I GOT a call from a writer friend who asked me in what way Taylor Swift is an academic subject in higher education. He was curious and a bit annoyed, but I told him that most likely this is a subject in popular culture studies where Taylor Swift—her popularity, including her songs—are studied in light of how the youth today identify with her or her songs and how at the same time she as a celebrity is capitalized by the music industry. This is definitely a legitimate study and gone are the days when such study would be frowned upon by high art or literary studies. I told my friend that I, too, am teaching pop culture although I am focusing on the intersection of culture, gender, class, and ethnicity.
But when he asked me why to advertise such a course if this is a legitimate study, I understood his uneasiness—that is, on one hand, popular culture has freed us from the debate of high culture vs. low culture, but on the other hand, advertising a course is pretty much like marketing—only this time, your students are the customers who are cajoled into enrolling in your class.
This is a contradiction; we are trying to fight a system or a structure that we use also with our curriculum and with our students. Being popular whether in school or on social media therefore employs aggressive marketing techniques. Teachers must also be content moderators, copywriters, and bloggers—and what happens when they cannot do all these, are they also eliminated effortlessly by the “invisible hand” of the market economy?
When asked if I am happy with this setup in which teachers are seemingly pitted against each other or their subjects are evaluated based on their perceived relevance and popularity with students, I realized the implications of this question about the recent happenings in Ateneo such as the North Carpark issue, the World Rankings, University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP), student-centered framework in syllabi, etc.
All these to a certain degree are interrelated and can be explained by the neoliberalization of higher education, which is predicated on the belief in the efficiency of the free market, the need for deregulation and privatization, the reduction of government spending on social services, and the replacement of the concept of public good with individual responsibility.
The improvement of North Carpark, for instance, has been touted by the present administration of the Ateneo as a response to the alleged clamor for better and safer parking facilities and part of the masterplan that was revised in 2014 and in line with the Laudato Si’ Action Plan framework of the university principles and activities. This car park improvement comes with the approval of cutting down 82 trees considered by the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability as invasive species and harmful to our biodiversity.
Students, faculty, and employees held protests against this project, citing that such a project is contrary to Laudato Si’ especially if one reads the part that says that “the quality of life in cities that has much to do with systems of transport, is often a source of much suffering for those who use them […] causing traffic congestion, raising the level of pollution, consuming enormous quantities of non-renewable energy, and building more roads and parking areas that spoil the urban landscape.” For the protesters, the carpark improvement with the cutting of trees is a luxury and should not be a priority. What is needed accordingly are plans that reduce our carbon footprints, the advocation of a lifestyle that relies less on cars, and a work ethic among stakeholders of the university that is truly consultative.
If one stretches the logic of the urgency of improvement of facilities like car parks, what is evident is that these amenities and much of the beautification or gentrification programs are ways of attracting the more affluent clientele, and Ateneo is not alone in this, considering how most universities all over are quite aggressively competing with one another whether in the global ranking system or UAAP basketball league. Abroad, Boston University boasts of its superdorm that costs USD 100,000 per student, or New York University has this USD 95-million, 16-storey dorm. Professor Beth Mintz in her article “Neoliberalism and the Crisis in Higher Education” says that these amenities in the universities are meant to attract the more affluent students or those who would be willing to take up loans and, in the end, this competition solidifies the belief that education is a commodity to be used for competitive advantage in the labor market.
Sociologists like Pierre Bourdieu argue therefore that schools reproduce the class system and its oppressive dynamics of class competition and unfortunately institutionalize the gap in access to higher education in new ways. Prioritizing car parks therefore is a symptom of the same ideology that redefines public good as private and exacerbates poverty and disparity. Laudato Si’ undeniably warns us on how market forces can lead to unbridled competition, where we begin taking advantage of another, treating others as mere objects, etc. It reaffirms that if we let the invisible forces of the market regulate the economy, nature necessarily becomes collateral damage, and with the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of individual desires and immediate needs, there can be no bounds on human trafficking, organized crime, the drug trade, and commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of endangered species.
Again, Beth Mintz studies how neoliberalization of higher education has its roots in the Reagan administration to the 1990s Clinton’s healthcare reform proposal to Obama’s policies on a marketing education campaign. Unlike liberalism, she said, neoliberalism is not concerned with the contradiction between the right to pursue profits. Rather, it promotes that public support for the disadvantaged is antithetical to the ethos of personal responsibility. Several elements of neoliberalism have bled to campaigns like K-12 and the No-Child-Left-Behind Act of 2001 that favored marketable skills over broad educational outcomes, and in higher education, training for employability became the dominant framework, which inevitably made courses like business administration and computer science more popular at the expense of humanities.
It is high time therefore to remind our administration of the mission-vision statement of the Ateneo—that is, to be a force for good in seeking innovative and sustainable solutions to society’s most pressing challenges, to be a collaborative and engaged leader in the work of social transformation through education, formation, research, and social engagement, and to uphold, preserve, and communicate truth and apply it to human development and the preservation of the Earth. We need to learn from St. Francis, who said that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life, and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. All these ideas uphold a radical form of living and pedagogical principle committed to overcoming the oppression endemic to an exploitative society, and to treating everyone including trees, plants, and animals as beings imbued with the vitality of life. Our education must be remade to inspire and work for this principle.
In the forum held for the North Carpark last January 30, a student exemplifies this principle when he shared that he has been using the North Carpark for quite some time but never did he complain about the trees there. According to him, the trees have been parked there way before him and he acknowledges their rights for that space.
Laudato Si’ is indeed an act of praising the creation.
We need to talk but we need to listen to our students now.
Gary C. Devilles, PhD is an Associate Professor of the Filipino Department of Ateneo de Manila University. He is the author of Sensing Manila, published by Ateneo University Press, which won the Best Book in Literary Criticism in the recent 39th National Book Awards. His recent publications include Martial Law Echoes in Social Text by Duke University Press and Framing Kian in Verge Journal of University of Minnesota Press.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed by the opinion writer do not necessarily state or reflect those of the publication.
