What will the university of the future look like?

By Fletcher Glancy

 What will the University of the future look like (post pandemic)? It will probably not look like today’s university. The universities that do not change will be in danger of disappearing, having priced themselves out of the market. A few will remain, the Ferrari’s of academia, schools like Harvard, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins.

I think there will be different university models. I can see two models based on the end goal. One will be a liberal education university. The goal of this university would be to produce a well-rounded individual with a bachelor's degree. Included within this university would be the soft subjects like philosophy, social sciences, literature, and history. Included in social sciences are sociology, psychology, and economics. The cost of liberal education will have to decrease relative to current tuition and fees. This means that there will be fewer services, fewer numbers of staff, and educators will be paid less, likely in line with public K – 12 teachers.

The other kind of university will be teaching the skills that business and industry need and are willing to pay for with high salaries. These include engineering, accounting, computer programming, information systems, finance, and marketing. The cost of these disciplines will also have to decrease through reduced services which will allow reductions in administration and staff. Within this university, I think that there will be two different types of academics. One will be funded from tuition and focused primarily on teaching. I can imagine that every educator will teach three to four classes per semester instead of the three to four per year. This will have the result of having better educators teaching, and consequently, the students will receive a better education. The other type of academic will be a researcher who is partly supported by the university, primarily through access to facilities. The remainder of their support would come from grants and support from business and industry. The researching academic will be forced to do relevant research, which will have the effect of eliminating research that is relevant only to other academics.

The question remains which university will teach math and sciences. Most of these require a PhD to do meaningful work. I suspect most will end up being taught in the skills university. However, there is an argument for including them in the university of the liberal arts. Another question is, where will the college of education be. I suspect it will either be in the university of liberal arts, which is where it resides in many universities today, or as a stand-alone university. This would be reminiscent of the teachers colleges that used to exist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

General Education Requirements in Colleges, an Anachronism?

By Fletcher Glancy
  In the 1880s, universities instituted general education requirements. There was little consistency in education in the first 12 years of schooling. Many students only went through the 8 th  grade. The only constant was that students entered college in their late teenage years. Colleges needed to provide a base of general education that they could build on. Here we are, 130+ years later, and still imposing general education requirements on all students. Public education in the USA is remarkably consistent across all states. Many students complain that they are required to repeat classes that they had in high school, classes that provide no new information or knowledge. These classes are typically taught in large classes (200 or more students), often by Ph.D. students. There is little to no faculty contact because of the class size. Required general education classes keep the student at the university for another year and increase the income from the tuition and fees. Eliminat...
Read more

Diversity

By Fletcher Glancy
  We keep hearing that we need more diversity in just about everywhere, colleges, businesses, government, congress, and our lives. So what are we doing about it? At my university, they named a chief diversity officer. We have approximately 30 people in the office of institutional diversity. My college recently named a chief diversity officer. Personally, I think this is a cop-out. My dean can say, “I’m doing a lot for diversity. I have a diversity officer. All of my faculty and staff are required to take a diversity course.” (By the way, all of these diversity office staff are minorities. See what a great job we have done.) Having a diversity officer does nothing for diversity. It is all talk and no action. People that genuinely lead don’t need someone to do diversity for them. They promote diversity through their actions. It is not diversity that is needed in society. It is inclusion. We do not need token minorities; we need minorities included to benefit from all points of view. ...
Read more

Should you go to college?

By Fletcher Glancy
  “In recent years, the average college graduate with just a bachelor’s degree earned about $78,000, compared to $45,000 for the average worker with only a high school diploma. This means a typical college graduate earns a premium of well over $30,000, or nearly 75 percent.” https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2019/06/despite-rising-costs-college-is-still-a-good-investment.html Does this mean that you need to go to college? First, what is essential to understand about this statement? Second, what word(s) needs to be looked at carefully? Can you see it? To what time period does this refer? Is it an average over time, such as the 20 years after high school graduation? Or is it the individual’s income in the 20 th year after graduation from high school? How many people were in the sample? Did the survey consider the college graduate’s debt from attending college? Were Bill Gates, Rhianna, and Mark Zuckerburg in the sample group of those not graduating from college? Were...
Read more