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The Disneyfication of a University

• chishaku 7y ago
  AKA the corporatization of higher education. [Corporatization] has saddled us with a higher-education model that is both expensive to run and difficult to reform as a result of its focus on status, its view of students as customers, and its growing reliance on top-down administration. Not surprisingly, those administrators who occupy the highest ranks in our college and university bureaucracies are those who have professionally benefited the most from corporatization. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-corporatization-of-higher-education https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-corporatization-...
  • Loughla 7y ago
    I've worked in higher ed for decades, and I can say (anecdotally obviously) that the number one negative change agent was the switch from simply calling them students to 'consumers' or 'customers' depending on which institution you're examining. Many campuses, in my experience, have even just boiled it down to credit hours, instead of even talking about the human people involved. It has devalued the real purposes of education, and has had the most draining impact on higher education culture that I have ever experienced. It has led to more PR and Marketing dollars, and less dollars for professional development for people who actually impact student success. I hate it.
• makerofspoons 7y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20200210163448/https://academeblog.org/2020/01/30/the-disneyfication-of-a-university/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200210163448/https://academebl...
  • siberianbear 7y ago
    Thank you! I presume you were getting the same "500 Internal Server Error" that I was.
• jostmey 7y ago
  Quote about George Washington University: "Our president is rumored to have forked over three to four million dollars to the Disney Institute to improve our culture (he refuses to reveal the cost)"
• geerlingguy 7y ago
  A quick summary: the employees at a university had to attend seminars put on by the Disney Institute to try to instill in them the 'values' that the university should adopt. I vaguely remember the corporate culture workshops we had to attend at a couple previous employers, and yeah, it's annoying and boring, but someone had to justify spending X million dollars on a new slogan and spiffy "these five words summarize who we are and what we do for the world". Apparently that wasn't (isn't?) the norm in university settings?
  • acollins1331 7y ago
    They call those "general electives" and require you take like 9.
  • ollien 7y ago
    My university has latched onto "innovation," and finds the need to tack it onto everything. Sometimes I wonder whose reputation is on the line for that one piece of marketing.
    • floren 7y ago
      My alma mater, RIT, was particularly bad about "innovation". They built an "Innovation Center" but it was shaped like a toilet so we just called it "the Toilet Bowl"... people can smell bullshit, and they react accordingly.
  • sharkmerry 7y ago
    It is the norm, but the author is questioning the effectiveness. Also, your summary hit the nail well but missed, >A select group of faculty and staff, those identified as opinion leaders, are being offered all-expenses paid trips to the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando “to gain first-hand insight into Disney’s approach to culture.” Which makes the situation more insidious.
    • geerlingguy 7y ago
      Yeah, definitely not effective in the least. The only thing I remember from those trainings was it was nice to not have to be on-call (at all, another team took over) for a full day, and we got donuts and tasty boxed lunches, so I guess that was nice. But I can't remember any of the content of the seminars, because I'm not sure I was fully conscious through them.
• tdons 7y ago
  Well written piece. I've been subjected to these kinds of 'workshops', and, like the author I too resent them. What's interesting is that many people (a majority?) in my organisation hated it too. Why do sessions like this keep getting organised? Why don't employees unite and speak up? What's in it for management? Deep down they must know that for most people attending, it doesn't add any value (it detracts).
  • koboll 7y ago
    It might have something to do with >A select group of faculty and staff, those identified as opinion leaders, are being offered all-expenses paid trips to the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando “to gain first-hand insight into Disney’s approach to culture.”
    • hartator 7y ago
      Well. That explains a lot.
      • bjd2385 7y ago
        Maybe everything.
    • mindslight 7y ago
      The free trips to Disney World aren't for directly incentivizing management to open the purse strings. Rather, what the trips do is indoctrinate management into the culture that such workshops are a highly beneficial thing. After this, the money flows naturally. It's a similar social proof by misdirection as millionaire motivational speakers selling expensive seminars to "get rich", mid level marketing schemes recruiting new members, etc.
