"Aspirant"/"aspirational"

[Charles Doyle]

For the past few years (at least), academic administrators--and faculty members who aspire to emulate, impress, or replace them--have been using the terms "aspirant" and "aspirational" (interchangeably, as far as I can tell) to describe superior institutions of a comparable kind that their own institutions might have some hope, some day, of achieving parity with--in contrast with "peer" institutions, those with which parity is already realized.

That use of the adjectives has always struck me as grotesque: no longer does the hopeful party aspire; rather, the object of the aspiration is now presented as the possesser of that aspiration.

Google hits:  "aspirant schools" 203; "aspirational schools" 65; "aspirant colleges" 69; "aspirational colleges" 7; "aspirant universities" 75; "aspirational uiversities" 163; "aspirant institutions" 542; "aspirational institutions" 442: "peer and aspirant" 297"; "peer and aspirational" 442.

--Charlie

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