One of the things I’m working on in my manuscript is Deleuze’s concept of the control society, its relation to the academic discourse of excellence (a la Bill Readings), and the role new media/information technology plays in both establishing control (i.e. cybernetics) and perhaps offering an alternative.

In any case, I’m thinking the ongoing and growing emphasis on assessment is an example of the insinuation of control. As you might know, NY is standards crazy and has essentially turned its public education system into a worthless mechanism for turning trees into worksheets into trash. Since that’s working out so well, they figure to do the same thing with SUNY (as a noted in a post a few days ago).

However, assessment in college has always struck me as a little odd. Here’s why. K-12 schools have this task of educating all citizens to a certain level. The students are minors and are required by law to receive this education in one form or another. College, as I continually remind my students when they complain, is optional. True, you may be putting yourself in a difficult position without a degree, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an option. Along those lines, college students are adults, albeit young adults in the case of traditional age students.

Where am I going with this? A college professor’s job, in terms of teaching, is to offer an education and to evaluate whether students have received that education. However, if we see our students as adults who choose to be educated, but also often make many counterproductive choices in relation to that goal, then program assessment that is based upon student performance is misguided.

As I tell my students, a college class is a portal. It is a place where you are introduced to a subject and given some guidance, but it is up to the student to do the learning. For example, I can introduce Dreamweaver in a course, but even if I had four or five Dreamweaver courses (i.e. a Dreamweaver “major”), students would still not become great designers unless they chose to dedicate themselves to it. Obviously the same is equally true, if not moreso, for writers.

The difference between the student succeeding down the road at Cornell or up at Syracuse and the student coasting his/her way through SUNY-Cortland is not the quality of the program or faculty. True those other institutions have more resources and faculty with better reputations (as scholars), but the real difference, I would contend, is that the former student has dedicated him or herself to learning in a way that the latter student has not. This is not to say that Cornell or SU don’t have slacker students. I’m sure they do, though they might not stay long. Nor is this to suggest that students at Cortland are all slackers. We have some excellent students here who have dedicated themselves to learning. We also have other strong students who do not have the option to dedicate themselves in that way because of financial limitations.

But anyway, it may seem that I have digressed (and perhaps I have somewhat). However, my point is that doing a campus assessment of skills like writing, math, and critical thinking assumes a level of control over the student body. It has to, because this can’t really be about changing classroom practices but rather changing campus culture and changing student attitudes and practices toward learning.

Skeptical?

Think about those “first-year program” courses most colleges offer these days. Ours is called the “Cortland Experience.” Our provost often speaks of teaching the “whole student,” by which she means an integration of academic and student services. We have a committee on “intellectual climate.” This cmte. initated a convocation ceremony in which the incoming class is charged with the task of learning, etc.

So yes, colleges, all schools, have always been about discipline. As Deleuze would describe it, putting students into preset molds. We still have discipline. We can fail students. But assessment is the clear indication that we are no longer a disciplinary institution. If we were, I could simply improve my assessment results by flunking students that didn’t meet the standard. After all, they are adults, they have chosen to come here and do this, and assuming the standard is reasonable, it is their responsibility to make sure they meet it. It is only my responsibility to make sure they have the opportunity to succeed.

But we can’t do that b/c we need to retain students.

So instead we need to “modulate” student desires–get them excited about learning, have them make connections with the institution, join a student group, create opportunities for them to bond with one another and with faculty, etc. Pedagogy has become more like marketing in this respect. This is what my colleagues and I talk about: motivating students.

What this should point out, and what I need to discuss in my book, is that we not only recognize that we operate under this new system of control, but we actually see it as a good thing.

I would like to see something else.