This Course Brought to You By….
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Lost bag! Reward if found! Returned! But it’s a fake! Finally someone took the advice to GYOFB. But it’s a fake! Students at CUNY’s Hunter College in a class sponsored by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition produced the blog and related guerrilla marketing activities related to counterfeiting last spring. But “while a television viewer is aware that he or she is watching advertising, those viewing the blog or her posters at Hunter thought they were learning about the experiences of a real student — not a class project crafted by an industry association (that was sufficiently proud to boast about it).” Reports Inside Higher Ed.
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Some wonder about a college using some students to fool other students. Others are concerned about the circumstances of the course itself. It was created without any curricular review. The professor who taught it says that he was pressured to do so even though he has no expertise in advertising or public relations (he teaches computer graphics) and had ethical qualms about the course.
Further, the professor — and other professors who have investigated the circumstances of the course — maintain that the professor was required to teach only one side of the issue, had to accept industry officials watching him teach, and had little clout to fight back since he didn’t (and still doesn’t) have tenure.
The department chair — designated by Hunter as the only person to speak officially about the course — at first said that this was “a Hunter matter” and didn’t warrant outside attention. But he then said that everyone involved had free choice to participate or not, and that there were no academic freedom issues raised by the arrangement. He did acknowledge, however, that the department had already adopted at least one reform in the wake of the experience: Any other new “sponsored” courses will have to be reviewed by a curriculum committee before they can be taught.
Would you trust any education brought to you this way?