During a lunch conversation, focus turned to the future of universities and colleges. The question was essentially: Are universities capable of adapting to today's climate? Can they adjust to reflect the needs of learners? Many have expressed skepticism. Several years ago, in discussion with a university president, I was informed that the concepts I presented with connectivism made sense, were valid, and largely reflected the changes required by universities. But they weren't going to happen. Why? The system of policy, funding, research, tenure, and mindsets were to rigid to result in the quantum change needed. I've heard of several prominent thinkers recently who share this concern.
I personally hold a more hopeful view. Effectively predicting the future is often more about luck than deep insight. But we have a few models that we can consider in trying to anticipate what may occur in education. We've seen content-centric, closed structures like news/information services, the music industries, and others begin to restructure and rethink their models. Some have been successful. Others have failed. Some are still in transition.
Our interest in education goes beyond simple degrees. While I imagine most individuals attend school to get a degree...in order to get a job. We don't generally attend just to learn. However, as with most "good habits" - regulating our diet, working out, reading, critical thinking - the value is of a future nature. As teenagers, it was our job to have disdain for jumping through the hoops required "by them". But the degree isn't the only part of education - the connections, the dedicated time, the mentoring, the social experience, the coming of age, the formation of a more holistic world view than we often hold as we emerge from our teenage years, and so on. In particular, I am concerned with the "function focus" of learning. Self-directed learning works well for certain learners and personalities...in certain environments. But life is about more than getting a job. We need to develop moral/ethical character learners - to think critically, to think creatively, to understand differences between people. It's not only about how do we better educate people, but as Postman states, for what are we educating our learners. If universities are only about teaching, then I suspect they have a short life - for-profit ventures have more cost-effective models of "teaching". To do education (as a function) better is only part of the task. To better understand the "why" of education, however, requires metrics beyond doing education better (however that is defined).
Research is an additional key university function...but this is increasingly corporate funded. In Canada, according to the Canadian Council for Learning, corporate investment in R & D exceeds the public sector funding - a shift in position that occurred in the 1970's. We need as neutral a research system as possible. If society's institutions become largely an extension of corporations, we end up with a model that strips neutrality from scholarship.
Society needs universities for many reasons (research, coming of age, social maturation, broad-based knowledge)...but the organization itself will become a dramatically different institution than what we have seen in the past. Tim O'Shea suggests many changes are forthcoming, impacting smaller colleges/universities in particular.
So what's happening that produces my optimism? Well, we are seeing a variety of areas of change:
- Open access scholarship - like www.plosone.org
- The conversation is happening (slowly) at leadership levels
- Educators (at least from conference I've attended over the last year) are borderline optimistic :)
- Open courseware is a model that is gaining momentum
- Individual educators are adopting decentralized, social tools
- Individuals from "digital childhood" are beginning to take teaching positions in colleges/universities
- Change pressures continue to assault universities...and the combination of declining enrolment, learner expectations, advances in technology, increased understanding of the value of social software (driven by research), and case studies of adoption in businesses...is increasing the urgency of dialogue
Those who suggest that universities have no future forget the one basic
principle of any organization: continual change, experimentation, and
evolution. IF universities stay as they are today, yes, they will lose
relevance. But, once change pressures are significant enough, even the
most rigid structures change (who would have thought, even a few years
ago, that the NY Times would consider going completely online - as in no print version). If colleges and universities do what they are supposed to do (namely assist in forming a better society through the creation, dissemination of knowledge)...then they have a strong future if they can sense and react to the substantial change in learners and flow of knowledge. If universities and college move too far from this significant focus, then I imagine businesses will offer better opportunities for ongoing learning (defined as more relevant and functional). If we hold to our dual role as a change agent in society...and a filter for trends, I think my optimism is well founded.
So much information was shared over the past two days. Can we take it all home with us? We can take much of it and it can grow well beyond the conference if you take just a few minutes to add your notes and materials to the wiki. If you are presenter, add your slides, notes and links. Attendees can fill out the notes with additional reflections, links, and documents. Help build this living knowledge repository.
This is the second year we have created a blog and wiki to support and enhance the ODCE conference proceedings. This post will be permanently linked to from the right side bar. Please share with us some feedback about how valuable these tools were for you. Some questions to consider and respond to:
