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How do we as student personnel professionals view those we serve? Do we view those we serve as clients, consumers or as designers? The answer to this inquiry is important. Our behavior is often determined or significantly influenced by the way in which we perceive situations. Classical research in perceptual and cognitive psychology is supportive of this contention. For example, significant changes in our profession occurred when we moved away from viewing students from an "in loco parentis" perspective. The nature of the institution's student life policy underwent significant revision, the rules of student conduct were changed, and our administrative and programmatic structures dramatically altered. Indeed, the perception we hold of those we serve is very potent!
Students as Clients
Seeing students as clients is basic to many of our current activities and programs in student personnel work. In many of our departments we actually refer to students as clients. Certainly this view is benevolent! Doctors treat clients in health-promoting ways. Psychologists treat clients to assist in self-improvement. Lawyers bring benefits to clients by helping in legal matters. The point is: Viewing students as clients is not inherently evil; in fact, much good can come from it. But we should be wary of some of the associated tendencies that accompany this viewpoint.
When students are viewed as clients, it is easy to see them as ill or deficient in some way. Such a view turns our attention away from the possibility of an "ill" environment.
Our services and programs become more passive when we view students as clients. Actions are initiated only after the student "client" becomes known to us. At this time students are usually symptomatic and our attention is again turned away from anticipating problems or taking preventive actions.
When students are perceived as clients, we most often set up places to see them. Our services then become defined by a geographical location and we find it more difficult to influence the institution as a whole. To view those we serve as clients is not evil, and at times it is not only helpful but necessary. However, such a view tends to have a very narrowing effect on the scope of our work.
Students as Consumers
A more recent as well as a popular way to view students is to see them as consumers. The "student as consumer view" is well documented in higher education. This view calls consumer abuses to our attention, and if we had to post the sign "guaranteed satisfaction or your money back" life on campus would show improvement. However, such a view brings with it a language that can restructure our relationship with those we serve. Lewis John (1977) states the following:
"The vocabulary of consumerism is increasingly applied to the campus. Students are characterized as consumers making educational purchases from among the various services offered by the education industry. We are told that catalogues and handbooks constitute advertising, that students, as buyers, enter into contractual obligations with institutions which are characterized as sellers, and that institutional representatives who talk with prospective students fall into the category of salesman. (John, page 39)
Again, the consumer perspective is not evil, it has called attention to abuses, but it does suggest that students are consumers of educational products. Are students not also producers of education? This leads to the final view "students as designers."
Students as Designers
A final way to view those we serve is to view students as designers. A designer is one who creates, fashions, executes, or constructs. How often do we view those we serve as persons creating, fashioning, and planning? If we view students as planners/designers, what is the impact upon the student personnel profession? The major impact is the necessity to view students not as just persons to serve or to satisfy, but as persons who have the capacity to influence, plan, and design.
It is becoming increasing apparent that man's survival in a complex world will depend upon his and her ability to design for the future. Those we serve hold the design of our society. Those we serve will have an increased capacity to fulfill their design responsibility, if viewed as active designers, not just clients and consumers.
Reference. John, L.G., (1977) "Student consumer protection in post secondary education," NASPA Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 39-50.
Andreas and Kubik have developed an ecological perspective regarding the redesigning of the campus environment relative to the special needs of commuting students. The focus is on the need for study lounges.
In the development of their ecological perspective, they outline some considerations that must be taken into account when designing or redesigning for/with the commuting student.
Andreas and Kubik continue their analysis by pointing out and discussing several "environmental concepts". Attention is given to the "natural" size of groups and the impact this has on designing lounge space. The concepts of personal space and individual territory are also discussed in regard to their impact on designing study environments. Finally, the concept of location is discussed regarding the placement of study lounges within the campus environment's traffic pattern.
The commuting student characteristics and the consideration of the environmental concepts are brought together by Andreas and Kubik in their discussion of design preparation. They point out the need to gather three types of data: " 1 ) an identification of activities, 2) the relationship among them, and 3) the requirements for their performance."
