Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College
Conversations about the state of higher education in the US are increasingly attuned to the predatory practices of for-profit colleges. The essay offers a critical retrospective engagement with my experience teaching at a for-profit institution of higher education. It provides a theorization of what...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
2018-01-01
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| Series: | Radical Teacher |
| Online Access: | http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/article/view/324 |
| _version_ | 1818500708597497856 |
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| author | Jaime Madden |
| author_facet | Jaime Madden |
| author_sort | Jaime Madden |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Conversations about the state of higher education in the US are increasingly attuned to the predatory practices of for-profit colleges. The essay offers a critical retrospective engagement with my experience teaching at a for-profit institution of higher education. It provides a theorization of what I found to be a "customer service orientation"--a distinctive expectation the college has about how instructors interact with their students, as well as a skill instructors are asked to foster in students. After briefly outlining the institution's spatial configuration and how that supports its customer service orientation, I focus on two aspects of the for-profit educational experience: 1) the classroom experience within a generic sociology course, where students and I worked against the customer service orientation; and 2) a close reading of a course textbook assigned to all incoming students, which reveals most clearly the dual operations of neoliberal individualism and a customer service orientation. The classroom scenes detailed in this essay depict the complex and calculated negotiations of teachers and students with academic capitalism. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T20:46:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-894fc5876c0c4bb8b93231ffa5a71f45 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1941-0832 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T20:46:23Z |
| publishDate | 2018-01-01 |
| publisher | University Library System, University of Pittsburgh |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Radical Teacher |
| spelling | doaj.art-894fc5876c0c4bb8b93231ffa5a71f452022-12-22T01:34:13ZengUniversity Library System, University of PittsburghRadical Teacher1941-08322018-01-011101142410.5195/rt.2018.324228Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit CollegeJaime Madden0University of Maryland at College ParkConversations about the state of higher education in the US are increasingly attuned to the predatory practices of for-profit colleges. The essay offers a critical retrospective engagement with my experience teaching at a for-profit institution of higher education. It provides a theorization of what I found to be a "customer service orientation"--a distinctive expectation the college has about how instructors interact with their students, as well as a skill instructors are asked to foster in students. After briefly outlining the institution's spatial configuration and how that supports its customer service orientation, I focus on two aspects of the for-profit educational experience: 1) the classroom experience within a generic sociology course, where students and I worked against the customer service orientation; and 2) a close reading of a course textbook assigned to all incoming students, which reveals most clearly the dual operations of neoliberal individualism and a customer service orientation. The classroom scenes detailed in this essay depict the complex and calculated negotiations of teachers and students with academic capitalism.http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/article/view/324 |
| spellingShingle | Jaime Madden Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College Radical Teacher |
| title | Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College |
| title_full | Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College |
| title_fullStr | Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College |
| title_full_unstemmed | Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College |
| title_short | Instructor or Customer Service Representative?: Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College |
| title_sort | instructor or customer service representative reflections on teaching in a for profit college |
| url | http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/article/view/324 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jaimemadden instructororcustomerservicerepresentativereflectionsonteachinginaforprofitcollege |