I Hope Princeton and its New President are Listening

As a former professor, and someone who closely follows higher education (See my blog www.inside-higher-ed.com.), I am worried about one of the most seriious issues facing Princeton’s new president: Is one of the country’s leaders in education going to fall prey to the “student as consumer” movement? In other words, as the former President of U. of Chicago, John Maynard Hutchins, would have put it are they going to “lose their soul” and mislead everyone from their “customers” (once quiantly called “students”) to the corporations, governments and grad schools where their graduates end up? Is Princeton going to do this by reversing their grading guidelines to help their students learn less and still get better jobs, etc,.. And are they going to do this while many of their faculty attack corporations and bankers for doing the same thing, only in a slightly different way. Here is how much Princeton seems to be behaving just like the institutions many faculty critcize.

An article in The Daily Princetonian announced a new committee formed to advise the President on grade policy. (See http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2013/10/princeton-announces-committee-to-review-controversial-grade-deflation-policy/.) I gave the article the “bad bankers, bad credit raters, bad bonds” test. In other words, I essentially replaced “Princeton” with “F&P”, “President” with “CEO”, “students” with “customers”, etc… Here is what I got.

(ADAPTATION of http://dailyprincetonian.com/n… to a fictional bond rating scenario.)
F&P (The Highly Regarded Bond Rating Agency) Announces Committee to Review Controversial Rating Policies
F&P’s new CEO says he has formed a committee to review the company’s rating policies. The present policies had been put in place a few years ago and restricted the granting of a F&P rating of A, or higher, to fewer companies.
The new CEO acknowledged that the company marketing and contracting director had told him that the rating policy might be affecting the number of negotiated contracts that were eventually signed, since the policy has become part of F&P’s image for customers considering contracting with F&P.
A committee has been tasked by the new CEO to reevaluate F&P’s rating policies, taking into account customer feedback on the policy and the impact it may have oncustomers’ ability to convince investors that their finances are in good order.
The rating policyhad been put into effect as a response to perceived “rating inflation” by some of the company’s raters. At the time of the policy’s adoption, F&P’s management had hoped that other rating companies would follow F&P’s lead but they didn’t. Other rating agencies are stillgiving ratings of A, or above, to far more companies than F&P’s policy would have allowed….
[END of adpaptation]

I don’t disagree with many of Princeton’s faculty about bad bankers, etc.. I just wish they could see their own behaviour more carefully and objectively.”