  • btrettel 7y ago
    Here's one example showing why people might be reluctant to speak out about wasteful training: (Sorry, this is a bit long!) Early in my PhD, I was made vice-president (or something like that; I don't actually remember) of the university's Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). This title was really only a formality as there were no duties aside from some training that the university required. The organization existed mainly to get external speakers every once in a while. The organization was purely professional. Keep this in mind. The most annoying training could accurately be described as "frat boy training" in the sense that it seemed to be targeted specifically at heavy-drinking fraternity members. The training lasted about 2 hours as I recall and had to be retaken yearly. It involved groups of roughly 100 people watching videos and participating in discussions about (basically) why you should call for medical help if someone passes out after drinking too much. (There were some other lessons, like telling us to call a certain phone number to report on people who seem to be "suspicious" but are not breaking the law.) The entire event seemed to be motivated by lawyers' desire to reduce the university's liability in the event that someone drinks too much and dies. The first year I was in a leadership position in the local SFPE group I attended the training and thought it was a huge waste of time. None of the training applied to our group. We never had any social events, much less ones with alcohol. Plus, I don't need to be told to call for help if someone is obviously in medical trouble. Given that, in the the second year of the training I arrived early and politely asked the presenter about why my group was required to attend this training. The presenter responded rudely along the lines of "Of course you have to take the training. Sit down and do it." Not only that, apparently they had a panic button, because soon after that two security folks came in to escort me out of the room for being belligerent. (I don't recall the presenter doing anything that seemed to indicate they were calling for security.) I was really struck by this because I was polite the entire time and was actually going to take the training again. After being removed from the room, some admin came down to chastise me. I carefully explained to the admin that I don't believe this training is relevant to my group at all, particularly as one of the only graduate students in attendance. The admin continued to chastise me, and told me that I would have to reschedule my training for another time even though I had not missed much as I recall. Later the same admin contacted me to tell me that yes, in fact, my group was misclassified, and we will never have to take that training again.
• 333c 7y ago
  Wow, that's… gross. The university is treating its employees like young teenagers. There are always better things for schools to spend money on, such as faculty and staff salary. One wonders why they instead buy silly services like this.
  • webkike 7y ago
    Believe me, young teenagers find these meetings just as abhorrent
    • 333c 7y ago
      Of course; I didn't mean to imply they enjoy them. I just meant that they're often subjected to them.
      • Mirioron 7y ago
        Why are teenagers subjected to this kind of stuff anyway? It's usually pretty apparent that they don't like this stuff. They won't tell you outright, because they're trained to be compliant and taught to never entirely disagree, but it should still be apparent to those who understand teenagers, no?
        • 333c 7y ago
          It's horrible! I always hated this kind of stuff in middle and high school. I think that it's a combination of school administrators being out of touch and having pressures from their higher-ups. But for the sake of today's teenagers, I wish these sorts of trainings and assemblies were done away with.
        • daveslash 7y ago
          As the parent of a teenager, I now realize just how hard it can be to get some messages to really land with a teenager. Unless the message that you're trying to get through, no matter how important, is already something that's of interest to them, most things end up feeling like a lecture to them. Upon reflection, I was the same way. As a result, you (the parent) sometimes try to make things "fun" as a way to engage with them and drive home a message. (spoiler: it often turns out lame and not fun...)
• bjornlouser 7y ago
  "The main purpose of this corporate culture initiative is to create a more disciplined and compliant workforce." Surely the main goal is to drive out older workers. Some number of them will refuse to tolerate repeated exposure to such nonsense.
  • jressey 7y ago
    It is to reduce labor cost and ultimately increase the bottom line. Many people will leave because they don't "fit." Many people will be attracted and take a lower salary than they deserve in exchange for "culture."
• ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  I've worked at places that have really great culture. And places that just wasted everyone's time like we all have. The key for me was seeing people consistently let go for breaking "core values". Or having it be a basis for someone's promotion. Obviously that is never going to work well in a University context where tenure is a thing. If your company is doing that... AND you actually agree and like the Core Values they are promoting, I'm kind of into these workshops and the extra work that goes into maintaining a strong and specific work culture.
  • aidenn0 7y ago
    I think part of the point of TFA is that it wasn't specific; the core values they suggest would make just as much sense for McDonalds and for GWU.
    • kthejoker2 7y ago
      A good rule of thumb: if you can't imagine a company adopting the opposite position of a "core value", it's not a value at all. "Honesty" is not a value. "Move fast and break things" is a value.
      • whatshisface 7y ago
        The opposite position of honesty is lying pathologically and constantly, which some leaders do, so honesty passes your test.
        • kthejoker2 7y ago
          Lol well fair enough but I guess I mean "Pathological lying" isn't emblazoned on the front door ... The #1 "value" at Koch Industries is "Integrity".
          • ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
            This is exactly what I am talking about. "Pathological lying" will never emblazoned on the front door, but if you work in P.R. or a Law Firm they will absolutely embrace phrases like "Framing the narrative". At those work places "Honesty" is absolutely not a core value. I worked at one institution where if you took a sick day, but then posted pictures on Facebook from Disneyland it was entirely acceptable. That place kind of sucked even though you could get away with anything. Another job I had would fire people for very comparatively small lies. Things that people do all the time like pretending to have sent an email that just wasn't delivered somehow. It resulted in an incredibly honest and relaxing workplace.... once you adjusted to not telling white lies to cover your ass, and just admitting your mistakes all the time. That company paired honesty with being much more lax than usual about punishing mistakes. And it was totally ok to say "I need a mental health sick day" and then go to Disneyland. The more honest people thrived in this environment, but many people just can't adapt to the culture at the institution.
• keenmaster 7y ago
  The main problem I see here is not with the culture training or Disney consultants. It’s the lack of leadership. The president of the university should inspire cultural change in his own institution, in cooperation with faculty and staff. That’s part of his job. The irony is that there are probably multiple professors at GWU who teach about organic change. They would have offered their consulting services for free.
• DrNuke 7y ago
  I would call that spade a spade and say Cretinisation but hey, I’m technically a boomer, so who knows...
• heleninboodler 7y ago
  Oddly enough, there are lots of people who truly believe in this "10 core values" pap. I once was going through my annual review cycle at Microsoft, grumbling about having to go through the useless exercise of documenting how I live up to completely generic "core values" like "integrity" and I bitched to my wife about it. She works in social services and was appalled that I could be so cynical and didn't find this sort of guidance helpful. We finally had to agree to disagree on whether the whole concept was mindless garbage. I mean, come on, when "excellence" is one of your core values, you might as well just say "we like things that are good." Big thumbs up, Mickey.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
  A good rule of thumb is that the more a corporation talks about "culture", the more the employees should be wary that they are getting fleeced. A lot of companies have realized that they get employees to work harder for less if they are able to get the employees to develop some sort of emotional attachment to the company. If you as an employee are getting a lot of push about "company culture" and the company is trying to push various experiences to make you feel good about the company, you should make sure you take the time to seriously look at your compensation and what the market compensation is, and see if they are trying to underpay you relative to your value.
  • duxup 7y ago
    That's a choice though. If you care enough to put in some extra time ... you've chosen to care. There's no "fleecing" with that.
    • flattone 7y ago
      not exactly. I think. The point of flagging caution here is to provide a 1) persons consciousness a reminder to observe these corporate behaviors and use that consciousness to inform your 2) desires/choices > actions. It's common (i think) to just start work, play along, make friends and skip many valuable versions of item 1. I skip it often... but i know people who pay a lot of attention. Like lawyer level attention to the mechanics of a relationship, what's being said and what is being exchange, and how are people being influenced. Some places feel like company is out harvesting black hat social engineers to work against their employees. Excuse the language, i don't mean this in any alarmist tone. But anecdotally i've felt this and mostly (sadly) ignored the feeling out of laziness or lack of awareness or cause.
    • LordFast 7y ago
      Care isn't a high priority in today's environment, both political and economic. It's about whether the equation all checks out. Ironically, as someone who's always been the type of personality to make sure that the equation checks out, I've come to see that it doesn't make the world a better place. C'est la vie.
  • 7y ago
• cs702 7y ago
  It's part of the ongoing "corporatization" and "MBA-ization" of US colleges and universities. GW's attempt to institute a "culture" using techniques developed at Disney is just one of many possible examples, although I will admit it is a particularly easy one to mock. (Quoting the OP: "The GW culture initiative can be summed up in two words: Mickey Mouse.") Much of higher education in the US is now controlled by an administrative bureaucracy that thinks in terms of corporate strategy, corporate culture, financial incentives, business processes, and so on. These people don't teach or conduct research, and in many cases have never taught or conducted research. They think of academics as "human resources" that must "add value" to the organization, i.e., produce benefits that can be readily measured. At the top of this growing administrative apparatus are college and university presidents earning seven figures a year, but typically they also earn additional income from sitting on corporate and non-profit boards. Presidents tend to have illustrious academic pedigrees, but their involvement in day-to-day academic matters is at about the same level as the involvement of a burger-chain CEO in the operations of a single restaurant in the chain. Below presidents, there are multiple layers of bureaucracy that have been growing for quite some time, with no slow-down in sight. According to federal figures, as of a few years ago, the number of non-academic administrative and professional employees at US colleges and universities has more than doubled in the past quarter century, outpacing the growth in the number of students or faculty.[a] Perhaps the most salient example of this ever-expanding bureaucracy is Stanford's shiny new 35-acre campus in Redwood City, which houses only non-academic administrative staff -- that is, people who work in departments with names like Finance, Planning, Facilities, Human Resources, Business Affairs, etc.[b] Whether this corporatization proves a good or a bad thing in the long run, it remains to be seen. (I doubt it will prove to be a good thing.) [a] https://www.necir.org/2014/02/06/new-analysis-shows-problematic-boom-in-higher-ed-administrators/ https://www.necir.org/2014/02/06/new-analysis-shows-problema... [b] https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/ https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/
  • Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Usually it’s a bad sign when administration moves away from the place of production. Things often don’t end well. Mercedes did this in the 80s and 90s and I have also heard people say that Boeing’s move to Chicago was the turning point when the company went downhill. My company also has a corporate headquarters where there are thousands of well paid people keep themselves busy creating training materials and processes that look good but are ultimately not practical or just stating the obvious in new words.
