Discussion: View Thread

robnphil wrote:
>
> Hmmmmmm. Students aren't clients? Did I really read that or what is a
> Freudian slip? Perhaps big organisations aren't clients in the same way
> small organisations are clients, or big people aren't clients in the
> same way small people are. Who draws the line?
>

Well, that's not quite what I wrote. Actually, I tend to think of
students as customers. However, the unit of analysis, ultimately the
individual, is different than an organization. That is the sense in
which they are different.

Still, I'd like to challenge the idea of students as customers. :) This
idea has gone unchallenged to the point of it being politically
incorrect to say otherwise. I thank members of a MED division symposium
I was part of for suggesting other views. So... here are some different
views. What do you think? Any other ideas?

Students as products. Although this sounds a bit too mechanical for my
tastes, it has some validity. This is supported by the fact that in many
public universities something like 60-75% of the cost of education is
paid by the taxpayers. If they are the ones paying, what do they expect,
i.e. what product are they after? Is it a different question at private
schools, or do we just rephrase it in terms of big-money donors?

Students as "players" (instructor as coach). While I like to let go of
control of the class ("empower" the students), student as customer
implies that the instructor has little role but to make the student
happy. Well, learning is sometimes difficult and we can't always promise
that the students will be happy. The role of coach suggests that we will
help them improve, that students will put put forth considerable effort
with some guidance from us. They may not so much be happy about it, as
they will feel a sense of accomplishment (hopefully happiness will
result from the accomplishment).
Something to think about. Have a great week!


--

Gary Stark
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Management
University of Nebraska
CBA 209
Lincoln, NE 68588-0491
402/472-6215
gstark@unlgrad1.unl.edu
(note: letter "l" follows un, number "1" follows grad)

On 12 Oct 97 at 13:36, Richard T Dailey wrote:

> The idea--which has indeed become PC--that students are customers comes
> from the notion that the university is actually a corporated entity, ie,
> it is organized and operated much like the corporation. In this model
> because students pay
> tuition they are entitled to be treated as customers.

There is a way to bridge the two perspectives, and that is to
recognize what the meaning of customer is: If we consider that
customers are to be pleased, but also to be managed in terms of their
expectations, the issues you mention disappear.

Unfortunately, there is a common misconception that customers are
simply to be pleased, and that is, in my view, and the view of most
companies, not the reality. For example, I purchased software
yesterday, but cannot return it regardless of how much of a
"customer" I am. I may not be pleased but at least my expectations
have been managed by the industry (up here).

The same notion can apply to educaton.

The term customer is NOT a license to do as one wishes in any sector.



Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290
*Site Last Updated On Sept.11, 1997*

The idea--which has indeed become PC--that students are customers comes
from the notion that the university is actually a corporated entity, ie,
it is organized and operated much like the corporation. In this model
because students pay
tuition they are entitled to be treated as customers. Using this logic
a sdissatisfied "customer" should be able to get a refund on tuition.This
notion
is wrong headed. The university was not established as a corporation, nor
should it be thought of in that sense. The two entities have entirely
different missions and p;urposes in society. The university's job is to
prepare educated citizens for a democratic society. Unfortunately since
most people think students' sole purpose for pursuing higher education is
to get a better job it tends to reinforce the notion of students as
customers.
If one must use the corporate model, then student shoud be considered
"work
in progress". We bring them into the university and during the educational
process add value to the product. The employer gets a higher value product
than otherwise. If there is a customer here it is the employer.
Dick

Dick Dailey
Department of Management
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812-1216 BIG SKY COUNTRY!!
406 243 6644/Voice-Office
406 549 6876/Voice-Home Office
406 243 2086/Fax
rtd@selway.umt.edu

Gary,

I liked the analogy you wrote here:
>
> Students as products. Although this sounds a bit too mechanical for my
>tastes, it has some validity. This is supported by the fact that in many
>public universities something like 60-75% of the cost of education is
>paid by the taxpayers. If they are the ones paying, what do they expect,
>i.e. what product are they after? Is it a different question at private
>schools, or do we just rephrase it in terms of big-money donors?
>

Having just read an article titled "schools as learning organizations" you
put out a very real issue; What responsibility does the school have to
produce saleable items? In one case, I have witnessed a graduate program
that is entirely ill-prepared for the person changing careers. The
background was so unlike what was required for the department, that the
experience was difficult, at best.

Since the taxpayers (or us, as students) are paying, how do we judge the
results of our investments? I agree with you, that the student as customer,
and the other ideas, may not fit the true meaning of our desires, as students.

