Published
in AMS Quarterly, Vol. 2 (August 1998): p.2
Original manuscript. Copyright
retained by author
ARE WE TEACHERS
or JOB TRAINERS by Herbert Rotfeld Department of Marketing Auburn University Rotfehj@auburn.edu
It has often been noted that the popularity of undergraduate marketing
programs has been tied (and/or driven) by interests that students might
have in marketing jobs. Students note their interest in what they think
the field involves as a basis for selecting a major; department brochures
often sell programs based on the types of marketing jobs available in the
economy. And research articles in Journal of Marketing Education
and Marketing Education Review often state a research rationale
that the major is attempting to prepare students for entry-level jobs.
The difference between teaching and training could be merely semantic.
After all, a job trainer does teach his or her charges. However, the conflict
is more basic than that and has inter-related implications for faculty
credentials, graduate expectations and textbook or program content. Since
the trainer/placement mentality has influenced (if not controlled) a great
deal of undergraduate education in the U.S., it is clearest to see what
this means for the prevalent activities & expectations often found
in these areas.
Faculty credentials
Many schools often state a desire for faculty to have business experience,
and since they will spend time talking "about" business practices, such
contacts are desirable. A cultural anthropologist must spend time among
the natives. Yet this could be taken to undesirable extremes as when a
department chair expresses a wish that faculty retention be based on consulting
businesses, since (to him) having something to sell to business means the
faculty member would have something important to teach. Faculty are encouraged
to fill class time with practitioner-speakers whose credentials alone make
them important for campus as long as students do not find them boring.
Yet when job experience supplants education and scholarship as the job
credential, faculty then define their work as training for the jobs they
personally know. If a graduate seeks a different job, the materials learned
from this trainer have little application. The "education" was wasted,
or so it would seem. And this also encourages unbounded arrogance by some
faculty, such as the young faculty member who said he'll only teach what
students need for jobs, even though he had never held one.
Yet it is strange that marketing is one of the few realms of "professional"
education where practitioners, especially those who are financially successful,
have greater credibility than anyone on campus. In law, medicine or engineering,
scholars on campus are held in highest regard by the profession, while
it often appears that a dim-witted professional drudge from the marketing
business is held in higher regard by students and faculty than some of
our leading scholars. Shifting from business to education can be a rewarding
career move, yet because of business-experience credentials, even marketing
people whose thinking activity ended when they entered campus life might
be held in higher regard than solid scholars and educators.
Student expectations
Seeing the degree as job certification, not an education, the students
are more concerned about credits they acquire than what they learn in the
process. If they see value of the education at all, it is because a course
imparted "useful information." Of course, this begs the question as to
just what is useful, especially in this fast-changing world. A graduating
senior today studied DOS-based Wordperfect in the freshman level computer
course and other programs that are equally dated. In business, terms change,
the contexts alter, and since the trend is not destiny, "useful information"
is chimera. Faculty update their lectures and textbooks are revised, but
no one contacts past students with corrections of what was conveyed in
the past.
But then, the students care more about credit than content. As our catalogs
tell students of the valuable careers that come from a marketing major,
as we focus on job training, the students just want the degree, but not
the education. Teachers who control courses credits and grades are no longer
seen by students as resources to tap or mentors who can provide guidance,
but rather, as obstacles to overcome. When called upon to think through
a problem, some might just reply, "I don't know. Tell me the answer." Faculty
tell answers; they memorize, pass exams, get credit, and move on. To them,
the learning is a distraction.
Course and program content
In turn, with a focus on job training instead of learning how to think
and ask the marketing questions, the classes and books have evolved into
collections of lists and data. The texts provide more statements of "marketing
opportunities" instead of marketing perspectives for application. And on
campus, the marketing programs can be seen as almost anti-intellectual,
draining students from more thoughtful and traditional academic pursuits.
A lot has been said about the need for our students to be able to deliver
a power point presentation and know the proper "form" for a business letter.
But sometimes even the faculty forget that it is more important that they
must also know how to compile and analyze information that would go into
the presentations, group meetings and letters.
As a result
It should surprise no one that few students are desiring to read a book
and answer questions unless they are first told what they need to know
and what is important to remember. Students proudly show their high grades,
from multiple-choice exams, as if their future careers will all depend
on knowing which choice to make instead of discerning which choices exist.
Of course, the real problem is that few people understand the value of
education. At a graduation ceremony, several speakers said "Now that your
education has ended," meaning there are no more credits to earn.
It wasn't that long ago that universities were primarily concerned with
the organization and dissemination of knowledge, not the accumulation and
bestowing of credit. Marketing credits provide value for future employers
only if it represents a developed ability to think, but calling education
job training loses track of this, to the detriment of education itself.