Potts

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since, as Peter Sacks points out, "the customer, namely, the student is always right in disputes with a faculty member:,"a college administrators tend to take the student's side. In addition, with student evaluations being used for decisions on promotion and tenure, and easier professors receiving better evaluations, the incentive is for the professor to lower academic standards. Many professors lower standards out of fear of not being tenured or promoted (and the situation is worse with the growing number oflemporary and,adjunct professors, who can be let go at a moment's notice if thty receive pol, evaluations). s when they know that the administration will is proDlem ls nou nlstrators; many emselves;bu vigw of h!.gher education. f t is not only colle ge presidefr ts,'viedpresiden ts, ana iaffiIoftAff *mi=fer ro,. our student customers." r once heard a professor affirm that one problem with retaining students is that "we do not do a sufficient job of satisfiing our student customers-we need to think of better ways of iatisSing them"and. they will be more likely to stay here." Some professors sincerely-believe the customer model-and such a belief *iL t""yi+r!$ have an effect on how they approach teaching their courses. WP *kA)., what is so harmful about a "QoAlbcr(@de'1" of higher education? why not refer to students as "custo*Ys[tr not.d,r.ution i,,product,, for which they (or at least their parents) pay good money? Stud.ents do puy the bills, and in colleges that are primarily student-revenue dependent, u rrrifi.ient enrollment is essential to the survival of those colleges. Surely, at least in those schools, students can rightly be called "customers.,, I will argue that the consumer model of higher education marks a fundamental assault on higher education, destroying it from within. Those involved in the perpetuation of such a model, I will further argue, are not merely making a mistake about the proper strategy of higher education, but are behaving in an unethical manner. But to get to this point, I must pass through some preliminary steps. First, I will examine philosopher Alasdiir Maclntiy.,, ,otion of a "practice," especially his idea that there are certain internai goods which can only be gained through a practice. Then I will show that higher education is a practice in Maclntyre's sense, and that if a professor or col'iege administrator departs from the internal goods of a praitice, then he is no Ionger engaged in higher education. Finalty, I will tie things together with a discussion of why the consumer model of higher educatiJn islraught with both intellectual and moral problems. r. Alasdair Maclntyre develops his idea of a p_rhilit"!'i, his hi, innuenriar i., book, After Virtue.5 His definition is rather co*p)ffi6d]uut basically a pracrice is, first of all, a human activity-it is something that human beings &o, such as

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chess, farming, medicine, or at the highest level, creating a human community (f 87-188). e prr.u.. ,. ,q!Jl:t something Egplggg1-1ndomly; people piacwho tie their shoelraces on any tice. Practices are goal directed-the goal of wheat farming, for example, is to grow wheat for food. These goals are either the same as, or closely related to, what Maclntyre calls the "S9o4"l]g!glgd] to a particular practice. The best way to explain what he means is to contrast "internal goods" to external goods. A physician, for example, is paid for serviceS rendered-that pay is an external good. The prestige a physician gains from his position is another example of an external good, as well as any public honors he may receive during his

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career. Thus, external goods are usually gained in the form of property of some kind; as a result, some individuals involved in a practice have more of them and others less (e.9., some physicians make more money than other physicians). Neither money nor prestige is a bad thing. But a physician who gets very little money and who does not gain prestige or honors can still be a good physician if he treats his patients effectively. Thus, if the external goods gaine d from practicing medicine are not present, aperson can still practice medicine. Butinterng$o@ tice and stem from the nature of the practice itself. When i"tSn*lgggfu_il* achieved. thaLg ty r,vho participate in the pracdce1190-19f ). In medicine, one of the most important internal goods is helping a sick or injured person in need. When a sick patient is helped, that is a good not only for the patient and for the physician who treats the patient, but for the medical community as a whole. If a physician opposes the goal of helping sick patients in need, he is no longer practicing medicine-for example, a Nazi physician performing cruel experiments on people would not be acting to help those patients, but would be forsaking a necessary internal good of medicine. In a pra4il-9,-pggp_l_e pUfgge (or at least they ought to pursue) excellence. The standards of excellence are thosb-that-help a per,son attain the'irrternal goods of a practice (187). "To enter into a practice is to accept the"autlrority of thosd standards'ai1fi'ttie-inadequacy of my own performance asjudged by them" (190). Although standards are not sacrosanct and can be revised, "we cannot be initiated into a practice without accepting the authority of the best standards realized so far" (190). These standards are not subjective or arbitrary, but stem from the internal goods of the practice itself. Thus, a physician will have standards of care to meet, and he should also have moral "excellences" (virtues) such as compassion, integrity, andjustice. Having the appr_o_p1i1t1vi1!ue_9 il vit{ 1o a parti:lp_t""! in a prlctice. Avirtue is a powerthaf alows something to perform its propCifunctioriwell. A "virtuous knife" has the "virtue" of sharpness; a "virtuous racehorse" has the virtue of speed. When it comes to human practices, virtues are acquired skills that help one to gain the goods internal to a practice ( 191) . Some virtues, Maclntyre