• Seenso 7y ago
  Several years ago, I had to attend a full day "culture training" session given by Senn Delaney (a division of Heidrick & Struggles) [1]. It was also a massive waste of time. Our company actually has a really great culture, and what I remember of the training amounted to a somewhat subtle attempt to indoctrinate employees to be more blindly obedient to management change initiatives. There was some other stuff, but I honestly can't recall anything else. Maybe some simplified Meyers-Briggs type thing. The only time I've heard any of the concepts cited since the training push has been in the context of some mid-level executive type pushing an unpopular top-down change, and even then, they seem to be at the bottom of their rhetorical sack. My co-workers' reaction ranged from neutral to eye-rolling, and as far as I can tell, no one has explicitly employed the trained culture concepts and the whole experience has mostly been forgotten. I have no idea how much the my employer paid for all this, but the cost must have been enormous (every employee had to attend a course that took between one and three whole work days, with no multitasking allowed). [1] https://www.senndelaney.com/ https://www.senndelaney.com/
  • dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
    > every employee had to attend a course that took between one and three whole work days, with no multitasking allowed That reminded me of the Clockwork Orange.
    • specialist 7y ago
      I call it ritualized spanking. a la "the beatings will continue until morale improves". Even more effective than fat shaming.
  • bitwize 7y ago
    Not long ago at $JOB I sat through what I call "mandatory psychobabble day". The particular psychobabble being peddled to, or rather, imposed on, us was the DISC system -- a variant of which was recently outed on Hackernews as pernicious hucksterism which somehow held much of Sweden in its sway. It was supposed to make us better collaborators, under the rubric that understanding the traits of both your own star sign under this 20th century horoscope and those of your coworkers will enable you to formulate better communication strategies. Oddly, the most fruitful discussions that day, or at any time at $JOB, were held without reference to DISC at all. My single moment of satisfaction was in trolling the interlocutor at the end. He still recognizes and smiles to me in the halls, which tells me my trolling was sufficiently subtle.
• Mirioron 7y ago
  How can universities afford things like this, when, at the same time, there seems to be a big student loan problem in the US?
  • geerlingguy 7y ago
    I think one follows the other. Get more money out of students, put more money into these programs with nice kickbacks to administrators. Win-win, at least if you're in an administration position.
  • tartuffe78 7y ago
    Where do you think all that student loan money is going? Universities are flush.
    • secabeen 7y ago
      Which universities are you talking about? State schools are not flush by any stretch. Yes, tuition money is up, but funds from state legislatures are down significantly. Some state universities get less than 10% of their revenues from the state government, down from 60+% in the 1950s through 70s. That is a fundamental change in the role of a university in the country, and in who it serves. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-main-reason-tuition-is-skyrocketing/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-m...
      • viklove 7y ago
        I dunno, maybe the one being talked about in the article we're commenting on? That's not a state university.
  • vanviegen 7y ago
    You seem to have answered your own question. :-)
  • lolc 7y ago
    In a monetary sense, universities can afford this shit exactly because of the huge loans taken up by students. In an ethical sense, they can afford it because people don't care enough to dump them over it.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• wrs 7y ago
  Company culture and values training is useful to inform people of what the culture and values are. You can’t impose or change culture and values through training. “Culture” is just a summary of what people do — the way to reinforce it is just to do it. If people are visibly rewarded day-to-day for acting a certain way, and visibly not rewarded (and let go) for doing the opposite, that’s going to be what determines the culture.
  • TremendousJudge 7y ago
    I think this has a name, but I can't recall it -- Workers always end up doing whatever that the higher ups reward, not what they say they want. They can parrot about culture however much they want, but in the end if being an asshole is what get you bonuses and promotions, that's the employees they'll get
    • homonculus1 7y ago
      The word is "incentive"!
  • Ididntdothis 7y ago
    ”Company culture and values training is useful to inform people of what the culture and values are.” The only way to be informed about culture and values is to work there for a while. Trainings are at best aspirational (this is where we want to go) or just plain delusional (this is how we want to look like)
• Animats 7y ago
  The funny thing is that Disney actually could teach a university something, but that's not it. Disney is really good at a few things, like line, crowd, and parking management. Disney could probably make a school's football stadium and parking run better. Disney creates the illusion that they're better than they are by over-maintaining the visible stuff. So they could help create a culture that makes a school look less run-down, like making sure the bathrooms are clean, functional, and never out of supplies. Disney is good at maintaining heating, ventilating, and air conditioning standards. So they could help with indoor air quality. But "mad about the Mouse" training? No.
  • corebit 7y ago
    Caring about the little things IS a culture and a pretty good one at that.
  • downerending 7y ago
    Actually, just got back from a trip there and was absolutely shocked at the lack of cleanliness of one of their restaurants (Oga's). Maybe it was a one-off.
    • mcphage 7y ago
      > was absolutely shocked at the lack of cleanliness of one of their restaurants (Oga's). Maybe it was a one-off. That's definitely not the norm for Disney's parks.
    • tatersolid 7y ago
      Oga’s was spotless when the fam went in October, other than the “decorative” grittiness literally painted on the walls so it looked like the movie. That said, most of the Disney World “quick serve” cafeterias are covered in food waste by the end of the day. I suppose there’s only so much you can do to keep up with 20,000 toddlers times three meals a day.
      • downerending 7y ago
        I'm okay with the "decorative" plague--I just don't want to catch the real kind. I've been in cleaner drug-deal bars. The only comp I can think of is the White Castle down the street from the Port Authority bus terminal.
• riyadparvez 7y ago
  As someone who is not from North America, this positive/good vibe culture really baffles me. You are a human being. Negative emotions are part of life. World is full of pain and sufferings. You are supposed to feel empathy for other people and feel bad for their misfortune even if you have the good luck of not going through suffering. I just don't understand this obsession of feeling good all the time. I don't know how people can just brag about themselves with things like "good vibes only". If you have never felt sadness, pain, shame, or embarrassment, is it something to brag about?
  • downerending 7y ago
    Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays! /s But seriously, as an American, I fully agree. Having to pretend to be a happy camper at work when one is going through a (not culturally approved) personal tragedy sucks big time.
  • ianandrich 7y ago
    You are right, it is a serious problem.
  • safety-third 7y ago
    It comes from two religious movements in the U.S. that became popular starting in the 50's and has been gaining momentum ever since: Prosperity Gospel and New Age Spirituality. They both focus on you projecting "good vibes" and only allowing others who also project good vibes around you. If you can do this, then (Nature/God/the Universe) will reward you.
    • im3w1l 7y ago
      It's interesting you brought up religion, as to me it has always seemed that Christianity strongly embraces bad vibes. Like all the pictures of Jesus being crucified and wearing crowns of thorns, and the talk of how we are all sinners and bad people. And the talk of writhing in lakes of fire.
      • safety-third 7y ago
• datanerd 7y ago
  I get "500 Internal Server Error" when I visit this post.
• OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago
  I don't have enough adjectives. This is now SOP, everywhere. Current Affairs had this scathing article about a different waste of money: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/06/the-unendurable-horrors-of-leadership-camp https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/06/the-unendurable-horro... And this 2003 article from the LA Weekly gives a jarring glimpse into Mouse mentality: https://www.laweekly.com/keepers-of-the-magic-kingdom/ https://www.laweekly.com/keepers-of-the-magic-kingdom/
• duxup 7y ago
  I suspect there just aren't many good leaders out there, and accordingly a lot of leadership out there sort of struggles along and then for some reason ... just reads their latests leadership book or whatever AT the people they're supposed to be leading. Leadership is what you do with / for people, not talking at people, but talking AT seems to be the easier / more frequent route.
• Consultant32452 7y ago
  The most common reason people leave companies is not compensation. It's usually about relationships, primarily with the boss but also coworkers. I'm on the spectrum, so I function a bit like an automaton which places little value on the social aspects of work, but most people aren't like that. This is how "on the spectrum" I am. One time I was on a team that did a team building exercise where we went to a local charity for sick kids and performed manual labor all day. I calculated how much that cost the company and made a presentation to my boss about how much more we could have done by hiring minimum wage workers to perform the same manual labor for the same $ they paid us. I genuinely did not understand that was a weird/socially unacceptable thing to do. Anyways, I'm digressing a bit. Most people were more interested in how it made them feel to do something nice for sick kids. I didn't understand that, I thought the goal was to perform the maximum amount of good for the kids. And taken one step further, people like working for the type of company that would let them do things like help sick kids instead of their normal work tasks. For the social people on the team, it's all about the feels.
