Page 189 - Crisis in Higher Education

160 • Crisis in Higher Education

asking students to spend $100,000 and four or more years of their lives to
earn university degrees requires a substantial payoff. Good careers and
incomes are important parts of that payoff.

8.1 CONTEXT FOR REACHING OUT
TO POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS
A key premise of this book is that universities face a trifurcated customer:
students who seek learning, third parties who typically pay a substantial
part of the bill, and potential employers. Universities, operating as pro-
fessional service organizations, should mediate the relationship between
students and potential employers by (1) gathering information about the
needs of employers, (2) designing the curricula to satisfy those needs, and
(3) delivering the curricula to students. In the process, universities engage
in service dominant logic, which is close cooperation among tenured and
professional faculty, students, potential employers, and suppliers of learn-
ing materials. The intent is to continuously improve and individualize the
2
service/education to meet the needs of specific customers —the essence
of student-centered learning. In the process, value is co-created, which
means all participant groups contribute in a meaningful way.

1. Tenured and professional faculty: They are mediators who under-
stand and pull together students’ expectations and employers’ needs
for qualified workers. They also have the technical expertise and
know-how to create curricula that can be effectively delivered to
meet the various learning styles of students. They work with sup-
pliers of textbooks and other learning materials to develop a set of
tools to satisfy these different learning styles. This is a dynamic pro-
cess that improves continuously as it learns how to do things better,
faster, and cheaper. The process must also adjust to different student
capabilities, new knowledge requirements, and technical innova-
tions in teaching and learning.
2. Students: They should make efforts to understand how they learn
best and what tools and techniques are best suited to their learn-
ing style. Tenured and professional faculty members mediate inter-
actions between students and potential employers. This interaction
provides an understanding of what students need to learn to have