August 17, 1999

Welcome to College. Now Meet Our Sponsor.

By LISA GUERNSEY

tarting today, when students at Appalachian State University check their e-mail or course outlines on line, they will be looking at advertising from dozens of companies including Amazon.com, Dell Computer and an apartment-locator service called SpringStreet.

Something similar will be happening soon at Villanova University, the University of Memphis, the University of Oregon, the University of Idaho and more than 500 other institutions that have signed up commercial companies to run campus Web sites and e-mail services.

Related Articles Math Textbook Salted With Brand Names Raises New Alarm (March 21, 1999) Company Offers Schools Advertiser-Supported Computer Labs (October 28, 1998) But First, Another Word From Our Sponsor (February 18, 1999)

"Christmas '98 was the first 'E-Christmas'; we think this is the first 'E-back-to-school,' " said Chad Muir, chief executive of Campus Pipeline, a company that says it has agreements to provide Web services to 420 colleges and universities, including Appalachian State, at little or no cost.

While at many universities students continue to use Web pages that the universities have created and paid for themselves, at these 500 institutions advertisers will be paying the bills. And the placement of advertising on what some regard as the purest area of the Internet -- the educational domain -- has spurred a heated debate.

The issue is what place advertising should have in the college environment, real or virtual, particularly in public institutions. Some educators are alarmed at what they see as a crass commercial intrusion, yet administrators and others say that faced with financial constraints, they have little choice.

"There is no place for commercial advertisements within the precincts of any school that takes its educational mission seriously," said Scott Rice, an English professor at San Jose State University who is researching the effects of commercialization on education.

Jeff Williams, director of information-technology services at Appalachian State, said he had heard such arguments. But that is not stopping Appalachian State -- a public institution in Boone, N.C. with 12,500 students -- from adopting the advertising model and avoiding the need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to create the Web sites on its own.

"Some people will say that it's not ethical to advertise," Williams said.

"Given our druthers, we'd rather not ourselves. But it's a pretty attractive model. We'll live with it."

Williams has rolled out the program by instructing 2,500 first-year students at Appalachian State to log into the system this week. They will be among the first in the country to experience such advertising-based pages on a university Web site. Each page includes a square advertisement -- what the company likes to call a sponsorship -- in the top right-hand corner.

A page labeled Campus Central has information about campus events as well as paid advertisements -- not labeled as such -- that link to businesses offering textbooks, financial aid information, educational testing services, auctions and housing. A Web Shopping section will provide additional links to online retailers.

Campus Pipeline will also try to learn more about what is essentially a captive audience. When students first log into campus Web sites, they will be asked to fill out an optional form about their interests. If they do, they will receive product pitches in their e-mail.

Faculty members at Appalachian State are just learning of the deal -- and several are voicing concerns about both commercialization and student privacy. "We're throwing our freshmen to the wolves," said Andrew Koch, an associate professor of political science. "The university has become a shill for the corporate community."

"This tells volumes," he continued, "about the university, its funding, and the business mindset that has taken over."

But as campuses struggle with the costs of technology -- and the constant need to upgrade it -- such deals are becoming more and more attractive, administrators say. Creating an internal Web service, known as an intranet, that seamlessly pulls information from multiple data bases around campus could cost as much as $2 million for a midsize public university, if not more. Public universities, especially, are finding it difficult to pay such costs while many are facing tightening budgets.

Is there a place for commercial messages in academia?

Campus Pipeline, a start-up company based in Salt Lake City, began approaching colleges late last year. It has investments from Sun Microsystems, Dell Computer and McKinsey & Company, among others, and says it intends to bring 100 of its 420 clients online by the end of the fall term. In addition to advertising revenue, it plans to earn commissions on student purchases from Web sites to which it provides links.

In addition to Campus Pipeline, at least one other company, called YouthStream, is offering similar services, and says it has signed up more than 100 colleges and universities. YouthStream, based in New York City, has opened a site called MyBytes.Com, which provides students with online calendars, materials to supplement their classes, financial-aid information, and Web pages for courses if professors choose to use them. Each page includes an advertisement or a link to an electronic shopping area.

Some students are expecting to be practically awash in promotions as soon as they log in to their college's Web site.

"I don't see anything wrong with it, unless it gets out of hand," said Ken Greene, a junior at the University of Memphis. "That's all the Web is, is lots of advertising."

But the concept is a striking departure for most institutions of higher education. Academia, after all, is where the Internet grew up, and for years, as the Web has become increasingly commercialized, colleges have kept their distance, priding themselves on creating an online presence that is free of promotion.

This summer, however, colleges have been bombarded by pitches from companies that are eager to gain electronic access to the Internet-loving student market. Many are approaching athletic departments, hoping to strike deals to promote apparel or soft drinks on pages about sports teams. Policy makers at some colleges are even being approached by administrators on their own campuses who want to provide Web links to online stores like Amazon.com, so that the college can take in commissions.

"The academy is not a billboard community," said Margaret A. Miller, president of the American Association for Higher Education. "But it is also the case that the academy is subject to the same economic strains as the rest of the world." The result, Dr. Miller said, is that the costs of technology create a "blurring line" on the issue.

At Appalachian State, Williams said, "There is no way we could have done it ourselves." As one of Campus Pipeline's first colleges, Appalachian State has not yet had to pay anything for the services. Other colleges and universities may have to pay for installation, which could cost as much as $32,000, but that sum administrators say is still far less than the cost of designing and maintaining a system.

Besides, Williams said, colleges like Appalachian State do not have much choice. Students now expect to be able to fill out financial-aid forms and register for classes on line. Colleges that do not offer such services may lose their ability to attract students.

A similar approach was taken almost a decade ago by Channel One, a program started by the Whittle Communications company that supplied middle schools and high schools with television sets and paid for them with commercials.

It is still derided by some educators as a means of pushing advertising in front of captive students.

In this latest example, the executives of the Web-based companies see their approach as nothing more than a continuation of a trend that has already become a big part of higher education. Public and private universities of all sizes have already turned over dining services to Marriott, student unions to Taco Bell, copying centers to Kinkos.

"Schools are increasingly getting out of specialized services that they would rather outsource," said Harlan Peltz, YouthStream's chief executive.

Yet many educators say they want a line to be drawn, particularly when it comes to spaces -- on or off line -- where students are supposed to be learning and exploring.

Thomas Ehrlich, a former president of Indiana University, said he was troubled by the idea of advertisements on sites where professors hold online office hours or post syllabuses. "I think that is much too intrusive," said Ehrlich, who is now a fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Other colleges with large endowments, like most Ivy League universities, have declined to have commercially sponsored Web sites. Many of them say that they have the resources to create online services like admissions and registration without outside help. That may lead students at less selective colleges to be exposed to a barrage of advertising, while students at elite colleges are insulated from it.

"You create a different set of haves and have-nots, so to speak," said José-Marie Griffiths, chief information officer at the University of Michigan, where the idea of having commercially sponsored Web pages was rejected.

For those that have signed up, protecting students' privacy has been a large concern. As Campus Pipeline and YouthStream collect information about students, university administrators say that they want to make sure that the information is not sold or traded to other companies.

Susan Hilton, an assistant director in the computing center at the University of Oregon, said that her campus had been working with Campus Pipeline to whittle down the list of questions it asks students and to keep the information confidential. "That took a while to make that point," she said.