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More than three decades ago, when I started my first “real” job at a university, I was told by a clerk in the bursar’s office: “Students are customers.”

I responded, “No, they’re not.”

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The clerk went all agape and agog, sputtering: “Well! If they’re not customers, what are they?”

“They’re students,” I said.

She scowled, said no more, and shoved at me whatever paperwork I was supposed to fill out.

It wasn’t the last time I would hear that characterization of students, nor was it the only birdbrained mantra heard around that place during my tenure there (for instance, “outcomes........

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