The questions evolves: How are schools going to determine who the market
is, that they serve. If the departmental mission is to populate the
department, than the effort should be on creating academics. If, on the
other hand, the goal is to produce people with skills that are useful in
the outside world, than the emphasis must be on developing saleable skills.

How does one deal with this issue?

just more food for thought.

michael.

+================================+
| Michael Weisman |
| Graduate Student |
| University of South Florida |
| mweisman@packet.net |
+================================+
CHAOS IS MERELY A FUNCTION OF
THE GRANULARITY OF THE SAMPLE

Gary

You suggest "students as customers" has gone unchallenged and invite
further metaphors. In fact, Cheryl Tromley (Fairfield U.) and I did a
workshop at the Eastern Academy of Management in New Jersey last May
challenging the metaphor and generating dozens of competitors. There
were about 30 enthusiastic co-challengers in the room. My contender is
"Student as Junior Partner in the Firm." Certainly professors are
expected to know more and have more experience in their fields so they
are the senior partners. But in any accounting, law, consulting firm,
the junior partners have a lot of input and do a lot of work. Yet all
partners are seeking to accomplish the same major goals--in this case,
more learning, growth, and development for all those in the classroom,
including the prof. How do you like it??


--
Bill Ferris
Professor of Management
Western New England College
Springfield, MA 01119

Phone: (413) 782-1629
Fax: (413) 796-2068
E-Mail: bferris@wnec.edu

Thank You Richard, I agree with your assessment. I would carry it a bit
further. I believe students should be treated as customers and/or
clients in all our business dealings with them. Business office,
registrar, admissions, etc. However, in the classroom, during our part of
the learning process a professors position may be similar to a doctors. I
sometimes require students to do things they may resist or downright
detest from time to time. As a client or customer they might refuse and
go on about their business (in fact they still can withdraw from my
class). However, I believe what I do in class and as assigned out of
class work is goal directed and in the long-run best interest,
intellectual healthwise, of the students I teach.

Many of my students are sophomores studying accounting in order to enter
our business program. Not all of them necessarily want what I
have to offer or view it as important, that is they are not voluntary
participants in the process.
*****************************************************************
Kanalis Ockree e-mail: zzockr@acc.wuacc.edu
School of Business fax: 913-231-1063
Washburn University phone: 913-231-1010 X1589
Topeka, KS 66621
*****************************************************************

I disagree strongly with the proposition that students are our
customers. In my view, we have only one client-- the society at large.
The product we supply (as a community of academics from various
disciplines, engg,., business, liberal arts) is a pool of CAPABLE
graduates who will replace the retiring workforce AND PERHAPS
(Hopefully) with more current skills and newer ideas for the progress of
society. Very functionalistic and very long, indeed. This I think holds
at least with regard to undergraduate and MBA (and other graduate)
students.

Our obligation is to society, and in fulfilling that obligation, we are
given the authority to subject the students to various processes within
an acceptable zone (which keeps changing with the times) but ultimately
our reputations , our survival and our wages all come from the society
(whether it is a private or public univ.). And this society includes
our past students too.

However, the metaphor of student as a customer ( I think) is not only
entirely misleading but also dangerous. Several assumptions in that
metaphor can go unchallenged if we adhere to it. In the first
instance, it triggers the popularity contest. Yes, you survived round
after round with the high ratings but not all of our graduates are
dummies. When they go out there, in a few years, they will be able to
judge for themselves what we really taught them. Many of them may
become cynical about what we can give them if we perform only at two
extremes: the pontiff (which as matters go leads to howling in the
class) and the newly fashionable "guide by the side" (another way of
pleading incompetence, outdatedness, lack of research, and blissful
ignorance of business world; extensive student presentations can allow
us to surmount this ignorance problem while keeping them entertained).

A second problem with this metaphor is that usually a customer knows
what he wants or at least can judge what he got. When it comes to
undergraduates, it is not an easy task for them to judge the precise
value of what they got. To some extent, yes, they can. But do they
really know what they should learn and what they should seek? If they
did, we would have had specialists offering courses on their own, and
undergraduates taking courses from any of these specialists as they like
to and stop when they want to, and these specialists need not be in the
university. They can be entreprenuers. In other words, we would have
seen a deintegration (as opposed to vertical integration) of the
universities by now.

To some extent, we survived by offering the flexibility through the
add/drop options, and so many other things such as electives in the
final year for BBAs and MBAs. It is wise to do that because these
students by their final year (as we all were once upon a time) are
knowledgeable enough to know what they would like to be. But do they
know what it takes to be "that thing"? We are supposed to know it and
not them. If they knew more than us, then what are we doing here? It all
points to the original problem, I think. We are , as a group, pleading
incompetence and begging for survival by letting our "customers" do what
they want.

