The Duke brand is supposed to be something we project outward. If we’re marketing ourselves well, our brand is supposed to work as bait for high school students, a sacrifice on the altar of US News and a holy charm to ward off Jezebel and Deadspin.
Every university breeds language that reiterates what it does, why it exists and what it thinks it is. Like all acts of marketing, this amounts to self-mythologizing. Duke tells a story about why it’s so great, and what makes it distinctly great when compared to similar institutions. How a university markets itself gives us a glimpse of how its leaders want it to be thought of.
We don’t hear about “knowledge in the service of society” at Duke as often as we once did, but it’s a perfect example of the kind of marketing that all institutions officially promote. We also know that Duke is supposed to be global (too easy, I know), and that we’re supposed to be interdisciplinary, and lots of other things that vaguely sound admirable and to which no one can really object without seeming like a buzzkill. Note that the overlap between Duke cliches and marketing language is significant.
What can university marketing—and the reactions to it—tell us about deeper trends in higher education? What about the ways in which universities market themselves to their own constituents, like students and faculty?
As a case study, take Stanford’s recent curriculum review—you can read all about in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Among other recommendations, the Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford University recommends that all freshmen be required to take a kind of course called “Thinking Matters.”
The Thinking Matters courses look compelling on paper. Proposed courses have elegantly ambitious titles like “Evil,” “Journeys,” and “The Water Course.” But what’s up with the name of the program? Should a world-famous university have to remind its own students that “thinking matters?” Let’s hope not. To argumentatively declare “thinking matters” would be to imply that “thinking doesn’t matter [only resumes do]” is a point that merits discussion.
If even the best universities are trying to sweet talk their own students into believing that the basic reason for college—i.e., learning how to think—is worth their time…. This is a bad omen for higher education and for all education that tries to achieve anything loftier than teaching us how to use Excel.
Happily, that kind of cop-out is not what actually happened at Stanford. I interviewed James Campbell, a professor of history and co-chair of the SUES committee. Campbell told me that the name was not something that the committee considered especially carefully—“pathways” and other names were considered.
Since the Faculty Senate has yet to vote on any parts of the SUES report, it’s entirely possible that either the “Thinking Matters” name or the concept will be changed before Stanford finally shakes up its curriculum. I came out of my interview with Campbell with the impression that neither he nor anyone else on the SUES committee was using “thinking matters” as a plea. Campbell couched his own priorities in the timeless language of defenders of the liberal arts: “We are trying to facilitate more reflection on our campus…. The courses themselves are clearly designed to encourage a kind of intellectual metamorphosis.” Both of those are worthy goals.
The problem here is not that a Stanford committee gave one of their recommendations a title that can be interpreted dubiously. The problem is that every Duke student with whom I’ve discussed the “Thinking Matters” phenomenon started snickering knowingly when I told them about it. Why the eye rolls? All Duke undergrads can answer that question before you can say “T-Reqs.”
We all know that it’s not enough just to study and learn to, um, think anymore. We can’t take the value of an education for granted, precisely because we’re sometimes not sure if anyone else does. We rely on our schools, at least, to be Dumbledorean bastions of pro-intellectual confidence.
Stanford, Duke and hundreds of other universities continue to try to provide undergrads a liberal arts education. Good thing, since the basic principle of a liberal education is that learning how to think in a number of ways is better than … dunno, learning how to not think? Learning how to write a certain kind of memo? Precisely defining “learning how to think” is a matter for another column, but it’s a better starting place than more cynical conceptions of education.
But contemporary students have been worn down by all of the attacks on higher education. We chuckle fatalistically at the suggestion that a university would imply that whether “thinking matters” is up for non-satirical debate. Let’s hope we’re overreacting, and that Duke’s leaders ensure we never reach the point at which we have to remind ourselves that thinking matters even if you’re just trying to get paid.
Connor Southard is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Wednesday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.