Chapter 11: The Institution as Learner: Challenging the Metaphor of Debt in Higher Education

The operational paradigms guiding leadership strategies and practices, and their related policies, are archaic, and neither varied nor flexible. Arguably, many institutions of higher education still operate on an economized production paradigm of product-profit. The unintended consequence of such a paradigm is the continued dehumanization and objectification of all those involved.

This chapter challenges the particular uses of metaphors in higher education that, on our view, continue the reified product-profit paradigm. By crafting an alternative conceptual metaphor for higher education as a learner rather than debtor, we help those in higher education begin to make institutions more socially responsible and more democratic simply by calling upon those within higher education to reduce the amount of human commodification occurring through the language we use. We do this by sketching the history of the institution as debtor, making clear and transparent the consequences and impact of this metaphor, and by providing an alternative metaphorical paradigm for institutions of higher education.