There is even the Kmart Chair of Marketing at two different institutions: West Virginia University and Wayne State University. After hearing of Wayne State's Kmart endowment, the then-dean of WVU's business school, Cyril Logar, approached the company to create a similar endowment for its own marketing department. "As deans, we're always looking for opportunities," recalls Logar. A deal was struck to provide training to Kmart managers in exchange for a US$ 2 million donation to the school's foundation. It didn't hurt that the then-CEO of Kmart was also a WVU graduate.

Then there are those who believe corporate America is changing universities' priorities. "Traditionally, universities were not governed by market forces; they were autonomous institutions that strove to remain free of outside influence, whether political, religious, or commercial," says Jennifer Washburn, author of University, Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of American Higher Education. "Today, universities are engaging in explicitly commercial activities that were unheard of only a generation ago, which seriously compromise their academic autonomy."

Beside a professor's name isn't the only place mainstream brands are appearing. As universities look to the private sector to enhance and manage budgets, companies are moving to take over the functions universities used to do themselves. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers is the privately owned, sister company of publicly traded Barnes & Noble, Inc., otherwise known as the US's largest bookseller. Begun by Barnes & Noble, Inc., Chairman Leonard Riggio, Barnes & Noble College Booksellers manages more than 570 bookstores for colleges and universities around North America.

In addition to outsourced management, Barnes & Noble College has a number of standalone and co-branded bookstores that replace the standard university bookstore. At Mississippi State University, for instance, the 27,000-square-foot, old railroad depot-themed bookstore not only provides hefty textbooks and regular books, but also boasts a children's section, a full-service café serving Starbucks fare, dedicated sections featuring local interests, MSU faculty-penned books, and a Steinway grand piano for public performances.

While executives at B&N are quick to point out that the two companies are quite separate, there is no question that the privately held spin-off enjoys all the brand perks of bearing the same name as the publicly traded company—and vice versa. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers gets all the equity of the B&N name and reputation to woo university officials regarding new deals (the EquiTrend Brand Study, conducted by Harris Interactive, has rated B&N the number-one retail brand for quality five years in a row), and Barnes & Noble, Inc., as a whole enjoys that much more brand exposure with North America's intellectual elite.

As universities continue to shift their infrastructure and practices to those of the private sector, partnerships with corporate and consumer brands will only increase. In 1965, the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business received 65 percent of its funding from the state of California. Today that figure is less than 30 percent.     

[7-May-2007]