Treating the student as a customer, and shifting to what students want in the moment’s popularity, does not serve Kansas. Shifting university resources to the 200 students who today want to be crime-scene investigators, thanks to “CSI” on television, will produce 190 graduates without a job. Closing down a physics department because it only produces a few nuclear physicists, when we desperately need every one and many more, directly damages the future of Kansas and our country…
State universities should not be commercial storefront operations advertising the latest fad curricula. State universities serve a public good.
An Emporia State department chair notes that universities are not supposed to be customer-driven.
August 25th, 2011 at 5:45PM
“crime-scene investigators”….Kathleen Fasanella, who runs a small apparel-manufacturing business and advises other manufacturers, developed some very interesting thoughts on the malign effects of trendiness on career choice, which I linked and commented on here.