|
Carson Byrd - Senior
3/30/2005, 8:33:06 a.m.
I would like to commend Matt for a great piece. It's always nice to be able to hear and see what changes the college is going through. I would also like to commend the college for taking the necessary steps to helping Mars Hill grow and keep a bright future in sight.
However, I was rubbed the wrong way with Mr. McLendon's comment "We're not going to do that to our customers" (customers, refering to students). Thank you for not putting the students in a bad position, but I do not feel like I should be a "customer" to any institution except at Asheville Mall. Dr. William M. McDonald et al. are cited in the 2002 publishing of "Creating Campus Community: In Search of Ernest Boyer's Legacy" as saying, "Marketplace pressures are being increasingly felt in American higher education. We are invited to view students as customers and colleges as businesses, but there are important limitations in applying profit-sector principles in higher education."
McDonald et al. ask, "Will the house of intellect become a house of merchandise, where faculty are salespeople hawking their wares to students, who are credential-hungry customers?" Answering their own question they state: "If marketplace models and ideology may prove injurious to community in our colleges and universities, so may civic models."
I'm sure most do not feel like Mars Hill is a business; although, if it is treated like one, it will become one. Who knows, somewhere down the line we may all end up going to classes in three-piece suits and designer dress suits. Students are students. True, we pay a tuition, a fee for our education, but to consider us customers takes the knowledge and the hard work that students, faculty and staff have put into their lives. No offense Mr. McLendon, but I've worked hard as a student. Lord knows I can't afford to be a customer.
OPINIONS
HOME
| 