The other metaphor of doctor-patient relationship looks tempting because
the patient does not know how but submits to the doctor his body and
soul who slits up a treat. Ockree Kanalis has made some good
observations in this respect which are not entirely in conflict with
what I had to say. And we can also talk about curing a disease called
"ignorance." But there could be problems with this also if we think deep
enough.

May be we should not look for metaphors nor jump on the "client
orientation" bandwagon (incidentally bandwagons are for those who refuse
to think) but just keep the relationship simply as "student-teacher".
May be there is some benefit in retaining some traditions. What is
exactly wrong with calling a student a student and a teacher a teacher?



N. Rao Kowtha
Department of Organisational Behavior
Faculty of Business Administration
National University of Singapore
10 Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore 119260, Singapore
Tel: (65) 8743049
Fax: (65) 775 5571



-----Original Message-----
From: ockree kanalis [SMTP:zzockr@ACC.WUACC.EDU]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 1997 1:02 AM
Subject: Re: students as customers

Thank You Richard, I agree with your assessment. I would carry
it a bit
further. I believe students should be treated as customers
and/or
clients in all our business dealings with them. Business
office,
registrar, admissions, etc. However, in the classroom, during
our part of
the learning process a professors position may be similar to a
doctors. I
sometimes require students to do things they may resist or
downright
detest from time to time. As a client or customer they might
refuse and
go on about their business (in fact they still can withdraw from
my
class). However, I believe what I do in class and as assigned
out of
class work is goal directed and in the long-run best interest,
intellectual healthwise, of the students I teach.

Many of my students are sophomores studying accounting in order
to enter
our business program. Not all of them necessarily want what I
have to offer or view it as important, that is they are not
voluntary
participants in the process.

*****************************************************************
Kanalis Ockree e-mail:
zzockr@acc.wuacc.edu
School of Business fax:
913-231-1063
Washburn University phone: 913-231-1010
X1589
Topeka, KS 66621

*****************************************************************

Rao--You have made a thoughtful response to the issue. I agree with your
analysis, which extends my own thinking on the subject of students as
customers.
Dick

Dick Dailey
Department of Management
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812-1216 BIG SKY COUNTRY!!
406 243 6644/Voice-Office
406 549 6876/Voice-Home Office
406 243 2086/Fax
rtd@selway.umt.edu

On 18 Oct 97 at 9:36, robnphil wrote:


> I find it very difficult to reconcile myself with the notion that the
> student is anything but a client of the services we offer. To say that
> society is the client is the same as saying that society is the client
> of a driving school. Is it not arrogance that states we alone know what
> society wants, not itself.

I don't think that the current discussion has a hope in heck of
resolving the issue, because the disagreement centres around the
meaning of the word customer, and some misunderstanding about what it
means. We can see also that there is an attempt at a black and white
terminology here. Most organizations have multiple customers or
stakeholders..there is no contradiction in considering society as a
receiver of benefit of schooling, while also considering the student
as a receiver of benefit and the holder of choiceful options.

I just finished an article on the definition of customer which I will
put on on my web site in the next week or so. It deals with the myth
that customers are to be catered to unconditionally, which with a
little thought is self evident. ALL customers are expected to operate
within the constraints of the relationship between customer and
provider. That is, students cannot be "customer-right" and receive
something that is not within the mandate of the school, any more than
I can go to Wal-Mart and insist that they serve me a Chinese meal.

Within this definition, there is no difficulty considering students
as customers, recognizing that they operate within constraints (as
all customers do). It allows us to move on in the discussion to talk
about what legitimate needs of "student customers" should be attended
to in schooling, rather than the rather banal discussion of whether
students are customers.

BTW, this exact discussion has been going on in the adult. ed list.

Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290
*Site Last Updated On Sept.11, 1997*

Kowtha,N Rao wrote:
>
> I disagree strongly with the proposition that students are our
> customers. In my view, we have only one client-- the society at large.
> The product we supply (as a community of academics from various
> disciplines, engg,., business, liberal arts) is a pool of CAPABLE
> graduates who will replace the retiring workforce AND PERHAPS
> (Hopefully) with more current skills and newer ideas for the progress of
> society. Very functionalistic and very long, indeed. This I think holds
> at least with regard to undergraduate and MBA (and other graduate)
> students.
>

I find it very difficult to reconcile myself with the notion that the
student is anything but a client of the services we offer. To say that
society is the client is the same as saying that society is the client
of a driving school. Is it not arrogance that states we alone know what
society wants, not itself. If society was the client of a driving school
why are there traffic laws to control the way cars are driven? Why are
there penalties for breaking these laws?