  • hef19898 7y ago
    This. Feelings became such a driving force lately, no matter where you look. Politics, business, it's all about how people "feel". And not even really how the feel, but more about the pretending of how they feel. Your example trends a little bit on the extreme end of the spectrum (I totally get your point, so), but the truth is that for a lot of people that is a truly good experience. IMHO companies are abusing this for cheap employee motivation and PR.
    • notyourday 7y ago
      When the pay is lousy feelings become important.
      • Consultant32452 7y ago
        I have found the opposite for me. I'm not the feelings guy, but these days I seek more of the kinds of compensation that generally are not tracked and taxed by the state. So I care more about flexible schedules, vacation time, etc. I need to make a certain amount of $ to maintain my lifestyle, but otherwise I'm trying to maximize those other things. I can imagine for many people, their feelings is another kind of compensation that doesn't get tracked and taxed by the state.
• treebornfrog 7y ago
  Site seems to be down?
• bobthechef 7y ago
  On a related note, I worked with a guy once who actually said that perks like free snacks were more important for him than a raise because "it's nice" and that it shows the company appreciated you. Now, I'm not saying having snacks is bad, but you must have drowned in the koolaid to think that a couple of bags of chips in place of a raise shows the company appreciates your work. One in a while I meet a poor guy like him.
  • chihuahua 7y ago
    Imagine how surprised that guy would be if he figured out that if he got a raise he could buy lots of snacks and still have money left over for other things
  • magduf 7y ago
    The free snacks help with morale, and cost the company very little. Personally, I'd rather have more money so I can buy my own snacks, but I've never heard of a company offering employees an actual choice between free snacks or a raise, so in reality it really comes down to free snacks vs. no free snacks.
• humanistbot 7y ago
  This is throwing 500 errors and the piece is relatively short, so I've copied it below: BY DANE KENNEDY The George Washington University faculty and staff ain’t got no culture. Or worse, we’ve got a negative culture. This was the verdict of the Disney Institute, which the president of our university commissioned last year to assess the culture on our campus. Fortunately, the institute, which is the “professional development and external training arm of The Walt Disney Company,” has a remediation plan. It has designed workshops to teach us the cultural “values” and “service priorities” we evidently require. The culture that Disney has crafted for us is not, it should be said, the high culture of the arts that the poet Matthew Arnold described as “sweetness and light.” Nor is it the anthropological notion of culture—a system of meaning that shapes social behavior. Rather, it is corporate culture, a creature that has become all the rage in the business world—and now, it seems, is burrowing its way into universities. Its professed aim is to instill a sense of shared purpose among employees, but its real objective is far more coercive and insidious. Our president is rumored to have forked over three to four million dollars to the Disney Institute to improve our culture (he refuses to reveal the cost). A select group of faculty and staff, those identified as opinion leaders, are being offered all-expenses paid trips to the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando “to gain first-hand insight into Disney’s approach to culture.” For everyone else, the university is conducting culture training workshops that run up to two hours. All staff and managers are required to attend. Faculty are strongly “encouraged” to participate, and some contract faculty, who have little job security, evidently have been compelled to do so. I attended one of these workshops. It was a surreal experience. About a hundred mostly sullen university employees—maintenance workers, administrative staff, faculty members, and more—filled a ballroom. Two workshop leaders strained to gin up the crowd’s enthusiasm with various exhortations and exercises, supplemented by several slickly produced videos. The result was a cross between a pep rally and an indoctrination camp. We were introduced at the beginning of the workshop to the university’s brand new slogan: “Only at GW, we change the world, one life at a time.” Hold on. We change the world only at GW? And we achieve this absurd ambition how? The answer, it turns out, is pretty vacuous—by being nice. “Care,” we were told, is one of our three “Service Priorities.” We were given “Service Priorities” table-tent cards, conveniently sized for our pocketbooks and billfolds so we can whip them out whenever we needed to remind ourselves how we change the world. These cards offer a series of declarative statements—pabulum, some might say—about our “care” priorities. Here’s a sample: “I support a caring environment by greeting, welcoming, and thanking others.” To help us care for others, the university has established a “positive vibes submission” website, where we “can send a positive vibe to someone.” It was hard to detect many positive vibes in the workshop itself. The other two “service priorities” give us a clearer idea of the culture initiative’s real agenda. One is “safety;” the other, “efficiency.” Both exhort employees to improve their work performance. The very first “safety” recommendation is an injunction to “keep areas clean, well-maintained, and inviting.” An important measure of “efficiency” is a willingness to “embrace change and [be] open to new ways of working.” One might wonder whether work efficiency would be enhanced by redirecting the millions of dollars that are going to the Disney Institute into staff salaries or bonuses instead. But that misses the point. The main purpose of this corporate culture initiative is to create a more disciplined and compliant workforce. Our workshop leaders actually acknowledged that “compliance” is a central pillar of the project. Lastly, we were introduced to “Our GW Values”—“ours” only in the sense that they were being imposed on us. One might think that our president would be interested in promoting and honoring the values that are specific to our mission as a university, such as innovative research, teaching excellence, critical inquiry, and new ideas. Think again. As crafted by the Disney Institute and its administrative acolytes, “Our GW Values” are “integrity,” “collaboration,” “courage,” “respect,” “excellence,” “diversity,” and “openness.” All worthy values, to be sure, but is it possible to offer a more generic and innocuous set of standards? The GW culture initiative can be summed up in two words: Mickey Mouse. Guest blogger Dane Kennedy is the Elmer Louis Kayser Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University.
