This week (Nov. 3-7) marks “Non-Traditional Students’ Week” at Creighton University. Non-traditional students represent an ever-growing percentage of college enrollment nationally. As Laurie Galeski notes in a quote from last week’s Creightonian, “adult learners are highly motivated, embrace Creighton’s values, and add a wonderful dimension to our student body.” Based on our own experiences in classes with non-traditional students, we could not agree with this statement more. This is exactly why we hope Creighton does not continue to sell these wonderful additions to our community short.

We fear that the current thinking at Creighton, as part of enrollment and revenue stream targets established by the Strategic Plan, too often sees adult learners as the best-remaining, relatively untapped barrel of prospective students. Employing questionable marketing tactics, we fear that Creighton seeks to promote revenue generating programs, or those at least less costly to maintain than other programs, rather than programs that stay true to Creighton’s liberal arts foundation.

By promoting the program that is most cost-effective for Creighton, it is not much different than in the past, when universities encouraged their law schools to enroll more students to subsidize the rest of the university, Law schools, like many online-only professional programs that Creighton is touting, were often “revenue positive” for their institutions. Last April, an outside consultant from the Education Advisory Board, which is one of the largest higher-education research and consulting firms in the United States, gave a presentation that stated that the university should aim to do something similar with non-traditional students.

Yet many law schools resorted to questionable tactics, to do so, padding their employment numbers to increase their reputation. The result has been a glut in the legal field that’s led to a number of class-action lawsuits against law schools.

According to last week’s article, the Non-Traditional Students’ Week will end Friday with a social gathering to which students are invited to bring guests who may be interested in completing their degrees. While this capstone event may be an excellent opportunity to celebrate adult learners, it is always best to call a spade a spade. This end-of-the-week event serves as an admissions event, a chance for University officials to have prospective students brought to them. We question whether such events, which fib about their intentions, are really the way reputable university like Creighton should be conducting their business. 

If one is not slightly disturbed by this subtle marketing ploy, then one should look further at some of the programs adult learners are encouraged to study. Perhaps the best examples are the BS in Leadership and BA in Healthy Lifestyle Management.

The BS in Leadership advertises itself to adults “looking to gain a promotion, change careers, stay competitive or expand their education.” The fact that expanding one’s education is seen almost as an afterthought in this list makes one wonder just how firmly rooted in the Jesuit values such a degree

can be.

Much of the upper-level coursework flips the traditional structures of majors. Where major-specific courses in most disciplines attempt to apply the study methods of a discipline to specific areas, it seems that the major courses for Leadership often merely examine the area of leadership from different perspectives. While this method has its merits, it does flip our traditional understanding of what a major is in the liberal arts.

The BA in Healthy Lifestyle Management is holistic in nature and requires its students to take courses rooted in anthropology and psychology, which is very laudable. Still, it must be questioned, since the major is offered completely online, how one can complete any program focusing on healthy lifestyles without conducting at least some relevant lab work. The exercise science major, for instance, requires several laboratory courses as they help students gain a much deeper understanding of the concepts they are learning in lectures and readings.

As mentioned, both majors are offered completely online and are designed to be flexible for adult learners who do often face stiff barriers to completing their degrees. Again, these are laudable goals. However, the University frequently touts the greatest benefit of adult learners is the unique experiences and backgrounds they bring to Creighton. While we hesitate to think of any student as a means to an end, we wonder how encouraging adult learners to complete fully online program with only adult learners benefits either the traditional or non-traditional students in terms of exposing individuals to the many unique backgrounds represented by our student body.

Further, while encouraging adult learners to complete their degrees so that they can best serve the world around them is clearly aligned with Creighton’s Ignatian values (it is, arguably, the whole purpose of a Jesuit education), we cannot help but wonder whether offering such professionally-focused majors purely online does not create too wide a separation from the traditions of St. Ignatius.

The College of Professional Studies should instead work more closely with other facets of the University to offer more traditional coursework online, so that adult learners unable to attend class physically can engage in the same coursework and earn the same majors as the traditional students at Creighton. This to us seems like a far better deal for all parties involved.