A new virus is plaguing academia; American consumerism. Academia has changed immensely in the past few decades. There is no hiding the exponentially increasing price tag affiliated with a college education. Throughout the 1980s, public funding directed toward higher education decreased and the development of the American university began to be seen as not only an education, but an experience. Universities today boast about their beautiful dorms, on-campus facilities, and vibrant campus life. While the development of a living-learning community is an essential part of being in college, why do we know so little about the academic achievements and the groundbreaking research that happens at the institutions we attend?
Universities throughout the United States are spending record amounts of money to keep their campuses looking pristine and expanding their admissions and marketing departments to make sure everyone knows about their brand-new gymnasium. At Stevens specifically, the University Center Complex was unveiled last spring, a very costly project that has drastically changed the culture of our campus in less than one academic year. Stevens is making record investments in the way that students live at Stevens.
However, at the same time, we do not even have enough professors to meet the demands of students. Multiple faculty who will remain unnamed at this university have expressed their frustrations with not having enough time for research, teaching too many course sections, and a drought in financial resources to fund research projects. This is not exclusively a Stevens issue. Universities around the country feel similarly, and professors are openly expressing such concerns. It does make us reconsider the question: what is the goal of an academic institution? Benjamin Disraeli said that “university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.” I agree with this, and I urge people to reflect upon whether that is the case today.
The university system does not reflect what it once was. Admissions departments are now the deciding factor in what deems an institution “prestigious,” parents have indoctrinated their children with the idea that American education must have a fiscal return on investment, and students are failing to collaborate to improve the current state of the university system.
Education scholars have identified three main pillars for academic performance and success: intelligence, effort, and intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity is simply defined as curiosity that leads to acquiring more knowledge. In recent years, this pillar has been neglected by American universities.
Admission to an academic institution has become solely based on achievement. The evaluation of achievement has stripped students of the belief that curiosity is what drives learning. All undergraduates at Stevens submitted their historical grades, test scores, and essays about their identity, but why do we leave out asking what students want to learn in this next stage of their lives? The idea of college is less about what you want to do and more about what you want to learn. Instead, there has been a shift towards schools boasting about their starting salaries and prestigious job placements. We have precariously ignored the fundamental role of learning.
This is a problem. How are we to learn without wanting to learn? Admissions departments care so much about what we as students have done historically rather than evaluating how much we want to learn. Admissions departments today care more about demonstrating aptitude in courses and on standardized testing, but I do not believe this evaluates knowledge and intelligence in its full capacity and it completely fails to assess how curious an individual is and will be. We have stopped asking “why?” in education, and it is setting a dangerous precedent. This includes unengaged classrooms, professors tasked with attending more to students than research despite exam difficulty decreasing, workloads at universities continuously decreasing over time, and a student body that is unwilling to experience intellectual struggle. It prompts me to ask the question of whether admissions departments and professors have the same objectives for the admission of students.
Last year a highly regarded New York University (NYU) professor was discharged because of the difficulty and rigor of his chemistry course. Students taking the course reported to the university that the course took up too much of their time. Underperforming students also said that the grades they received in the course hindered their ability to get into competitive medical schools. 84 of the professor’s 350 students signed a petition in protest of the professor. This petition was submitted to the administration and effectively led to the dismissal of the professor. There was a counter-petition on behalf of the faculty member that advocated for keeping the professor which included signatures from over 20 professors in the chemistry department.
Why were those 84 students enough to dismiss an incredibly accomplished academic? It feels as if universities have begun to fear students. This is the transactional culture academia has become and it is derived from the consumer view of education. When students feel they are not getting what they pay for, they speak up, which in some cases is valid. However, we can not discount the fact that students are advocating for easier courses. Professors have the academic freedom to choose how their students are evaluated. Students are an integral part of a university, however, they should not dictate decisions that threaten the academic ecosystem and I shame NYU for this decision.
There is an unwillingness on behalf of students to struggle in the classroom and I do attribute this to the pressures of having a strong career that leads to the disregard for learning at the university. I do not blame myself and other students as we are the victims of a vicious system that has ruined the glory of academia. This system has stripped us of the ability to be intellectually curious and encounter the struggle I am advocating for. Greek philosopher Isocrates once said, “The root of education is bitter, the fruit is sweet.” Students must struggle to learn, and we have let go of this principle. Education is hard but learning is rewarding and when external pressures inhibit a student’s ability to learn what even is a college?
The systemic flaws run deep beyond admissions. Mark Edmundson explains in Why Teach that the infiltration of American consumerism in education has led to students being the consumers of a product. At the end of every semester, we basically give our professors a Yelp review as we would our local ice cream parlors and while the review is necessary and essential for feedback, these decisions are being used as one of the main deciding factors in whether faculty are hired, granted tenure, or given prestigious titles. It is commonly known that students notoriously rank more difficult professors lower in evaluations, and rank more likable and easier instructors higher than their more challenging counterparts.
How can we rely so strongly on metrics that will decide the careers of our academics when students fail to recognize and attempt to avoid intellectual struggle which is essential to learning? Students have become the deciding factor in some cases for instructors and we are leaving the fate of research at our institutions in the hands of undergraduates. Power must be redistributed back to the faculty. There is too little focus on curiosity and research contributions on behalf of the faculty.
The indoctrination of consumerism in academia has strongly affected its purpose. I am calling for administrators to rethink how they structure their institutions. Rethinking teaching evaluations and completely redesigning the admissions process to divert attention from achievement and direct it toward intellectual curiosity is essential in preserving what university once was. I am also calling on students to think more about what they want to learn and less about what they want to do.