• riazrizvi 7y ago
  Unpopular opinion... you can make almost anything sound awful with the right tone of cynicism, and the intended substance of this article is just a cynical tone. Looking at the observations presented I'm inclined to side with the university president. 1. The university staff were mostly sullen at a culture workshop, enthusiasm was low. 2. Disney is an entertainment world leader. 3. Disney attributes its leadership position to its corporate culture, evidenced at Disney sites which are in a world of their own compared to other entertainment sites - if you've ever been to a Six Flags (USA) or Alton Towers (UK) you'll know that they don't compare to the all around experience at Disneyland. 4. Disney is selling a consulting service to other enterprises to improve cultural coherence, it costs millions. 5. The author objects to the suggested focus of culture. In their words: > We were introduced at the beginning of the workshop to the university’s brand new slogan: “Only at GW, we change the world, one life at a time.” Hold on. We change the world only at GW? And we achieve this absurd ambition how? The answer, it turns out, is pretty vacuous—by being nice. “Care,” we were told, is one of our three “Service Priorities.” The author shows no evidence of understanding the purpose of a mission statement, which is a guiding principle that cuts across all aspects of an organization's basic deliverables, to help guide all staff on what service delivery would look like if more than the bare minimum service were to be offered. "Only at GW, we change the world, one life at a time". How is this not vacuous? i) it helps you understand you are looking to create change that is remarkable and identifiable to GW, not just any old university, ii) it reminds you the changes being made are to change a young student's life, it's not just to teach them factoids, iii) it reminds you that the goal of GW is to change the world through it's teaching, not train people to pass exams and get certificates. 6. The author is combating the university's efforts to get a common aspirational purpose, instead they are trying to create a common rebellion against leadership, so they must want something else that leadership is offering. Because no alternative aspirational purpose was offered, the author is de facto trying to rally people behind ... nothing, inaction, rebellion for rebellion's sake.
  • hfdh434535 7y ago
    Disney is an entertainment world leader. There's no reason to think their approach would work well for a university. Disney's corporate culture encompasses more than what the company believes. Rather, their culture encompasses everything about the company's approach. It doesn't sound like that's what's being discussed at these workshops. If the slogans aren't being matched with changes in leadership or changes in policy, they are just slogans. You're right about a mission statement's intended purpose. But in practice, mission statements usually have no impact on a company. You say the author must want something else that leadership is offering. That is not necessarily the case. It sounds to me like the author thinks the university's culture is already good, and doesn't need work.
