As administrators seem more concerned with enrollment dollars than students' learning, instructors receive a clear message: "The customer is always right."

I wish American culture would emphasize that college isn't a degree factory, but a place to be put against new and, sometimes uncomfortable, situations and ideas. The whole idea that you are put in a building with hundreds of skilled and knowledgeable persons, and you can talk to any one of them and have them critique your thinking, is a truly magical situation. Yet I see so many people squander the opportunity by viewing their non-major classes as an inconvenience to overcome, and in the worst cases, their major-classes as an obstacle to a job.