Editorial Columns Archive

A college is not a business
Staff Report
11-20-2009

Waiting rooms are some of the most suffocating venues in all of creation. Whether for delivering joyous news, or notifying families regarding outcomes from serious procedures, the expectations of the vigilant bystander are at the mercy of axons and dendrites when adrenaline supercedes functionality. The magnified truth of the process exemplifies our impatience for outcomes, as we feed on the energy of the fate and the direction it gives us all. At the university in the contemporary age, we've come to a four-way intersection, and the stoplights have blacked out, creating chaos as to who has the right of way. There's plenty of traffic, and an overabundance of directionals, and confusion as to the final choice: it's the intersection of recruitment, and congestion is firmly in the driver's seat.

As with any assembly line, the key to a thriving business relies on the fundamental endgame of production, and without it, the barren tundra of a once-promising landscape appears in a cruel reality. Recruiting Joe Q. Student has become a primordial priority, as elemental as the utilities that course through the veins of the buildings he will matriculate from. Professors and coaches are the new 21st century car salesmen: reel in the buyer and get your commission; lose the fish on the hook and be left to explain the empty-net syndrome to those who cast belief in your powers to attract the prize.

Certainly, there's a source of pride, as well as a relieved and perspiring gratitude when you steal the prospective student away from the neighborly competition. Yet the competition involves much more than bragging rights these days; it's streamlined straight into the financial coffers, where sponsorship and accreditation are on academic loan to those who produce, and in danger of vanishing for those who do not. Academia is a vital part of societal culture, but the elementary mistake in assuming its role is purely mathematic, unfairly diminishes its red-lined necessity to conduct a business to ensure survival.

As any entrepreneurial venture will surmise, the financial coup-d'etat of recruitment all hinges on the willingness of Joe Q. to play along. And for A+B to equal C, promises will need to be made, and coaches and professors alike need to put on their best Monet to make the impression that their Camelot is where the Holy Grail resides. The peace from the war that you've battled to ensare your capture comes in the cloaked irony that all students have this weapon of choice; a freedom to do as they please, and go where their minds lead, and it's often to the corner of illustrious and fashionable, rather than through the avenue of practical and stable. In a national culture that emphasizes the addictive moment rather than years of laborious investment, playing-to-win becomes a dangerous cat-and-mouse game when dangling shiny toys in front of hypnotized eyes becomes the ultimate report card.

It never ceases to amaze, that attracting today's best and brightest has suddenly elided into "shopping" for them. This fundamental difference indicates one of two things: 1) an overabundance of institutions promising relatively identical products, or 2) dwindling numbers in programs (academic and athletic) that need critical transfusions in a trend of educational distress. One fact is certain: recruitment is the red-light that's stopped us in our tracks. We're driving under the influence of statistical pressure. And what lies in the waiting room? A vehicle that tires by the academic hour.