people we turn to in times of need. They are our weekend plans. They are present not just for the milestones, but also for the pebbles that collectively constitute day-to-day life. For me, many of these relationships are with friends, some of whom I’ve only know for a few years.

We like to think that these people will be with us forever, and, if we’re lucky, they are. However, if either you or they move, the relationship fundamentally changes. Think of those high school or college friends who now live in a different city or state. They were a commanding part of our lives for four or more years. Yet without some sort of sustained, physical presence, the relationship is transformed into an occasional phone call, visit over the holidays, or Facebook status update.

There’s nothing remarkably new about this observation. The very definition of a relationship is that it involves at least two people relating to one other. Closeness makes the ability to relate all the easier. What intrigues me is that many people seem to increasingly think we are capable of overcoming distance with technology. We see Skype, Twitter, Facebook, FaceTime, and similar communication innovations as ways of connecting with people, irrespective of the space between us. In reality, technology will never be able to replace what can only be achieved by being there with someone. I’ve been thinking through a few reasons for this.

Skype and FaceTime are amazing applications, and the former, in particular, has been indispensable to me. When I travel abroad, it is the best way I can communicate with my wife. However, we do not greatly enjoy talking to screen projections, or putting up with frequent disconnections. We are able to tolerate Skype because we know it is a temporary fix. After a month, I return home, and Skype won’t be opened for another year or more. For those who use Skype to talk with loved ones in a more permanent way, it comes to function in much the same way as the telephone. Conversations may be frequent, even daily. And they are surely enhanced by the ability to see our friends or family members’ emotions. Nevertheless, at their core, these conversations are most often recaps of daily or weekly experience. In the process of explaining our lives to other people, we summarize, censor, and suffer from the inherent shortcomings of memory.

Twitter and Facebook offer even less in helping us overcome distance and maintain our relationships. Twitter is designed for rapid, regular bits of information. At its worst, Twitter is a conduit for vanity—a 21^st century journal that supplants introspection with spectacle. At its best, it is a tool of the 24-hour news machine: just consider how many Twitter handles the staff of The Huffington Post manage.

Facebook gives a sense of intimacy and knowledge about others. However, this intimacy is an illusion. What we share on Facebook is a carefully crafted version of ourselves.  Some even term our individual collection of “likes,” “shares,” and “posts” the “aspirational self”—not who we are, but who we desire to be. No matter what name you give it, our relationships on Facebook are shallow. As Malcolm Gladwell has correctly pointed out, such widely dispersed, loose connections are precisely the purpose of “The Social Network.” These days, I turn to Facebook to sate my thirst for information, not because I think it presents a viable alternative to in-person interaction.

This does not mean I intend to delete my Facebook account or stop using Skype. Rather, I advocate recognizing the limitations of technology, better valuing proximity to those who matter to us, and taking stock of the consequences of mobility. We need to think critically about what has caused us to be so distant from friends and family in the first place. It is sometimes the case that we have no control over our separation from others because of obligations or cruel circumstances. However, more often than not, it is the product of choices.

We live in a society in which it is common to move multiple times, often in search of proverbial greener pastures. Simply put, mobility is a defining feature of our generation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average worker stays at a job for 4.4 years. We hopscotch from city to city—job to job—and look to technology to help us feel close to the people that we left behind (or the people who left us). When it inevitably fails to live up to expectations, we fill the void by starting new relationships with people close to us. Relationships seem to fall into a cyclical pattern as we respond to frequent movement.

As I drive to my hometown for the holidays, making the seven-hour car trip to reinsert myself in the lives of my family members after months of being apart, I can’t help but think about how much of my life they have missed. How difficult it is to catch them up to speed, to help them understand my challenges and triumphs. I try not to get frustrated when they don’t know what I really do for a job, or can’t place the names of the new friends with whom I regularly spend time. All they know is what can be gleaned from social media and the synopsis I deliver over the telephone. Most importantly, I don’t blame them for the distance between us. I own that distance, and the decisions that created it.

From long car trips to holiday cards, there’s no doubt that we seasonally remember our roots, paying homage in December to all the people and places that feel like home. Perhaps instead of going to such great lengths to reconnect after frequent moves, or hoping technology can make physical distance irrelevant, we should simply pause: respect the power of proximity and give our roots time to sink in somewhere.

