1/29/24, 4:56 PM Opinion | Stop Corporatizing My Students - The New York Times

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GUEST ESSAY

Stop Corporatizing My Students

Nov. 15, 2023

By Beth Ann Fennelly

Ms. Fennelly, a former poet laureate of Mississippi, teaches at the University of Mississippi.

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I have taught creative writing at Mississippi’s flagship university for over 20 years, and I’ve witnessed a powerful outcome:
Students who master written and spoken communication can change the world.

Which is why the educational trend focusing on student outcomes is so alarming. In September, Mississippi’s state auditor,
Shad White, published a report, “Plugging the Brain Drain: Investing in College Majors That Actually Work.” It notes that
many students are likely to leave our state after completing their educations, presumably for more exciting opportunities
elsewhere. Mr. White proposes tying educational investments to majors that dovetail with workplace needs in Mississippi.

He cited a Texas bill signed into law in June that overhauls how the state funds its community colleges. Money for those
colleges in Texas is now allotted based on student outcomes that prepare them for the work force. Mr. White said the
Mississippi Legislature should create a study committee of work force experts to outline the most- and least-needed
programs and design a university funding structure with the state’s work force and economy in mind.

It’s worth noting that nowhere in the eight-page report is educational value discussed in relation to anything other than
money. I wonder what value he’d ascribe to John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”

In social media posts, Mr. White dismissed fields like African American studies, gender studies and anthropology as “useless
degrees” in “garbage fields.” Instead, in the report, he recommends that students enter fields like construction management.

See how efficiently students in the poorest state are shunted toward the vocational: It’s not personal. It’s business. This,
despite a study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that found that humanities majors are comparably likely to
be satisfied with their jobs and employed in supervisory roles as graduates from other majors.

The report is unsettling because we’ve seen universities around the country enact budget cuts that have reduced humanities
offerings.

In August, West Virginia University proposed cutting academic majors and programs, in a bid to reduce the budget shortfall
caused in large part by declining enrollment. The process, as outlined on the provost’s website, seeks to create “a more
focused academic program portfolio aligned with student demand, career opportunities and market trends.”

Consider the terms the provost used: trends, market, demand, portfolio, metrics.

Despite an outcry from students, professors and alumni, the university’s board of governors voted to slash 28 academic
majors and 143 faculty positions in September. While humanities wasn’t the only area of study to take a hit, programs or
majors in fields like creative writing, world languages and music were among those initially flagged for discontinuation.

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1/29/24, 4:56 PM Opinion | Stop Corporatizing My Students - The New York Times

Last year, the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, contracted with rpk Group, the consulting firm that has worked on
West Virginia University’s restructuring, to devise an academic program review in the face of declining enrollment and
changes in state funding. Its website asserts that “innovation disconnected from the business model is not sustainable.”

Reducing education to a business model changes what, and who, gets taught. Framing students as entry-level employees
emboldens this nudge toward the vocational. But students need a wide horizon to explore, dream, try, fail, try harder, fail
better. They need, if you will, to be useless — for a while, anyway.

It’s true that a great majority of my students won’t go on to be writers, but they will go on to be readers who, through
literature, educate themselves cognitively, emotionally and spiritually. They’ll leave my classroom prepared to think
critically, to consider another’s perspective and muster empathy and to recognize fake news, fearmongering and demagogy.

Maybe that’s why the Shad Whites out there seem so keen to thwart my students working toward “useless” degrees. After
all, they can detect faulty reasoning faster than a sneeze through a screen door. So let me suggest that higher education
administrators jettison the corporatese. My students’ degrees are high value only if they’ve reason to value them highly. My
campus is not your corporation. My classroom is not your boardroom.

And should you need help choosing apt metaphors, check out a creative writing class, maybe even one at West Virginia
University, where, happily, such classes still exist. Or perhaps one at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where an
outside consultant hired by the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors has reported that
the university “is in solid financial condition” and that instead of cutting academic programs, it might do better to trim
bloated administrative costs. (The university disputed the accuracy of this report.)

As for Mr. White, he’s welcome to audit my creative writing class, though he might have some catching up to do. My students
happen to be pretty great, not least because they have “traveled in the realms of gold,” to quote Keats — a quote that doesn’t
mean what Mr. White might hope it means, that they’ve entered the construction management field. It means they’ve read a
lot of good books.
Beth Ann Fennelly, the poet laureate of Mississippi from 2016 to 2021, teaches at the University of Mississippi. Her most recent book is “Heating & Cooling: 52
Micro-Memoirs.”

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