These variables affecting higher education are not new. Fifty years ago, Clark Kerr, then president of the University of California system, coined the term multiversity to describe the transformation of the university to become increasingly responsive to market demands. In referring to the challenges facing academic leaders as a result of the explosion of knowledge and rising market demands of business, government, the military, and other groups, Lucas (1994) writes, “Too harassed to lead, university administrators had become mediators among competing interests, trying to balance contradictory demands, treating students like consumers, knowledge as a factory product and course offerings as supermarket wares”. The intensity of these challenges has not abated in the past fifty years, but intensified.
Each of the converging challenges seems like overwhelming in its own right, but like a perfect storm, the confluence of these five challenges generates a condition or circumstance that is far more powerful. Together these five challenges have created a perfect storm, a perfect opportunity to innovate on various fronts; they have created a sense of crisis that makes innovation more likely to be accepted by those who might otherwise resist change. Academic leaders can seize the opportunity to meet these challenges and, rather than react to them, take a proactive position and use the challenges to transform higher education.
The challenges facing higher education are serious, and they will test academic leaders to be innovative and creative in moving their institutions away from the status quo. This will be achieved not through incremental change but through systemic change. Many institutions are currently implementing isolated innovations to address some of the changes discussed in this chapter. These actions, although successful on a small scale, are not addressing systemic issues. The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the largest of the regional accrediting agencies, both in number and type of institution, provides a good gauge of the efficacy of these individual efforts. Steven D. Crow, the departing president of the HLC, noted at the 2008 annual meeting that while institutions have been working diligently to figure out what their students should be learning and whether they are, in fact, learning, it is not clear whether all the individual efforts are adding up to much (Lederman, 2008,p. 1). Institutions are employing a wide variety of approaches, many of which are very small in scope, as they address individual challenges. Instead, leaders need to see the confluence of the challenges. Academic leaders need to assess the current situation from a comprehensive view and assume the risks required to chart a course through this perfect storm.
Transforming higher education will require innovation and a spirit of entrepreneurship. As the political, social, economic, and technological environment continues to change rapidly, more attention must be given to the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in addressing those changes. Leaders who accept this challenge will be the learning entrepreneurs, the leaders who will lead dynamic change. Drawing on an agenda put forth by Mintrom (1997) in defining policy entrepreneurs, we define learning entrepreneurs as those individuals who identify problems, shape policy, and move their institutions away from the status quo.
Recognizing that there is no single remedy or solution to the complex challenges facing institutions of higher education and that each institution has unique characteristics and features, the framework that we provide is just that, a framework, a scaffolding that will support independent investigation, an agenda to guide leaders as they take actions to innovate and redefine higher education. The comprehensive framework that we propose is predicated on the belief that in order to transform higher education, we must analyze the paradigm that we operate within. We will then call for a shift to a new paradigm, the shift toward learning-centeredness that was introduced by Barr and Tagg in 1995.
Each of the converging challenges seems like overwhelming in its own right, but like a perfect storm, the confluence of these five challenges generates a condition or circumstance that is far more powerful. Together these five challenges have created a perfect storm, a perfect opportunity to innovate on various fronts; they have created a sense of crisis that makes innovation more likely to be accepted by those who might otherwise resist change. Academic leaders can seize the opportunity to meet these challenges and, rather than react to them, take a proactive position and use the challenges to transform higher education.
The challenges facing higher education are serious, and they will test academic leaders to be innovative and creative in moving their institutions away from the status quo. This will be achieved not through incremental change but through systemic change. Many institutions are currently implementing isolated innovations to address some of the changes discussed in this chapter. These actions, although successful on a small scale, are not addressing systemic issues. The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the largest of the regional accrediting agencies, both in number and type of institution, provides a good gauge of the efficacy of these individual efforts. Steven D. Crow, the departing president of the HLC, noted at the 2008 annual meeting that while institutions have been working diligently to figure out what their students should be learning and whether they are, in fact, learning, it is not clear whether all the individual efforts are adding up to much (Lederman, 2008,p. 1). Institutions are employing a wide variety of approaches, many of which are very small in scope, as they address individual challenges. Instead, leaders need to see the confluence of the challenges. Academic leaders need to assess the current situation from a comprehensive view and assume the risks required to chart a course through this perfect storm.
Transforming higher education will require innovation and a spirit of entrepreneurship. As the political, social, economic, and technological environment continues to change rapidly, more attention must be given to the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in addressing those changes. Leaders who accept this challenge will be the learning entrepreneurs, the leaders who will lead dynamic change. Drawing on an agenda put forth by Mintrom (1997) in defining policy entrepreneurs, we define learning entrepreneurs as those individuals who identify problems, shape policy, and move their institutions away from the status quo.
Recognizing that there is no single remedy or solution to the complex challenges facing institutions of higher education and that each institution has unique characteristics and features, the framework that we provide is just that, a framework, a scaffolding that will support independent investigation, an agenda to guide leaders as they take actions to innovate and redefine higher education. The comprehensive framework that we propose is predicated on the belief that in order to transform higher education, we must analyze the paradigm that we operate within. We will then call for a shift to a new paradigm, the shift toward learning-centeredness that was introduced by Barr and Tagg in 1995.
