Neoliberalism is the application of market ideologies in non-economic matters. For this piece, we identify the function and effects of neoliberalism on the relationships among graduate students and faculty. In higher education, neoliberalism manifests through the not-new concept of students-as-consumers, who “shop” for the best collegiate experience. Neoliberalism’s intrusion in higher education causes students to expect high return-on-investment; correspondingly, faculty are expected to be superhuman workers. Neoliberalism’s influence on higher education institutions leads to a consumer and customer satisfaction mentality which negatively affects faculty and the public good possibilities of postsecondary education. Precisely, the effect of commodifying education reinforces enrolled students’ entitlement and institutional leaders’ unreasonable expectations for faculty labor.
Dr. Cathryn B. Bennett
As a team, we are a recent doctoral graduate, now administrator, and a faculty member, formerly a mentor and now colleague, to the first author; we have collaborated via mentorship, co-instruction, and co-research. These connections enliven our questions about navigating neoliberalism in higher education. Relatedly, we contend with the following questions: How can people within higher education collectively resist dynamics that position students as consumers, administrators as powerful bosses, and faculty as ideal workers? How can resistance to neoliberal positionings reinforce learning, academic rigor, and basic human decency?
The COVID-19 pandemic provides additional context to this line of questioning. Rightfully, many higher education institutions afforded pandemic-related circumstantial reprieves for students between March, 2020 and May, 2022. Students received virtual and hybrid courses, delays of customary academic probation processes, and institutional annotations to academic transcripts noting peak COVID-19-affected semesters. Relatedly, faculty learned new teaching modalities, initially online followed by high-flex, or some students in-person in classrooms while some attended synchronously online.
Now, though, COVID-19 vaccinations are readily available and the rates of deaths have decreased. Also, institutions of higher education are feeling (or imagining) pressure to return to pre-pandemic enrollment numbers and whatever “normal” means after surviving a global health crisis that exacerbated pre-existing social injustices long before. Many institutions are returning to in-person or maintaining high-flex instruction.
A lingering effect of these adjustments is an unsettling trend among graduate students for faculty, instructional staff, and graduate school policies to oblige every individual request; these realities coincide with higher education leaders expecting faculty to serve as untrained social and mental health workers. Importantly, we do not include students’ accessibility needs in reference to student demands; accessibility accommodations are necessary for equitable student learning. Instead, we problematize students’ expectations of fewer readings or omission of core curriculum courses related to successful completion of degrees, and simultaneous higher education leader expectations that posit faculty as suitable stand-ins for healthcare workers.
