[542] in magellan
TP Msg. #267 CHALLENGES FACING HIGHER EDUCATION AT THE MILLENNIUM
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Anderson)
Fri Nov 3 09:09:28 2000
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Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 09:09:26 -0500
To: itlt@mit.edu, magellan@mit.edu, lll-team@mit.edu
From: Greg Anderson <ganderso@MIT.EDU>
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Good morning,
I thought all of you may be interested in this posting; the book
Challenges Facing Higher Education at the Millennium edited by Werner Z.
Hirsh and Luc. E. Weber is reviewed below. The book covers a broad range of
topics for higher ed.; of particular interest may be part Part 2 of the
book, titled "The Effect of the Changing Environment in
Higher Education," a three-chapter unit that successfully presents, in much
more detail, the sense of crisis that is shaping and driving higher
education sections. The three chapters are by James Duderstadt (President
emeritus, U. Michigan), Stanley Ikenberry (American Council on Education)
and Harold Williams (Virginia).
Looks like good reading.
Greg
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Folks:
The posting below is a review of an important new book that looks at
the challenges facing higher education, particularly in Europe and
North America. The review appeared in Planning for Higher Education,
Fall 2000, pp. 39-41, [http://www.scup.org/phe.htm] and was written
by Dixon B. Hanna.
Copyright © 1994-00. The Society for College and University Planning.
Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Peer-Assisted Learning
Tomorrow's Academy
--------------------- 1,448 words ----------------
CHALLENGES FACING HIGHER EDUCATION AT THE MILLENNIUM
Challenges Facing Higher Education at the Millennium
edited by Werner Z. Hirsh and Luc. E. Weber
American Council on Education/ Oryx Press1999
200 pages ISBN 1-57356-293-9
Reviewed by Dixon B. Hanna
Globalization, technology, governance, changing missions and
expectations, the emergence of competitors, the utility of
maintaining tenure, and securing new revenues and reducing
costs-these are but a few of the recurring themes in Challenges
Facing Higher Education at the Millennium. This publication is a
product of the Gilon Colloquium, a gathering of 20 renowned higher
education leaders from the United States and Europe in Gilon,
Switzerland,in May 1998. They met to discuss the challenges facing
higher education at the turn of the millennium, and the result was
The Gilon Declaration, a statement that promised new initiatives to
meet these challenges. Significant was a
consensus among the participants for a continued, vital role of a
"new university" that, as Jacob Nuechable states, "will undoubtedly
contribute to the change of society; however, by doing so, it will
also have to transform itself" (p.157).
Two of the colloquium participants, Werner Z. Hirsh, professor
ofeconomics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Luc E.
Weber, professor of
public economies at the University of Geneva, have edited a number of
the papers presented at the three-day colloquium into a very
readable, comprehensive text on the state and alternative futures of
the university. This is a document worth reading and embracing by
faculty and administrators, especially those in research universities.
The Gilon Colloquium clearly was a high-energy affair. The chapters
prepared by its participants are insightful, hold a sharpness of
view, and portray a sense of urgency. A chapter by Weber introduces
the book and presents the results of a survey of colloquium
participants that, in turn, outlines the organization of the book and
provides the reader with an excellent overview of the challenges
facing higher education in the new millennium. The main challenges
discussed-the changing environment, mission, students and teaching,
the academic profession, higher education finance, and governance-are
familiar to higher education planners. Weber also references the
special challenges facing European nations, with two stratified sets
of institutions pursuing similar missions and aims: universities and
polytechnics.
Completing the discussion in the book's first section on missions and
values are chapters by David P. Gardner, then-president of The
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Paolo Blasi, rector of the
University of Florence. These authors present, in separate chapters,
the trends and tasks ahead for the American and European
institutions, respectively. Gardner discusses the adverse trends
facing higher education in America, including changing governmental
attitudes and patterns of public funding, structural
inefficiencies that impair a university's ability to adapt and
change, and the disconnect between the student's electronic and
visually based learning style and the traditional university
pedagogy. Blasi presents a comparable set of circumstances facing
European institutions, but with the additional challenges that are
drawn from various national systems of education, a richness of
diversity, and cultural values that must be maintained.