• reggieband 7y ago
  When I was a high-school student I hated pep rallies [1]. The entire school was dragged into our gym, sat on the bleachers while the football team ran into the room through a paper banner and various students on the pep squad would juggle, dance and force everyone to make some noise. It felt like a gigantic waste of time. Nearly 30 minutes for 450+ people. When I joined in the corporate drudgery I hated all of the equivalent rituals. I worked at a game company that did a literal equivalent of a pep rally for the 100+ employees who were in the process of finaling a game. Quarterly all-hands meetings are usually veiled pep rallies where making some noise is replaced by polite applause as division managers tout rose-color tinted bullshit. Nothing alerts my cynicism quite as much as this fake-it-till-you-make-it forced optimism and team building. I've been through a dozen flavours of team building including learning my MBTI, my DiSC color and more. I've gone on day long retreats/field trips and I have been forced to awkwardly mill about every Friday for flat beer and microwaved appetizers. I cringe at the very thought of this stuff. I wouldn't be able to count the number of company value presentations I've been subjected to. Core values, OKRs, and a host of company culture defining paradigms I don't even remember. I've seen laminated principles posted in break rooms and hallways only to be usurped by some new systems within months. And yet I truly and deeply believe it is not only worth the effort - I believe that things like these are essential to build high-functioning teams. It is a bitter medicine but once I wipe away my cynicism I must admit it works. Just like advertising - that stuff sinks into your subconscious whether you like it or not. Only stubborn fools will insist it doesn't work on them, as if they have some kind of mental fortitude/resistance unlike all other humans. IMO, aligning people to a small number of shared values is maybe one of the most important and powerful things we can do. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pep_rally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pep_rally
  • nkrisc 7y ago
    It works, for better or for worse, because most people do believe in it. Most people like pep rallies (however hard for me to understand why). Most people like seeing their name in a powerpoint near a bunch of exclamation points and showered in clipart confetti. I never understood why we celebrated product launches. Half the time it seems the thing quietly dies a year later. Why don't we celebrate things that go on to actually provide value instead of just celebrating that labor was done? What's the point of labor that doesn't produce value? Should that be celebrated? Because for most people social recognition makes it worth it, regardless of how meaningless it really is. If you can't tell, I don't really care much for celebrations.
• mbostleman 7y ago
  It's interesting to me to see where, when there is something wrong, people determine the problem is. So in this case there's an implied diss against Disney and probably more generally against consultants. To me, both of those are symptoms and are sure to be supplied by the market wherever the real problem crops up which is a buyer. In this case, GW's president and/or the board.
• lsniddy 7y ago
  Can't wait for this college bubble to pop. I must give them credit though, as an alum I can confirm GW does have a negative culture.
• deleted 7y ago
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• smoyer 7y ago
  Hey GW ... I hear that "Don't Be Evil" is available again and seems like it would be suitably generic. On a more serious note, I'm on staff at a relatively major university having spent the previous 30 years in private industry. One of the things I (now at least) appreciate is that the university isn't supposed to have a corporate culture. There isn't a profit motive, it provides a safe-haven for "new thoughts", and should be altruistic in ways even a non-profit corporation can't be. (Note - not all "new thoughts" end up being right). As we work on the university's infrastructure, we commonly ask ourselves how we (as staff) can make the student's experience and/or education better. We're not directly interacting with students (most of the time) like the faculty but I feel the pain of this GW professor - perhaps their president needs to ask the same question.
  • ahi 7y ago
    I am an '05 alum of GW. GW disqualified itself from using "Don't Be Evil" a long time ago. e.g. https://www.propublica.org/article/george-washington-university-has-for-years-claimed-to-be-need-blind.-its-no https://www.propublica.org/article/george-washington-univers... But GW isn't really an academic institution. It's a real estate developer that uses rich kids from Long Island to fill it's square footage.
    • smoyer 7y ago
      Interesting ... they heavily recruited my daughter who's a senior in high school and looking to go to business school in supply-chain-management. She applied to GW but it was her last choice and she was accepted everywhere she applied.
    • cafard 7y ago
      Universities do that. I have lived in Washington, DC, for many years, and have seen all of the local universities sprawl. I'm not sure American University had reached to the west side of Massachusetts Avenue yet: now it has a building or two on Connecticut Avenue. Catholic has expanded up along the train tracks. Howard briefly had a dorm on 16th St. Georgetown is trapped in an expensive neighborhood, and has publicly considered what it might do to put some facilities in Maryland. If you want to meet a real estate behemoth have a look at Harvard...
• say_it_as_it_is 7y ago
  American universities lost that which used to make them special. There won't be much to miss when they no longer exist, especially the debt.
  • xsmasher 7y ago
    I immediately thought of Pirsig's "two universities." “The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself. In addition to this state of mind, 'reason,' there's a legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the state with a specific address. It owns property, is capable of paying salaries, of receiving money and of responding to legislative pressures in the process. But this second university, the legal corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate ideas. It is not the real University at all. It is just a church building, the setting, the location at which conditions have been made favorable for the real church to exist.” ― Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance
• reilly3000 7y ago
  I’ve always found the idea of having an external party being able to effective both assess and modify culture as part of a service. How much time on the ground does a good CEO need to get a sense of both the operation and the people in it? Months to years. An outside party has no real sense of the biases and assumptions that underlay the veneer of all members of the culture. Therefore interventions end up being based on a commodity plan, executed against a need that is strategic in nature. I’m all for universities instilling a customer service attitude among staff, and maybe a third party is the right tool to kickstart that process, but it’s leadership from both management and staff on the ground that actually allow these changes to take hold.