“Would you like an egg roll with your M.B.A.?” I think as I drive through the strip-mall parking lot, past the Chinese restaurant, the insurance agency, and the grocery store, before stopping in front of a small, nondescript building. Above the glass double doors, red neon letters spell out a university’s name.
The first word in the name refers to a 100-year-old institution in a totally different state, a state where one can find the university’s traditional campus with its ivy-covered dorms, full-time faculty, and basketball team. My teaching assignment, however, takes me to this remote location. The eight classrooms in the mall are considered a “satellite campus.” Although I have spent six years with this institution -- as a graduate student and an adjunct professor -- I have never set foot on the traditional campus.
Remote classrooms in shopping malls and other offbeat locations are springing up across the nation. What is it about such strip-mall universities that students find so attractive? In a word, convenience.
About 600 students drive past four traditional bricks-and-mortar universities to study at this mall. They attend classes from 6 to 10 p.m., one night a week, for two to three years. They avoid the numerous hassles of traditional college registration, like inconvenient class times and full or canceled courses. They only have to register once, when they enroll. They also avoid long lines at college bookstores because in this accelerated program, the books are delivered directly to them through overnight mail. And you sure can’t beat the parking. Moreover, strip-mall universities are “customer-oriented,” so they are generous in accepting transfer credits, and students can finish their degrees faster.
Because of such conveniences, I chose to complete all of my master’s-degree course work in a strip-mall satellite of a traditional university based in Indiana. After graduation the same institution hired me to teach at one of its other mall campuses -- the one that I’ve just described. Although I now work full time at a traditional college, the memories of teaching in the mall and at other campuses like it remain vivid today.
In that first assignment as a strip-mall instructor, I was told to stick to the lectures and assignments contained in the “course in a box” that had been sent overnight. I was not to change the syllabus; my role was to be a “facilitator,” rather than a professor with a mind of my own. The lock-step process made my job surprisingly easy. Every night after class I faithfully faxed in the attendance sheet. I mailed in the grades on time. Soon I started receiving offers from that same university for other opportunities to “facilitate” courses across a two-state region.
My second assignment brought me 55 miles up the interstate to teach an international-business class in a small town nestled in the middle of knee-high cornfields. The “classroom” was a converted attic above a real-estate office with ceilings that sloped downward on two sides. I didn’t mind ducking to write on the flip chart, and for 37 cents a mile, I didn’t mind the drive either. I was excited to finally be working as a professor and wasn’t bothered that it was only a five-week intensive course. Sure, I had hopes of one day teaching in a traditional, ivy-covered hall of academe, but for now I was content to teach out of my course-in-a-box wherever the opportunities led me.
After a few more courses, I was assigned to teach economics. This time the class was held in an inner-city Baptist church that took me an hour to find. I met my students in a room that appeared to be half Sunday-school classroom, half kitchen. The students didn’t seem to resent my tardiness and even appeared to enjoy the supply-and-demand diagrams that I wrote while using the side of the church refrigerator as a white board.
My career as an adjunct road warrior was beginning to take off, and soon I was hired to teach part time at two more institutions. One was a private women’s college that specialized in equine management. Majestic, pre-Civil War, colonial buildings dominated the main campus, which was set on a hilltop overlooking half a dozen horse farms.
But alas, my assignment to teach statistics required me to drive 90 miles away to a seedy urban area crowded with pawnshops, used-car dealerships, and massage parlors. I was to teach in a biology classroom rented from a local community college. A makeshift plywood wall on the right side and a massive dissecting table on the left squeezed the space down to a cramped half room. In the front of the class, one remaining stubborn screw was all that prevented the ancient chalkboard from crushing me if I made one wrong mark while calculating standard deviations.
Even so, I was padding my CV with additional teaching experience, and the $300 a night plus mileage didn’t hurt either. But I couldn’t help wondering about the administrators, nestled away in their comfortable offices back on the main campus. Had they ever visited this decrepit facility before they booked it?
And what about the students? Was the convenience enough of a benefit to outweigh the costs? Would they be content to spend their entire college career in a cramped and dingy half classroom, missing out on the vibrant on-campus experience? Many of them had their tuition paid by their employers, and unlike parents, the employers couldn’t care less about school spirit, sporting events, the quality of the cafeteria food, or even campus safety. Few, if any, students had ever debated with classmates over a plate of mystery meat in the cafeteria, or attended a ballgame, concert, or art exhibit on a campus. They couldn’t participate in a campus drama, join the French club, study abroad, or even drop by a professor’s office for advice. Once I gave my strip-mall M.B.A. students extra credit on an exam for successfully answering the questions, “What are the school colors, and what is the school mascot?” Only one of 20 students got them right.
I contrast that to my own undergraduate studies at a traditional university, where I think I sometimes learned more just walking across the campus than I did in the classroom. I’ll never forget the anti-abortion activists who held giant photos of mutilated fetuses above their heads, the feminists who drew a 30-foot vagina in chalk in front of the library entrance, or the man, clad in a sharkskin suit, who boldly preached the gospel from atop a chair in front of the building where I took Chinese class. At bricks-and-mortar campuses, controversial subjects like abortion, gay marriage, the military, politics, race, gender, and justice are debated not just at the podium but on the sidewalks. That sidewalk culture of protest, music, art, free-love groups, and even hate groups encourages students to think about life in new ways. The expansive common areas and green spaces of traditional universities nurture expansive thinking and lively debate, but students who choose to attend strip-mall universities are left out of the conversation.
Bricks-and-mortar universities also serve their local communities. Citizens use athletics facilities and libraries; professors offer free advice to local nonprofit groups and small businesses. In contrast, strip-mall universities capture a portion of the local tuition dollars, but they make little permanent investment in their host community and provide almost no community service.
Strip-mall universities also make little investment in their faculty. Once I attended a required “faculty development” seminar, where I was instructed in the proper way to take attendance. The institution was now granting three hours of college credit for only 20 hours of actual seat time, and if a student missed more than two classes in a five-week course, he or she would receive an automatic F. I’m not sure how much I was “developing” as a faculty member, but I suppose the meeting was important because they paid me $25 to attend.
The third institution that hired me as an adjunct was a 150-year-old, traditional, urban university that had just survived a painful reorganization. The administrators were eager to increase enrollment, so they adopted some of the tactics of their competitors, the strip-mall institutions. They shortened their semesters to eight weeks, relied more on adjuncts, created “in a box” degree-completion programs, and invested heavily in a marketing campaign. Coupled with its traditional programs -- campus clubs, athletics, and study abroad -- the changes have attracted adult students, and enrollment has increased significantly. Blending the two approaches seems better for the students, the faculty, and the community.
And it may, in fact, be better for many institutions. To compete with the strip-mall campuses, bricks-and-mortar universities need to offer more-convenient programs for students while still retaining the rich, traditional, on-campus experience. In response, and because it is the right thing to do, the strip-mall universities should find ways to expose their students to the extracurricular activities that are an essential part of a well-rounded education.
Stuart C. Strother is an associate professor of business and management at Azusa Pacific University.
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 51, Issue 22, Page B5