Part 2 of the book, titled "The Effect of the Changing Environment in
Higher Education," is a three-chapter unit that successfully
presents, in much more detail, the sense of crisis that is shaping
and driving higher education. James J. Duderstadt, president emeritus
and university professor of science and engineering at the University
of Michigan, develops a compelling pair of scenarios for the 21st
century university. In the first scenario, Duderstadt spins a future
for the higher education industry that evolves it into a
market-driven, paired-down, and unbundled enterprise, capable of
restructuring itself in entrepreneurial fashion. The second, and more
hopeful scenario has higher education responding positively, being
learner-centered, affordable, interactive and collaborative, diverse
and focused on lifelong learning. Dederstadt concludes the chapter
with an
action agenda that is focused on "two questions: Whom do we serve?
And how can we serve better?" (p54).
In the following chapter, Stanley O. Ikenberry, president of the
American Council on Education, portrays the future of the university
in the information Age. He comments on the scale and pace in the
growth of knowledge and notes that "the change...lies in the way
information is moved, manipulated, and managed, and the ease with
which access has been expanded" (p58). Ikenberry develops themes
outlined in Duderstat's article as well: collaboration, unbundling,
questions of cost and quality, and the commercialization of learning.
Rounding out Part 2 is a chapter by Harold M, Williams that
articulates the recent shifts in the patterns of higher education
economics in the United States. I was very impressed with William's
analysis of the response of higher education institutions and the
implications of these responses to the system's future.Williams
asserts, "without limiting access by restricting admission or
increasing tuition, higher education is forced to contain its costs.
With public pressure to cap the growth of tuition, the focus has
shifted to cost
control" (p.69). This is clearly the situation we face today in
Virginia, where tuition for in-state undergraduates has been frozen
for four years. Further, Williams concludes his chapter with an
insightful statement:
While technology can easily extend access to higher education to new
populations at lower cost than traditional classroom instruction, the
real question is whether higher education will organize itself to
maximize the potential benefits of technology in quality, access, and
cost. (p.71)
Part 3 presents a series of chapters in which several authors propose
various strategies for how higher education institutions can
effectively respond to the pressures for change summarized in the
initial chapters. Hirsch analyzes the need for institutions,
especially the public research institutions, to build nonconventional
funding sources. Hans J.A. van Ginkel, rector of the United Nations
University, discusses the need for higher education institutions to
recognize that the "end of the splendid isolation" (p.85) is here.
Dynamic patterns of organization and cooperation in higher education
are necessary for survival and success. Peter Preuss, a member of the
University of California Board o Regents, discusses the success of
the CONNECT program at the University of California, San Diego to
forge a new and innovative relationship with the community and
region. Dennis Tsichritzis, professor at the University of Geneva and
of the German National Research Center for Information Technology,
develops a series of ideas on the reorganization of the research
university into four sectors: basic education, academic research,
competence centers, and teleteaching services.
Two additional chapters are particularly enlightening and contribute
new information. Howard Newby, vice chancellor of the University of
Southampton, develops an intriguing discussion on the current state
of governance in higher education; much of the discussion is based on
the Dearing Report, completed in the United Kingdom in 1997. Newby
asks the following:
If the state's business today is promoting economic competitiveness
rather than social equity, what does this say about the aims and
purposes of higher education? And as the focus of the state
activity has
shifted from planning inputs to auditing outcomes, is this a
reinforcement of, or a demolition of, traditional notions of university
autonomy? (p.120)
Finally, in recognizing the societal and economic need for lifelong
learning, Alan Wagner, principal administrator for the Directorate
for Education, Employment, Labor and Social Affairs of the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, provides an
engaging discussion of the need to broaden our terminology from
"higher" to
"tertiary" education.
Part 4 includes three chapters that individually portray differing
views of the "university of the future." Jacob Huesch, former
president of the Federal Institute of Technology in
Switzerland,writes on the future of the European research university;
Chang-Lin Tien, past chancellor of the University of California,
Berkeley, articulates the forces shaping the future of the American
research university; and FrankH.T. Rhodes, president of Cornell
University for 18 years, ends with a chapter setting out eight
characteristics of the new American university. Rhodes's
characteristics are worth noting because they provide a good summary
of the Gilon perspective:
Institutionally autonomous, with lively faculty independence and
vigorous academic freedom, but strong, impartial public governance
and decisive,
engaged presidential leadership
Privately supported, but increasingly publicly accountable and socially
committed
