Page 137 - Crisis in Higher Education

108 • Crisis in Higher Education

5.2.3.1 Higher Education, Service Dominant Logic, and Curricula
Higher education is consistent with SDL because it is intellectually rich, has
a highly educated workforce, and faces multiple customers. Figure 5.2 shows
the key participants in curricula design and delivery, which are tenured and
professional faculty, customers such as students and potential employers,
other contractual faculty, graduate teaching assistants, placement special-
ists, student advisors, and suppliers of learning materials. Governments as
customers are not listed in Figure 5.2 because their interests overlap with
the interests of students and potential employers.
The eight groups, shown in Figure 5.2, work together to create a learn-
ing environment that meets the needs of customers (the “what” for cur-
ricula design) and create the pedagogy or method to deliver the content
effectively and efficiently (the “how” for curricula delivery). The following
points describe the interactions among the participants.

1. Curricula content: For each degree program, the needs of the poten-
tial employers—along with requirements of licensure, graduate school
admission, and becoming entrepreneurs—are combined with the
expert knowledge held by tenured and professional faculty to deter-
mine the course content, including the depth of coverage for each

2. Pedagogy 1. Curricula
3. Instruction Tenured and content
Students professional
faculty
Other
contractual Potential
faculty employers
Curricula
design and 6. Job
delivery placement
Graduate Placement
teaching services
assistants
Suppliers of
learning Student
materials advisors
4. Learning 5. Advising
materials

FIGURE 5.2
Service dominant logic perspective on curricula design and delivery.