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Campus Digest
5/12/2003

Should Students Be Treated Like Customers?

Seeking to become more efficient and responsive, universities have been treating students more like customers. And as students have seen tuition and fees skyrocket, they have begun acting more like demanding customers too. While this has led to some improvements in services, in the classroom it has had unintended consequences, according to members of a panel discussion held in late February.

"The Future of the American Public Research University," a discussion moderated by National Public Radio correspondent Juan Williams as part of President Bob Bruininks’ inauguration week, featured three University of Minnesota faculty members and Robert Berdahl (Ph.D. ’65), chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley. The panelists touched on many subjects, mostly dealing with the ramifications of declining public funding for higher education.

Professor Dennis Ahlberg, associate dean for faculty and research in the Carlson School of Management, said he is seeing students less interested in the process of learning, in dialogue with faculty, and more interested in having knowledge handed to them. "The consumer model cuts out working together," he said. "We’ve been pushing this idea of students being customers. . . . Now we’ve got it [in the classroom], and it’s really stupid."

If public universities are forced to increase tuition even more and compete with private schools for student tuition money, Ahlberg added, "we’ll end up teaching what is popular," rather than what students need.

English Professor Patricia Hampl (B.A. ’68), agreed. "The foundation of what we are and do is not a business," she said. "[We’ll be] giving power of curriculum choice away."

Bruininks commented that the idea of higher education creating a greater public good is getting lost in the drive to make public colleges more self-funded. "H.L. Mencken once said that for every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong," he said, referring specifically to a proposal to make the University of Massachusetts Amherst entirely self-funded. "I think this is one of them."

Berdahl said the Berkeley campus is seeing a "tidal wave" of first-generation college students that he compared to the post–World War II college boom. The difference is that these students are from immigrant families. "We need to argue that these new populations deserve the same chance" that previous generations received to get an affordable college education, he said. "Lives are transformed by the opportunity to come here, and society is transformed by those lives. . . . I looked at the words inscribed on Northrop Auditorium earlier. It talks about the instruction of youth and the welfare of the state, the faith that we are ennobled by understanding. All of that is still applicable today."

Bookstore Bookkeeping

In honor of the new University of Minnesota Bookstore that recently opened in Coffman Union, Minnesota presents some fun facts and footnotes:

New Coffman outlet size: 46,000 square feet (39,000 of selling space)

Combined selling space of the three outlets it replaced: 22,000 square feet

Number of checkout lanes at start of each semester: 60

U.S. college bookstores with more checkout lanes: 0

Average amount students spend on textbooks per semester: $300

Retail value of textbooks sold at the end of fall semester 2002 during finals week: $140,000

Percentage of students who purchase textbooks on-line: 10

Amount of time it takes a student to purchase all semester’s books on-line: 10 minutes or fewer

Number of countries from which books and Gopher gear have been ordered on-line: 64

How far from campus all the textbooks—laid end-to-end along an interstate highway—sold in a year would reach: Madison, Wisconsin; Des Moines, Iowa; or Fargo, North Dakota

Web Hit: Reducing Youth Access to Alcohol

Recent studies show that as much as 20 percent of alcohol is consumed by those too young to buy it legally. The Alcohol Epidemiology Program’s Web site (www.epi.umn.edu/alcohol/policy/parents.html) is helping parents and others who want to do something about it.

While acknowledging that parents can’t control much of what happens outside the home, the site offers several concrete starting points:

o Make the alcohol supply in the home inaccessible or at least monitor it carefully. The primary source of alcohol for adolescents who are just beginning to drink is their own home or a friend’s home, surveys show.

o Talk with the parents of friends about whether their alcohol supply is inaccessible to youth and about their feelings on underage alcohol use.

o Get involved in or start community efforts, such as advocating for local ordinances to reduce youth access to alcohol, encouraging owners and managers of bars and liquor stores to take steps to reduce sales to youth, urging police to do compliance checks, and helping churches, schools, and other organizations reduce youth access to alcohol on their property and at their events.

The site also has links for communities, schools, and other groups that can have an impact. A search engine can find recent bills affecting alcohol policy in every state and provides background research on alcohol policy.

