Do Princeton’s Administrators Pass Their Letters Through the “Office of Communications” Before Publication?

It seems like it from this, http://dailyprincetonian.com/opinion/2014/03/letter-from-the-editor-increasing-transparency-in-guest-submissions/.  If so, why? and what changes happen to the letters?  Does the Office just help adminstrators?  Are the administrators encouraged to seek help from “public relations”?  Is the “Office of Communications” just a marketing department?  I don’t know but it seems worrisome.  Here is my comment.

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This letter does a good job of pointing out how much higher education, even at Princeton, has become a business, with marketing departments having a say on discourse.

Marketing, business models and education don’t mix. No matter how hard you stir, the marketing and business plan rises to the top, smothering the academic.  It has happened throughout higher education.  Now, I’m worried it is happening at places like Princeton.  One good example of this is the tone of the recent discussion over “grade deflation”.

I have been closely following this “grade deflation” debate – as should everyone concerned about higher education in America. The debate worries me. it is too influenced by marketing and “business realities”.  (Just read the original reporting in The Daily Princetonian and/or read my rewrite of it as a bond rating company considering increasing ratings to give its customer a leg up in attracting investors who otherwise would invest in another company’s inappropriately highly rated bonds. You can read my rewrite in my comment on the article on your president in the Wall Street Journal on 3/23/2014).

I hope that Princeton’s administration and faculty don’t forget what John Maynard Hutchins once wrote:

“…when an institution determines to do something in order to get money it must lose its soul,. … I do not mean, of course, that universities do not need money and that they should not try to get it. I mean only that they should have an educational policy and then try to finance it, instead of letting financial accidents determine their educational policy.”

Thanks again to the Editor for pointing out the role of marketing at Princeton”