That, dear friends, is the Fisher College of Business, a recent addition to the Ohio State University which served as my alma mater (fucking Buckeyes....). Now, when I say it's recent, I mean it is one of the most recent additions to the University's curricula, not that it was added in the past ten years. Fisher has been in the business of doing business for some time, and paired with the football team, makes quite a bit of money for a University that no longer has education or academics as its core focus.
The presence of a Business College is a pernicious stain on any University campus. The terminology used by people who attend it are especially telling. Engineering, physics, linguistics, statistics, biology, anthropology, gender-studies, etc. are all academic disciplines. They are not something one can commoditize. With my degree in Russian, with a strong emphasis on culture (I like to think of myself as a linguist and anthropologist, but I digress), I cannot simply set up shop and sell my services in these areas to the general population. This is not a practical degree, nor was it ever intended to be. No University has ever concerned itself with practical application of its curricula. You go to a University to learn how to think critically in a particular field to further the sum total of human knowledge and understanding. This is not practical. This is all speculative and theoretical. Are there some degrees (Engineering, biochemistry, etc.) that have practical applications? Absolutely. But one is also providing a service to their academic field and future students in the same field.
The Business College is absolutely exempt from this reality. For centuries, one became a businessman by engaging in business and learning it as one would a trade--hands on. Today, the principles of business management remain very much the same as they always have. Ensure your supply is equal to your demand, pay a fair wage, ensure decent human resources access, and adapt your business model to changes in business climate to ensure you stay in business. This is a trade, not a speculative field of research. "Research" projects in Business Colleges amount to "how I would set up my business" and ensure one has read the material. They do not, however, offer valuable insights into the way one might do business in the future. And why is this the case if they are part of the family of highly speculative and forward-thinking curricula that make up the rest of the University syllabus? Because Business Colleges do not exist to promote freedom of thought, nor do they exist to contribute to the larger body of human knowledge. They exist to indoctrinate and propagandize those that walk their hallowed halls. They exist to shame the rest of the speculative fields being heavily invested in, and showing the University that THEY bring in business. THEY capitalize themselves. THEY are superior to all other fields of knowledge.
Remember what I said about how Business College attendees have a particular vocabulary? This is their vocabulary. They frame themselves in the context of the social construct that is the perceived prestige of attending an academic institution, but they themselves are not engaged in any way with academia outside academic requisites set by the University as terms of one's graduation.
But, here, also is a major issue with the decades-long legacy of the Business College. You do not attend a University and look at its job-placement rate. To engage in academia is the quiet acceptance that, while a practical job outside academia might exist for you, your ultimate career path is to remain in academia. Academics are people who never leave school. Business College graduates, however, have no choice. For them, the job-placement rate is tantamount to the academic's search for accreditation. So an already-large University like Ohio State can attract more money through more students by investing heavily in a Business College...and then watching as the social construct is reformed to glorify it and measure the rest of the University in the same terms.
The Business College is not an academic institution, so framing the debate on the humanities, arts and sciences, etc. in the terms of the Business College is disingenuous. A Business College has no place at an academic institution because it helps engender and indoctrinate people who do not even attend it. Academics ARE the vanguard of the revolution. Academics ARE the professional revolutionaries, because they have the time and energy to study and pursue further study. But the Business College prevents academics from joining the revolution because they become adherents to the propaganda of the Koch Brothers and McGraw Hill. Everyone, even in the Humanities, starts chasing that dollar sign and the entire premise of academia is undermined.
But when everyone is a business man and the economic collapses out from underneath them, where will their practical degree get them? Money can't really feed you, but I'm sure the embossing on your "university" degree will add some texture to that delicious business salad.
No comments:
Post a Comment