There are evidently two different cultures of professional reproduction.
One of them construes the process of developing new professionals as
collegiate sharing of the newest knowledge and methods. The other culture
obviously creates its world in terms of teachers and students/kids (that's
how my colleagues call them). In each of these cultures faculty and student
behavior is different, very different. The differences are due to different
philosophies of professional reproduction.  These philosophies lead to
different policies regarding student selection, faculty selection, student
classroom behavior, teaching methods, and faculty-student interaction.

In the collegiate knowledge sharing culture, students are treated as junior
colleagues who have come to the University to learn  from the masters.
Professors share their experience with the new colleagues. The process of
training involves hard work and devotion. That is the contract.  Fun and
experiential treats -- after the work is done. However, the work is a
pleasure and personal fulfillment for almost everybody because people come
with this particular motivation and attitude. The rules of interaction
follow closely the rules of professional interaction in their field.
Students look not for the cutest and most easy-going professor, but for the
star, even if that star stutters or limps. Students are highly motivated
and ambitious and try to steal as much as possible from the know-how of the
master. Students seek to extend their contact hours with the instructor by
engaging in cooperative projects and offering their drafting services for
free in exchange for being able to see for extended hours how the master
works. If a student doesn't perform to the expectations of the instructor
(doesn't receive a good grade) or to his/her own goals, that student
doesn't blame the faculty. On the contrary, the student engages in more
active training or retreats in another realm.

In the other culture of professional reproduction, the teaching culture,
the university is a business establishment engaged in providing services
for fees. The students are treated as valued customers. We invite customers
and promise them the world. In the race with our competitors, we start
banking on any advantage we can deliver. We promise fun. That is why we
have to be good entertainers. We should not limp, should not stutter. We
should also be very kind and entertaining with the customers. But most
important of all, we should motivate them, because they didn't come to us
motivated -- we invited them and persuaded them to come to our paradise. In
addition, we should make some compromises with professional standards so
that students who are not on par with the program requirements can make it.
We also have to teach in a way that will both develop motivation and be
accessible to people with minimal background. If students don't want to
make an intellectual effort and can not understand what we teach simply
because they haven't read their previous lesson, it is our fault. After
all, we had delivered an implicit promise that if they pay, they will learn it.

If there is a mismatch between the philosophies/cultures of the professors
and the students, professors would not be effective and efficient
providers, and students will not be happy and satisfied customers. A
student who expects to be treated like valued customer and insists on fun
and entertaining experience, will have hard time when interacting with a
professor who believes in higher education as a collegiate exchange. And a
professor who follows the collegiate interaction model will see the student
as immature, not motivated and incapable. Both parties experience culture
shock and fall in conflict. In reality, at this phase of the educational
evolution, it is a shock for many professors as well as for many students.

In the last 20 years and the last 10-12 years in particular, there is an
evident shift in the university culture all over the world. The university
construes itself more like a business providing educational services rather
than a intellectual institution. The universities start developing business
mentality -- they do business, they sell, they satisfy customers, they
target market segment, they fight for market share. The bottom line is
money. The indicator for effectiveness is enrollment as well as satisfied
and repeated customers. We want that their brothers and sisters come to us
again. Nobody talks about intellectuality. Everybody knows that there is no
intellectuality in business. Actually businessmen are the biggest commoners
and bullies regarding intellectuals and artists.

Historically universities were lead by the best intellectuals in accord
with their standards and visions for the development of the humankind, not
the market. Now universities are lead by fundraisors and managers. However,
very often these people are the best menages among scholars and the best
scholars among managers. Something like "jack in all trades and master in
none." The universities  want to function like businesses, but their bosses
don't have the necessary professional qualifications in business and
management. They are a kind of "home grown" businessmen who have dropped
out from the ranks of biologists and historians.

Right now is a transition time for the university as an institution. It
still carries the old intellectual traits but at the same time is spurred
to engage in business and to be efficient in the business game. The problem
is how to reconcile the traits of the intellectual institution with the
requirements of the business nature. In such times it will be pretty
painful for the intellectuals to entice new customers and sell knowledge
like street pedlars. They will have to undergo considerable ethical and
teaching behavior change and develop new skills that they have despised for
a long time -- the skills of the door-to-door salesmen. After all, that is
what we are doing -- attracting new customers and selling degrees for
tuition dollars. And, obviously the best of us will be those who excel in
sales, who are loved by customers, and who create less problems to the CEOs.

Its about a new culture emerging. It is a chance for some and a curse for
others. It depends who you are.

Regards,

Lubomir