University marketing of students to companies bad for students

I am writing concerning the university's marketing of its students to companies. I remember that my first day here, in 1994, I was surprised there were credit card applications on every desk in all my classes. This did not happen again, though, until the following semester.

This semester I have found credit card applications and magazine order forms in my classes five or six times. Each time I have bought something at the campus bookstore, I have received at least three such advertisements in my bag. I have ignored these sales attempts, but last night it went beyond an optical application. While writing a lab report, I was called at my home at 7:30 p.m. by a credit card "on behalf of the University of Arizona." The sales representative told me a credit card was being sent to me, and for verification sent me my current address.

I feel this has gone too far. I wonder: Does the university regard us as students or as marketable consumers? Is our personal information private record or a profitable commodity? Where exactly do profits from such sales go? It seems to me that the university needs to give more respect to its students and less to corporations.

By Katherine Walsh (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
May 7, 1997