Colleges, Universities Must Make Students First Priority

American colleges and universities, from the best to the worst, the largest to the smallest, are products of a medieval past. Their survival in the next millennium will be determined by their ability to step away from entrenched ways.

Since the middle of this millennium, universities have been places where scholars from various disciplines come together to add to the store of human knowledge and to develop the life of the mind.

Students in turn attached themselves to scholars and gleaned what they could from their work. Scholars set the course of study and the direction of the institution. Students were peripheral.

Although we live in a world of telecommunications, computers, space travel and medical wonders, many vestiges of the past remain with us, particularly in higher education.

Many of our independent colleges and even some large universities are in trouble because they have failed to face the challenges of today.

To flourish in the millennium ahead, American higher education must establish new and clearly defined goals. It’s time to turn the old student-faculty model inside out and put students at the core.

Education is no longer elitist. Research and the advancement of knowledge should not be neglected but students should be placed at the center of higher education. This is especially true for undergraduate students who, despite the promises made in glossy brochures and at open houses, too often seem to be afterthoughts or fodder to nourish the college’s graduate programs.

Colleges will continue to struggle until they embrace the concept of student focus. Colleges and universities give lip service to it - and today’s students expect it. More often than not, students are less prepared academically for the rigors of the classroom than their parents were a generation ago.

Many of today’s full-time students are accustomed to pervasive support systems that have enabled them to succeed. Should students have to fight for individual attention or should the college revolve around the student? I believe the latter. Despite how many academics loathe the term, the student is indeed their customer.

I am not implying an elaborate and extended summer camp for 18- to 22-year-olds. What I am suggesting is that students be given ample opportunity and encouragement to explore their interests and discover their abilities through collaborative, nurturing relationships with their professors.

Professors should make teaching and scholarship their top priorities. Faculty members must have the time to spend with students.

Scholars, with few exceptions, are not trained to manage, set institutional direction or develop budgets and manage revenues. Nor should they be asked to. Faculty members should be engaged in decisions involving subjects like education, curriculums and graduation requirements. They should not be diverted into management areas beyond their expertise.

College presidents have historically come from the professorate and this faculty-dominated college administration exists today. A college president’s job is to run the institution and manage its resources. Fiscal necessity will demand professional managers in the years ahead.

Colleges and universities need to invest resources in areas that directly affect students, going beyond traditional classroom learning to teach community leadership and interpersonal ethics.

These include student activities, career placement, internships, postgraduate programs, counseling services and athletics. Only by investment of time and money can these services be made available.

Most important, colleges must adjust their goals. The new measure of a school’s success should not be the quality of students they get but the quality of students they graduate.

Do students find meaningful employment? Are they placed in excellent graduate and professional programs? Do students graduate feeling that their education has had a dramatic effect on the way they view the world and their place in it?

These are the vital questions, yet most academic institutions don’t understand this.

A professor may be brilliant, the students the brightest around, but those inputs are meaningless unless at the end of the college experience the student is better prepared for a satisfying and productive life.

When colleges and universities recognize students are the essential elements of their institutions, other issues will sort themselves out.