At MBA level, if society is the client why is it that so many MBA
courses run at anything but their optimum attendance level? Why are they
all so different? Why is it that some MBAs can be gained only by
attendance while others can be gained by, for example, distance? Why are
there only a handful of widely respected MBA courses? Or is it that
society hasn't yet realised that an MBA is, in itself, the product and
society therefore should be jolly well grateful that there are so many
to choose from!

At least at a driving school there is only one standard of outcome.


> Our obligation is to society, and in fulfilling that obligation, we are
> given the authority to subject the students to various processes within
> an acceptable zone (which keeps changing with the times) but ultimately
> our reputations , our survival and our wages all come from the society
> (whether it is a private or public univ.). And this society includes
> our past students too.
>
> However, the metaphor of student as a customer ( I think) is not only
> entirely misleading but also dangerous. Several assumptions in that
> metaphor can go unchallenged if we adhere to it. In the first
> instance, it triggers the popularity contest. Yes, you survived round
> after round with the high ratings but not all of our graduates are
> dummies. When they go out there, in a few years, they will be able to
> judge for themselves what we really taught them. Many of them may
> become cynical about what we can give them if we perform only at two
> extremes: the pontiff (which as matters go leads to howling in the
> class) and the newly fashionable "guide by the side" (another way of
> pleading incompetence, outdatedness, lack of research, and blissful
> ignorance of business world; extensive student presentations can > allow us to surmount this ignorance problem while keeping them entertained).


I think this argument tends to defeat itself. The ground on which it is
built is so shaky that I'm not surprised it is so strongly defended.
Whether we want to accept it or not, there is a popularity contest going
on with students and within society itself. Think, for example, of the
number of times graduates are asked not only whether or not they have
the required qualification, but also where they attained it? Is a
student with an MBA from, for argument's sake, the First International
University of Nee Soon going to be as widely accepted as someone with an
MBA from, say, Harvard? No. And this is despite the fact that the person
from Nee Soon (and my apologies if there is in fact a university at Nee
Soon) may very well have graduated with first degree honours and the
person from Harvard scraped in last.

The product each takes into the workplace is the qualification and the
quality of this qualification is what society judges. The individual has
the qualification, not society. It is what the individual does with the
skills and knowledge that this qualification gave him/her that
influences society, not the person who provides the skills and
knowledge. If the opposite was the case why is it that so many
university students go from being bomb throwing, placard waving radicals
to upright and respected business people? Why also is it that so many
univerisities deny that their role is to even prepare students for the
world of work?

The content of the qualification is so highly prized by society that it
will ask for a specific qualification, and this is what the individual
brings with him/her. I think therefore that it is equally as dangerous
to expect that I as a university lecturer am going to influence society
through my students. I can only influence my students and motivate them
to influence society - if, in fact that is their need.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you
feed him for life." I have seen many academics who would prefer this to
read: "Convince the man that he doesn't really want fish because society
would be better off if they were all vegetarians."

>
> A second problem with this metaphor is that usually a customer knows
> what he wants or at least can judge what he got. When it comes to
> undergraduates, it is not an easy task for them to judge the precise
> value of what they got. To some extent, yes, they can. But do they
> really know what they should learn and what they should seek?


The difficulty here is that, like most customers, most undergraduates
(and many graduates) don't really know what they want until they've
tried it or been counselled by someone who has. If what they wan't isn't
available then they are given guidance as to what is available and how
it can best suit their purposes. That is what student counsellors are
for.

Secondly, think realistically about the number of students who actually
complete the course they started so many years ago. Have they stayed
with the same subjects they started? Not always. Did they complete all
of the units they signed up for? Again, not always. Did they attend all
of the lectures and tutorials associated with these subjects? Not
always. In short, students, like customers, chop and change their mind
many times before they get to the product (the qualification) they feel
really comfortable with. The reason why they change their mind is not
always to do with the overall qualification but also with the quality of
education they are getting and the way in which it is being delivered.

Students are real people and deserve to be treated as such. If they are
not getting the product that they, or more likely their parents, have
paid so much money for then they have every right to walk away from it
and take their business elsewhere.


If they
> did, we would have had specialists offering courses on their own, and
> undergraduates taking courses from any of these specialists as they like
> to and stop when they want to, and these specialists need not be in the
> university. They can be entreprenuers. In other words, we would have
> seen a deintegration (as opposed to vertical integration) of the
> universities by now.

