Residence Life
I currently work for Residence Life as a Residence Manager here on campus. While universities are her to make money, just like any other businesses are, there is something more than just profit. A university provides a learning experience for students. It is a place where they come to learn, grow, gain skills and knowledge, make friends, connections, and memories. When I think of the marketing oreintation of a Residence Life department, it is very "customer" driven (the customer being the resident student). In this department, it is all about providing a student with a safe living environment combined with an environment that strives to encourage growth and development of not only the student, but the community around him/her. While we do focus on saving money and using the budget to our advantage, it is not about sales or success of our wallets. It's the success of students we look out for.Belief in Drucker?
So far in class, we have learned a few takes on marketing based on the logic behind business guru Peter Drucker. From this initial reading, the author, William A. Cohen, brought up three main points that Drcker takes a hold on. The first is that the purpose of every business is to create a customer. The second, it is not the goal of a company to maximize profit. And three, innovation and marketing are most important for a business.Let's begin with his first idea. According to Drucker, "The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment. To supply the wants and needs of a consumer, society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise." (Cohen, 17). I feel this matches well with what the Residence Life office believes. Providing residents with a well established community and resources to grow is important because they in turn give us meaning and a purpose to continue our jobs. We are essentially here to provide them with the experience that comes along with education. They are certainly not here ot make us money for the most part. We have a condensed budget as it is, we are certainly not dripping them dry for cents and dollars, though it may seem like tuition costs a lot these days. We are supplied the bdget from the money gained by the school, thus giving us funds to do what we can to produce the service to our "consumers". I think Drucker makes perfect connection to the Residence Life field in this case.
The next issue, making sure the goal of the organization is not to maximize profit also is consistent from what I would see in Residence Life. Drucker says, "If we want our organization to be successful, we have to remember that while profit is essential to support innovation and marketing actions, profit maximization is not only not the primary purpose of a business, but it could be bad for society and hazardous to the organization's health." (Drucker, 17). I feel those in my department would very much agree with this idea. While it is important that the school makes money to produce more opportunities for students, it shouldn't be the only focus. In Residence Life, we have made due with budget cuts and ensuring that while housing assignments are kept up with, they still remian cost-efficient. If the school were to simply raise tuition or gain profit from some other avenue, not only would students and their families be upset with the higher costs, but it could ultimately affect the surrounding community and other universities as well. The local economy might suffer if less students want to attend due to high tuition, retention may fall, and other universities could change costs as well with seeing others doing it as well. In Residence Life it is important to provide an experience, not just money.
Lastly, Drucker's thoughts on innovation and marketing ring true in my field as well. Residence Life Staff is always trying to think of new, innovative ways to build a community and come up with ways in which we can entice students to grow and develop over the four year period into a person that can not only benefit society on a high leve, but build a strong sense of personal character and independent skill. Without constant change in planning new curriculums, having new ideas for enticing programs, and learning effective ways for communication, residence life would simply be a waste of time and resources. There is nothing meaningful in old monotonous ideas and plain community situations. Marketing is HUGE for a university, especially now with low retention and recruitment rates among the university due to a difficult economy. Without establishing an innovative environment and outreach to potential students, there is no way a university would survive.
So all in all, Drucker would make perfect sense to my organization. I believe his ideas are spot on and can truly help any residence life office gear towards a successful path.