Overheard on Campus

"This setup reflects what the U is doing. We believe everybody should be treated equally. We should not give any special preference based on race."
—University senior Isaac Erickson, a member of the Campus Republicans, quoted in the Minnesota Daily on the point of a bake sale that charged white males $1.50 for baked goods and black and Hispanic women $0.75

"When I use comic-book examples, students never wonder when they’re going to use this in their real life. Apparently they have plans post-graduation that involve spandex and patrolling the city."
—University physics and astronomy professor James Kakalios, quoted in Nature, who uses superheroes and a course he developed, "Everything I Know of Science I Learned from Reading Comic Books," to help teach physics

"I don’t ever want to tell my daughter that in order to be safe in the United States of America, she has to carry a gun."
—U.S. Representative Betty McCollum speaking in early March at an International Women’s Day conference at the University of Minnesota on a concealed weapons bill introduced in the Minnesota Legislature

"There aren’t a lot of things onto which you can pin a distinctively Canadian culture other than growing up and learning that you’re Canadian and not American."
—Mark Snyder, a Canadian and head of the psychology department at the University, quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the recent cold relations between Canada and the United States

"I don’t harbor a grudge, and I don’t think Iraqis should die because I was inconvenienced for 10 days."
—University junior Penny Nabokov, quoted in the Minnesota Daily on why she doesn’t want to make more of the fact that, as a 10-year-old, she was held by the Iraqi Army for 10 days after their 1990 invasion of Kuwait

"It was over a hockey game that they were being so destructive? I did not understand it."
—University student Lucy Kervin, whose car was overturned and set on fire after the Gopher men’s hockey team won the NCAA title April 12, quoted in the Star Tribune

Faculty Research
A look at recent University of Minnesota studies, research, discoveries, and rankings

Benefits of Part-time Jobs
Part-time high school jobs can be good for you—up to a point. University of Minnesota sociologist Jeylan Mortimer surveyed 750 St. Paul students for 12 years, until their mid-20s. Those who had worked part-time jobs (20 hours or fewer a week) were doing better in many ways than peers who either worked more or did not work at all. Mortimer asserts that jobs teach time-management skills and that teens learn responsibility, gain confidence, and are better able to handle future job stress. The wider set of acquaintances students meet at work can also help buffer family stress, she believes. An earlier U study based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, found that working more than 20 hours a week was associated with alienation from family and school and an increase in risky health behaviors. Other studies have also found correlations to lower grades and negative behaviors with working. Mortimer’s findings were released in Working and Growing Up in America, a book published by Harvard University Press in February 2003.

A Chip Off the Old Block
The next next-generation computer chip might use DNA "scaffolding" to store and process hundreds of times more information than chips currently do. A team led by Richard Kiehl, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota, used the selective "stickiness" of DNA to construct a crystal able to hold closely spaced nanoparticles. The tiny scale and precision could mean information storage 100 times greater than is projected for 2010, when the next generation of silicon computer chips is expected. Someday, the technology may even help computers identify images with something approaching the speed of the human eye and brain, Kiehl says. Among the next steps is to demonstrate that DNA won’t interfere with the electrical functioning of the attached nanocomponents. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation and printed in the August 2002 Journal of Nanoparticle Research.

Cloning Discovery
In a discovery that may advance and refine therapeutic cloning techniques, University of Minnesota researchers discovered the substance that causes part of a cloned cell’s nucleus to disassemble temporarily. The fact that cell nucleoli disappear after the introduction of genetic material into eggs for cloning—and then shortly reappear and begin developing—has been known for some three decades, although scientists have not understood how this happens. The University of Minnesota’s Stem Cell Institute discovered the two proteins that appear to be behind the phenomenon. The Stem Cell Institute is working to learn how to drive both adult and embryonic stem cells into becoming specific cells types that potentially can be used to treat a variety of diseases. By discovering the mechanisms behind cell development, researchers hope to improve therapeutic cloning techniques. The research was published February 17 on-line and will appear in a future issue of Nature Cell Biology.

Aspirin and Colon Polyps
A study on 1,100 patients has found that low doses of aspirin protect against pre-cancerous colon polyps, benign tumors that can develop into cancer if left in the bowel. The University of Minnesota was one of 10 institutions to provide low doses of aspirin to patients who had previously had colon polyps. Patients receiving the equivalent of a quarter of an adult aspirin a day (81 mg) had a 19 percent lower risk of polyps and 40 percent reduced risk of advanced lesions compared with a placebo group. A companion study that tested a 325 mg standard aspirin tablet against a placebo found a 30 percent reduction in polyps. Although aspirin does have adverse effects for a small number of people, researchers believe that a daily aspirin regimen, if approved by a physician and used in conjunction with regular screenings, can be effective for those with a greater risk of polyps because of previous polyps or colon cancer. The study results were reported in the March 4 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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