Higher Ed GPS: How Will We Get Where We Are Going?

A third area to be considered in a new model is human resources, specifically faculty—the heart of the academic engine.   Faculty must embrace a new role.   This role used to be called the sage on the stage, or the guide on the side. But it is now much more than that. As mentioned, knowledge has, of necessity, been democratized, in its physical, geographical and curricular aspects.   These developments have been enhanced by technology, including online education.   Faculty must accept all of this and define a new unbundled role.   Faculty work has traditionally been divided into Teaching, Scholarship (Research), and Service, including a variety of activities within each category, e.g., classroom instruction, course preparation, research and publication, and participation in university governance.   The ideal faculty member performs equally well in all of these roles as they are laid out in the work of Ernst Boyer in the 1990’s.   Of course we all ...

A second basic element to be considered in the future model of higher education is physical plant, i.e., facilities.   The traditional model is grounded in brick and mortar.   It assumes that education is separate from mainstream society, removed from “the real world.”   It further assumes that professors and physical libraries are the repository of knowledge.   Knowledge is transferred from professors into the empty vessels known as students in a classroom environment.   It does not include a technological base like that which characterizes the rest of society. To elucidate, let’s consider facilities in the context of broader society.   We assume—no demand—that services be available both physically and virtually, 24 hours a day.   Take, for example, banking.   I haven’t visited my local bank in months.   I know where it is and what it looks like.   It is populated with pleasant, well-groomed young people who are generally very help...

If we look at business models in general we can divide them into two basic types:   not-for-profit (NFP), and for profit (FP).   NFP organizations in the U.S. are funded through federal dollars, state dollars, and private donations (similar models exist around the globe).   This model is subject to a variety of external economic and political influences.   It is not a closed system. FP organizations are funded through traditional business means—investors, profit, and reinvestment.   A product or service is provided in exchange for compensation, designed to make more money than spent.   Such organizations consist of units and functions designed to keep the business sustainable by achieving its goals, purpose, and plans. FP systems are thus more controlled in nature. As discussed in an earlier post, higher education has moved away from a basic for profit model to a not-for-profit structure composed of individual investments, supplemented by state and...

So let’s set some realistic expectations for new leaders.   They must be prepared for a world where education is not a viewed solely as a public good, but also as a commodity, driven by a market-based ideology.   The new leader must be prepared for a world of heavy regulation and competition.    This will be a world where students are customers, but the business is different.   It will be a world where, having democratized education, we now find that the current model may in fact be disenfranchising students as institutions struggle to compete and even to exist. Here’s the job description:   Must be able to blend business and academia into a model that looks and performs like a viable, sustainable business organization while supporting institutional and personal missions; can organize institutions to achieve the necessary functions of higher education; can align academics with this new function; can rethink the liberal arts in light of this function; c...

A difficult but unavoidable issue for current leaders is the necessity of acknowledging that they might be part of the problem. The current system has developed leaders who can be inflexible and monolithic as they deal with the shifting function of higher education. This should not be surprising, in light of the fact that today’s leaders come largely from traditional models.   They come from an era when books and professors were the repository and disseminators of knowledge.   Now Google, Wikipedia, and others will take over the ownership of knowledge and its distribution, unless higher education takes it back. Today’s leaders need to reboot their credibility as leaders and thus reinvigorate institutions and ultimately brand higher education as a productive sector in society.   This is done by demonstrating the relevance of leaders.   It will entail branding, marketing and differentiating leadership, and then bringing that branding to institutions and ultima...