The Chipotle Effect

I live in a college town. More specifically, I live in a sorority house...next to the most popular bar in town. Needless to say, any night of the week between the hours of 11PM and 2AM, except Sunday night, is an adventure.

In the five years that I have lived here, and for several more before my arrival, the town’s development was stagnant. When the recession hit, the few development projects under consideration came to a sudden halt as uncertainty and risk-aversion took hold of even the most speculative of real estate investors. Those projects have since been reignited, and ground has broken on new hotels, apartments, and supermarkets. However, in the intervening years, the only new businesses to spring up in town were those with the highest probability of succeeding: restaurants.

What is interesting is that the restaurants that opened and came to dominate the eat scene are derivations of the same model, essentially the Chipotle-pioneered assembly line. Whether its Jason’s Deli, Lime, Potbelly, Roti, Saladworks, Chidogos, Jimmy John's, Bobby's Burger Palace, Yogiberry, or Five Guys, all of these restaurants specialize in grab-and-go eating. You walk up to a register, choose a “platform” (e.g., sandwich bread, salad bowl, burrito tortilla), pick your toppings, and either grab a seat or hit the road. No need for waiters or waitresses in this model, or for tipping. If you decide to eat in the restaurant, which is sometimes made difficult by the relatively small number of actual tables, the whole experience takes no more than twenty minutes.

In many ways, the popularity of these restaurants makes perfect sense. They are quick, inexpensive, and offer a fair amount of flavor diversity. Franchisers and restaurateurs are simply responding to market demand. However, if we take a step back, we must wonder how this consumer preference came to exist. And if seemingly every new restaurant that pops up assumes this form, we must ask how this space is shaping—in what I call the Chipotle effect—the way college students think, behave, and relate to one another.

Many intellectuals have noted that we are living in an era of unprecedented, even celebrated, individualism. They see evidence of this individualism in the declining rates of participation in civil society and community (see Bowling Alone). They likewise see it in changing conceptions of the family, with more and more young people choosing to put off marriage and having children until they establish themselves, complete their degrees, or enjoy youth unburdened by responsibilities beyond self-gratification (see Bobos in Paradise). The assembly line restaurant model should be seen as an expression of this individualism. You are able to take a more or less flavor neutral piece of bread or tortilla and individualize it to your liking.

As I thought about the other types of projects that constitute redevelopment in the area, I realized that there are other spaces catering to individuation. Take, for example, student housing. Many of the new apartment complexes, which, by the way, are constructed above retail spaces featuring Chipotles and similar establishments, have adopted a uniform set-up. Students have their own bedroom and bathroom, with a shared kitchen and common area. There can be as many as four or five individual bedrooms to an “apartment”. Students have fewer opportunities to accessorize their rooms as they could a burrito, but the space is, nevertheless, theirs alone. Given the exorbitant amount students pay for a bedroom in these set-ups, it is perhaps foolish to argue that they should have anything less than their own, separate domain.

Yet research suggests that students, particularly those in their first year, have higher grades and are more likely to stay at a university if they live in traditional residence halls, where they share a large bathroom and live with a roommate in an admittedly small space. I recognize that not all students are able to live on campus, nor does this generic conclusion capture the experience of all students. But it does imply that, rather than merely selecting where we eat or sleep based on our preferences, we are also profoundly affected by the spaces we regularly inhabit.

Herein lies the potential problematic of the Chipotle effect. If increasingly we navigate spaces that encourage our individualism, do our interactions become brief, passing, or diluted? When we devote so little time to sitting down for a meal, what activities fill the void? For me, when I take away lunch from one of these restaurants, I don’t use the time gained in any useful way. I eat in front of my laptop, perusing Facebook—alone. If we extend the Chipotle effect beyond eating habits, the grab-and-go ethos becomes ritualized and normalized. For an entire generation, constant movement and diluted relationships becomes our modus operandi.

These observations stem from a single college town. Having visited only a handful of other towns home to large concentrations of young people, I can only hazard to guess at their transferability. But those of you in college towns, in particular, should take note of these developments. For they represent physical embodiments of prevailing discourses in higher education exalting student mobility, flexibility, and self-investment.  At risk of overextending my argument, we in college towns sit at the confluence of various currents shaping a new type of person, one who is always grabbing and going at the whim of their individual desires.