In summary, the authors "state" it is hoped that through a recognition of the different natures of the collegiate experience for commuting students, through an understanding of human behavioral factors operative in environment design, and through the use of a comprehensive design preparation process, we can develop study lounges which are better suited to the needs of our students.
For more information:
| Rosalind E. Andreas Dean of Students Oakland University Rochester, Michigan 48063 | Jan Kubik Acting Assoc. Dean of Students Director of Student Union Rhode Island College Providence, RI 02908 |
The following assumptions are basic to campus design (WICHE, 1973):
1. The campus environment consists of all the stimuli that impinge upon the students' sensory modalities and includes physical, chemical, biological, and social stimuli.
2. A transactional relationship exists between college students and their campus environment, i.e., the students shape the environment and are shaped by it.
3. For purposes of environmental design, the shaping properties of the campus environment are focused upon; however, the students are still viewed as active, choicemaking agents who may resist, transform, or nullify environmental influences.
4. Every student possesses capacity for a wide spectrum of possible behaviors. A given campus environment may facilitate or inhibit any one or more of these behaviors. The campus should be intentionally designed to offer opportunities, incentives, and reinforcements for growth and development.
5. Students will attempt to cope with any educational environment in which they are placed. If the environment is not compatible with the students, the students may react negatively or fail to develop desirable qualities.
6. Because of the wide range of individual differences among students, fitting the campus environment to the students requires the creation of a variety of campus subenvironments. There must be an attempt to design for the wide range individual characteristics found among students.
7. Every campus has a design, even if the administration, faculty, and students have not planned it or are not consciously aware of it. A design technology for campus environments, therefore, is useful both for the analysis of existing campus environments and the design of new ones.
8. Successful campus design is dependent upon participation of all campus members including students, faculty, staff. administration, and trustees or regents.
(From: The Ecosystem Model: Designing Campus Environments, WICHE, 1973.)
The following quotes are taken from Murray Bookchin's 1980 Toward an Ecological Society published by the Black Rose Books LTD of Montreal.
Ecology and Diversity
"Ecology, I would claim, advances a broader conception of nature and of humanity's relationship with the natural world. To my thinking, it sees the balance and integrity of the biosphere as an end in itself. Natural diversity is to be cultivated not only because the more diversified the components that make up an ecosystem, the more stable the ecosystem, but diversity is desirable for its own sake, a value to be cherished as part of a spiritized notion of the living universe. Ecologists have already pointed out that the more simplified an ecosystem-as in arctic and desert biomes or in monocultural forms of food cultivation - the more fragile the ecosystem and more prone it is to instability, pest infestations, and possible catastrophes. The typically holistic concept of "unity in diversity," so common in the more reflective ecological writings, could be taken from Hegel's works, an intellectual convergence that I do not regard as accidental and that deserves serious exploration by contemporary neo-Hegelians." Page 59
"Ecology, in my view, has always meant social ecology: the conviction that the very concept of dominating nature stems from the domination of human by human, indeed, of women by men, of the young by their elders, of one ethnic group by another, of society by the state, of the individual by bureaucracy, as well as of one economic class by another or a colonized people by a colonial power. To my thinking, social ecology has to begin its quest for freedom not only in the factory but also in the family, not only in the economy but also in the psyche, not only in the material conditions of life but also in the spiritual ones. Without changing the most molecular relationships in society-notably, those between men and women, adults and children, whites and other ethnic groups, heterosexuals and gays (the list, in fact, is considerable)-society will be riddled by domination even in a socialistic "classless" and "nonexploitative" form. It would be infused by hierarchy even as it celebrated the dubious virtues of "people's democracies," "socialism" and the "public ownership" of "natural resources." And as long as hierarchy persists, as long as domination organizes humanity around a system of elites, the project of dominating nature will continue to exist and inevitably lead our planet to ecological extinction." Page 76
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This material resides on an Indiana State University server and is maintained by
Will Barratt.
Please forward any problems and comments to him.