In College Turmoil, Signs of a Changed Relationship With Students

Given all that has happened on so many campuses over the last few years, it’s hard to pick the one that has been roiled the most by struggles over political correctness. But Oberlin College would certainly be in the running.

A widely discussed series of events there included the demand for a so-called trigger warning to students who might be upset reading “Antigone”; complaints about the ethnic integrity of the sushi in a campus dining hall; and a petition, signed by 1,300 students, calling for a semester in which the lowest possible grade was a C, so that anyone skipping classes or skimping on studies to engage in social activism wouldn’t pay too steep an academic price.

In the view of more than a few observers, these students were taking liberalism to illiberal extremes. But their actions were arguably proof of something else as well.

Students at Oberlin and their counterparts elsewhere might not behave in such an emboldened fashion if they did not feel so largely in charge. Their readiness to press for rules and rituals to their liking suggests the extent to which they have come to act as customers — the ones who set the terms, the ones who are always right — and the degree to which they are treated that way.

Twinned with colleges’ innovations to attract and serve a new generation of students is a changed relationship between the schools and the schooled. It’s one of the most striking transformations in higher education over the last quarter-century.

clamoring for their attention, competing for their affection and unfurling their wares with as much ceremony and gloss as possible.

And what wares those are. Colleges have spruced up dormitories and diversified dining options, so that students unwind in greater comfort and ingest with more choice than ever before. To lure students and keep them content, colleges have also fashioned state-of-the-art fitness centers, sophisticated entertainment complexes and other amenities with a relevance to learning that is oblique at best.

High Point University in North Carolina is in the midst of an upgrade of more than $2 billion that includes millions toward amusements like a putting green, a game arcade, an ice cream truck and a theater with free movies and free popcorn.

… a detail from a New Yorker article about Oberlin last month … described one student’s complaint that only some instructors there were willing to accommodate his desire to demonstrate mastery of a course’s material during an office-hours conversation rather than by submitting to whatever written format was usually required. “That’s not institutionalized,” he said. “I have to find that professor.” His displeasure was understandable. He’s the customer, after all.

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