The truth is that there are many specialists out there already who are
making a very good living filling in the gaps left by universities. Very
few MBAs, and this includes the Harvards as well as the Nee Soon's,
fully prepare people for life, and if we were honest we'd all own up to
that. If this wasn't the case why are there so many consultants? Why are
there so many academics who run consultancy businesses on the side? Why
are there more multi-millionaires without university degrees than there
are with? Why is it that the greater majority of people with a
university degree are actually working for someone who hasn't got one?

Makes you think doesn't it?

>
> To some extent, we survived by offering the flexibility through the
> add/drop options, and so many other things such as electives in the
> final year for BBAs and MBAs. It is wise to do that because these
> students by their final year (as we all were once upon a time) are
> knowledgeable enough to know what they would like to be. But do they
> know what it takes to be "that thing"? We are supposed to know it and
> not them. If they knew more than us, then what are we doing here?

Indeed, what are we doing here? We are bringing together the results of
years of research into what is good and what is bad. We are drawing
together all of the strings of life and placing the parcel of experience
at the student's feet and saying "Open it - look inside and draw from it
what you will". We are their guide, their mentor as their eyes are
opened on the world. We will challenge them to learn - not what we want
to teach them but what they need to know to carve for themselves a part
of the world which they can call their own. If we touch them, even
briefly, then our job is done. At the end of the day, when they pick up
their reward for driving/supporting/motivating those around them, when
they look back on the successes they have found for themselves, very few
will even remember our names.

Only architects are allowed to build monuments to themselves.

Phil Rutherford
Adjunct Lecturer
University of New England

Hi Bob, Yes, there are more than a few rough edges to my view. For
instance, the capable vs knowledgeable issue. You have a point there.
And the issue of judging, A good question which should be thought about
and clarified. All in all, anyway, I stand by the core argument- that
this client thing is not appropriate for the central mission of the
university. It might work with Exec. Development because we deal with
senior execs. Who are able to take responsibility for their own actions
and are coming in for a very specific, narrowly focused session (not
always again, I agree). They want a specific product and they would
like to use it when they get back to their company. Which is why we are
seeing a deintegration in exec. Teaching and non-university
professionals succeeding and sometimes overtaking universities. Rao
N. Rao Kowtha
Department of Organisational Behavior
Faculty of Business Administration
National University of Singapore
10 Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore 119260, Singapore
Tel: (65) 8743049
Fax: (65) 775 5571



-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Gately [SMTP:gately@compuserve.com]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 1997 8:45 PM
Cc: Rao N. Kowtha
Subject: Re: students as customers

Hello Rao:

>>... we have only one client-- the society at large...<<

How does the client, i.e., society at large, convey its
dissatisfaction
with the quality of the product? How long does it take? How does
the
client, i.e., society at large, evaluate the effectiveness of a
single
professor? Do we leave evaluation of professors to their fellow
professors
only?

>>... The product we supply...is a pool of CAPABLE graduates who
will
replace the retiring workforce AND PERHAPS...with more current
skills and
newer ideas for the progress of society...<<

Seems to me the product is "knowledgeable graduates" not
"capable
graduates" since capable means "Having the ability, competent."
I suggest
that all graduates are not competent, but I will agree that all
graduates
have demonstrated that they have met a minimal level of
knowledge.

>>... Our obligation is to society ...<<

If that were true, wouldn't colleges deny degrees to students
who will
become poor or incompetent professionals? How many graduate
schools of
management ask students to leave if the students demonstrate no
ability or
desire to be competent managers? Can a manager be incompetent if
he or she
has a degree in management? Degrees are not enough.

I thought the obligation to protect society rested with the
licensing
boards of the various professions. How else can we explain the
number of
college graduates who cannot pass their professions' licensing
tests
whether the medical board, the CPA exam, PE test, etc.

If colleges really wanted to protect society they would require
passing the
appropriate licensing exam as part of their graduation
requirement. May I
be so bold to suggest that that will never happen.

>>... In the first instance, it triggers the popularity
contest...<<

I was unaware that customers are only concerned with popularity.
I thought
customers wanted quality, reliability and value.

>>.. Yes, you survived round after round with the high ratings
but not all
of our graduates are dummies...<<

Does that mean some graduates are dummies?

>>... What is exactly wrong with calling a student a student and
a teacher
a teacher?...<<

Here, here! I agree totally.

Bob

There is one aspect that is missing from this thread. In a preponderance
of cases, students have bought the ethos of the university with a smaller
number buying the ethos of the department and a still smaller number
buying the ethos of an individual professor. Witness the number of
classes taught by our colleague Ms. Staff and you will see what I mean. I
think it would the height of egoism to assume that they are OUR customers.


______________________
Great Optimism,

Dutch Driver
Abilene, TX
Hm. Telephone: 915.698.7217
mailto:ddriver@cs1.mcm.edu