Remember the old days, when colleges were colleges and universities were universities? There's been this creeping trend toward re-labeling higher-ed institutions "universities." I had noticed it recently when I began a project that cursorily involved "online" colleges/universities and their marketing efforts. The big-marketing budget online higher-ed institutions all elect to use the university moniker, and it seemed at first glance that they were the ones spearheading the effort. But its really part of a broader trend to re-categorize all post-secondary institutions as universities. State colleges and liberal arts colleges are also slowly migrating toward university status, at least in their self-designation.
Remember DeVry Institute of Technology? Growing up in Silicon Valley, I heard their name frequently. DeVry was the place people went to learn all those technical skills needed to get a job in the valley. It made sense. A technical institute seemed the appropriate name for a private institution with a close connection to industry, one that offered skills that rather immediately will be applied. Pragmatic, private, etc. Nothing wrong with that. A technical institute is certainly an honorable designation, right?
Well, in 2003 they became a University! DeVry became a university itself when it "purchased" Ross University, a "well-established" 25 year old medical and veterinary school that apparently only offers international medical degrees, and is only accredited by the Dominica Medical Board (Dominican Republic) despite being based in New Jersey. No offense to the Dominican Republic, but isn't it a bit strange that a New Jersey-based "university" would be solely accredited by this small island nation? Bizarre. I guess the university-designation helps mask the rather questionable legitimacy of such an institution. Such minor points as accreditation seem to be as amorphous as the identities of these online higher-ed schools. May the student beware of such schools.
A few years ago, I also came across a state college up in Canada in the midst of a re-branding effort. While not exactly attempting to shoulder in on the University of British Columbia (UBC), Kwantlen Polytechnic University (née Kwantlen College) chose to change its name because the word, university, is better. What I like about them is that they lay out the logic for their name-change from Kwantlen College to the more prestigious University. They basically say that the University name has more cachet, end of story: "[t]he word 'university' will enhance Kwantlen’s ability to help British Columbia become the best educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America." But why? What’s wrong with being a college? Is a student from a great college going to be any less educated than one from a university? No. There’s more important things to be concerned with than a label: quality of instruction, graduation rates, student grades, faculty and staff development, etc. To be fair to Kwantlen, they do go on to say that they're just following in the footsteps of the California State College System, which initiated their campus name-change around 1972. With the name transition a few years in the past, Kwantlen has abandoned the initial justification and become comfortable in its role as a 4-year degree granting institution that does research as well as teaching. (current statement here)
So, this general trend to re-brand your college a university has been going on longer than I’d initially thought. My own understanding of university vs. college stems from the system implemented in California. I vividly remember a lecture given by Dean McHenry (a co-architect of the state's three-tier higher educational system) at UCSC in the late 1980s. McHenry, the UC representative, and his colleagues developed the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 based on the idea of universal education, but one that permitted each of the three tiers to focus on its area of expertise. Community colleges offered the first two years of education, remedial education, and topical courses. State colleges offered an applied higher educational path, while the university was the site of focused research: a site to train future professors, doctors, lawyers, etc. Only the UC can grant doctorates. CSUs focus on Bachelor/Masters degrees, and community colleges grant Associate Degrees. It’s a pretty logical system that was implemented elsewhere in North America and still exists to a large degree.
I'm not concerned by the large state colleges wanting to taking on the university designation. Many of their faculty members are involved in research and their students are getting a very solid education. The name does seem to have more cachet, after all. I am more concerned by the abandonment of the "college" term by smaller liberal arts schools because, unlike the large state schools, they are small, specialized institutions. The term seems appropriate with them. You can see the university term creeping into common usage in any list of North American higher-ed institutions. Look, for example, at Imagining America's list of consortium members: http://imaginingamerica.org/consortium/membership-directory/) This list captures the shift as much as it illustrates there are those unwilling (or unable) to change their name designation. What still puzzles me is what is embedded in the meaning of “university” that is somehow absent in the “college” term? I don’t get it.
The reasoning seems to be one of justifying one's institutional mission. Maybe it is easiest to justify continued societal support of the university if we think of it as that place where research is conducted, problems are solved, new ideas are dreamed up, etc. It is like a knowledge factory. University professors are the ones interviewed on news shows and introduced as experts. The college has a lofty mission too, but it seems more focused on the student's experience rather than the things usually associated with the university. So, maybe colleges want to re-brand themselves universities with the hope that some of these loftier associations stick to it.
Perhaps this discomfort with the college's role in society stems from our culture's overwhelming drive to increase efficiency and production. It is unfortunate because it seems like colleges and universities are increasingly emulating business. While such an idea is not universally bad, it is when it means students are not given the time and energy to develop as creative, critically-engaged citizens. The "college" term seems to have a connotation of elite education, and lofty ideas not so grounded in the pragmatics of everyday life. As higher education becomes increasingly unaffordable, students become more interested in utilitarian degrees.
It seems that two reasons for the shift are at play here. One is the seriousness implied by the university’s mission. The university is committed to serious research, and it therefore justifies its existence to broader society. Under this interpretation, the university term is a defensive move designed to stress the college’s continued relevance to broader society. I think the loftier principles that tend to emerge in an active university or college community are not often properly valued in our broader society. The university is a site for objective principles of “solid research,” something that is harder to dismiss by those antagonistic to the idea of a university as diverse community of ideas, ideals, in all its contradictions. The small liberal arts college seems like it has elite connotations too.
The rebranding effort is emanating from three camps: the small liberal arts college, the state college, and the online higher-ed institution. Of the three, it only makes sense for the large state college to adopt the new designation. the S.L.A college
The second issue, and I admit it is a cynical one, is the coattails idea: technical institutes, online degree mills, and maybe the occasional brick-and-mortar college, are changing their institutional designations in order to make their mission seem loftier than they really are. Perhaps my bias against the DeVrys, Walden University’s, and AIU’s of the world stems from a real fear that they are not as committed to community and the public good.
The one thing that troubles me about this shift is that private, technical colleges like DeVry and marginally-legitimate higher-ed institutions like AIU, Walden University and other online variants may lack a commitment to helping develop active, engaged citizens and are cynically adopting the designation, University, to legitimate their otherwise questionable role in public education. When corners are cut in education, is it the liberal education that gets dropped when making an online program "more efficient"? Isn't the classroom one place where community develops? I fear a curriculum that is optimized to the point of only containing applied courses and no classroom interaction.
The word, college, has that strong associations with small, liberal arts institutions. This type of college would seem to offer access to a solid education: literature, science, and the arts. In short, a liberal, broad-based, humanist education. The university putatively offers the same thing, but with bigger classes and professors actively engaged in research, laboratory work, etc. The thing that should bring these two terms together is a physical site of learning with engaged professors and students. The two aren't that far apart.
I desperately want the public colleges like Kwantlen up in Canada, and others throughout the United States, to embrace their role of preparing their students to be engaged citizens and critical and engaged thinkers. "University" is more than just a word: it is an active community, an ideal microcosm of our broader society. I think higher educational institutions get it, even if the word, "university," still seems not to mean the same thing to those who use it.
