Changing Higher Education

Two more, very different, meetings

My friend Joe Duffey keeps sending me announcements about meetings in some vain hope that he can keep me more aware of what is happening in the world.  I feel compelled to comment on two of his recent alerts because they do say a lot about what is going on. One depresses me, the other I find very hopeful.
1. The World Summit on University Ranking- this is the depressing one. 
Readers of this blog know how I feel about university rankings: I dislike them greatly.  I could spend a day listing all of the reasons why, but will just run over a few. First, the idea that the overall quality of universities can be reduced to a single number in silly.  Every great university has some really terrible programs, and many otherwise mediocre institutions have some superb programs.  When trying to rank programs (as the NRC does), one finds that the reputational data are squishy (who really knows very much about the programs at more than a hand full of rival institutions?), and the “harder” data are rather arbitrarily chosen (it can be easily measured).  In the end, the statistical uncertainties of the data leave almost everyone in a statistical tie, but that doesn’t stop anyone from dropping the uncertainties and using the numbers as absolute. 

Because research data are easier to obtain than teaching data, rankings focus on the research.   This effective devaluing of teaching and learning in our self analyses is not healthy, and at some point will lead to difficulties in our relations with the societies that support us.

Whatever data are used, some person then must decide how to weight different inputs in order to add it up to a definition of  the best university.  Obviously, however, there is absolutely no unique way to combine the data.  One way is arguably as good as another.  This does not stop anyone either.  In fact,  the rankers like this aspect, since it means that an almost endless number of rankings can be published, each leading to a happy financial or reputational ending for someone.

Rankings are, of course, a celebration of the status quo.  Consequently, they punish institutions that are trying to respond innovatively to the changing world.   This would be of little importance if so many governing boards and presidents were not focused on “improving their rankings”.  Thus badly needed innovation - including cost cutting innovation - becomes even more difficult to carry out.

Finally, when making “world” rankings, most often the criteria are based on venerable Western universities.  Why? Why should looking like Harvard be a good idea in many countries of the world?

So overall, I think we can all be quite concerned that we now have an International Rankings Expert Group.  They are producing a product that by definition is flawed, and serves almost no good purpose.

2.The Global Higher Education Forum 2009-  this is the hopeful one.
This is almost the anti-meeting to the one described above;

The Global Higher Education Forum (GHEF) brings together scholars, policy makers, researchers, academics and administrators to reflect, analyse, discuss and debate on a wide variety of issues pertaining to global higher education in a south-south context. In particular, GHEF2009 will focus on the theme of Global Higher Education, seeking to ponder and reflect on the benefits and challenges and at the same time, envision the way forward for emerging and expanding, rather than for established, higher education systems.

This is a group that actually wants to think about alternative approaches to those which are celebrated above- approaches that may be enormously more valuable for the countries involved. As pointed out in the Background and Rational of the meeting:

In view of the many similar initiatives by different regions and groups to promote the development of higher education through a common platform (which is increasingly biased towards European/American models), the deliberation on the practicality and appropriateness of Asian, Latin American and African countries following the same pathway is timely. The current global economic meltdown presents another interesting backdrop and context to analyse and deliberate on the suitability of European/American models for expanding and emerging higher education systems in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

There is a wonderful article in GlobalHigherEducation written by two members of the organizing committee, Morshidi Sirat and Ooi Poh Ling, describing the goals of this forum. We should all wish them success.

British Universities in China: the Reality Beyond the Rhetoric

This is the title of a very interesting recent multi-authored discussion paper of Agora, a British think-tank for higher education. Although the paper is about British universities in China, most of what is said carries over directly to everyone’s globalization efforts worldwide. The director of Agora, Anna Fazackerley, provides a thought provoking introduction that provides an excellent context for the rest of the contributions. She points out the importance to institutions of thinking strategically about their globalization efforts, and having a clear understanding of what they hope to gain from them. She also emphasizes that the Chinese are in complete control of the process in their country, and that it is therefore critical to understand what China itself really wants when it allows foreign universities to enter. As part of the answer to this question, she suggests that "It is becoming apparent that one of the main uses of British universities to China will be their expertise in science and engineering".

The paper contains six contributions from individuals have considerable experience with higher education partnerships in China and throughout Asia.  Their comments are all well thought out, and quite thought provoking.  They point out the positives and negatives of working with China, and describe some of the sources of difficulties. The paper concludes with 3 case studies of different models of UK-China higher education partnerships. One of these is about the Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (Interesting activity at the for-profit/non-profit interface: Laureate, Jan. 14, 2008).  The other two are the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo campus,  and the joint degree program between Queen Mary College, University of London and Beijing University of Posts and Technology. 

All this makes for very interesting and valuable reading.

Why has globalization had such a small effect on higher education - and when will that change?

I recently wrote an article that addressed these provocative questions. It has been accepted for publication in New Directions for Higher Education, to be published by Jossey- Bass. I will just cover some of the main points of the article in this post, and point interested readers to the preprint.

I argued the first premise of this question - that globalization has had a small effect on higher education - by using the taxonomy that Samuel Palmisano defined to classify the stages of industrial globalization (see Globalization and internationalization, June 7, 2006).   I argued that most of what occurs in higher education today fits Palmisano’s 19th century “internationalization” model of hub-and-spoke activities.  I then described the relatively few activities in higher education that fit the early 20th century “multinational” phase, and the even more uncommon higher education activities that have real parallels with “globalization” as the term is generally used in the business literature.  I argued that the “international” activities have little potential to cause major change in higher education, but that both the “multinational” and “globalization” stages have the potential to cause as radical change in higher education as they have in industry generally.   

Is “excellence” a useful mission for higher education?

I have commented on the essential “nation-state” identity of universities, and how globalization-driven changes in the nature of government are leaving universities without a clear sense of future mission (see e.g.A nation state institution in a market state world, 3/28/06).  Michael A. Peters, in Knowledge Economy, Development and the Future of Higher Education, makes some excellent points about the “default” university  mission that has evolved.

He begins (p.166) by quoting B. Readings (The University in Ruins) regarding some of the consequences of the break-down of the link between the university and the nation state:

The economics of globalization mean that the university is no longer called upon to train citizen subjects, while the politics of the end of the cold war mean that the university is no longer called upon to uphold national prestige by producing and legitimating national culture.

Peters goes on to write:
Readings suggests that excellence has become the last unifying principle of the modern university.  When Ministry policy analysts or university administrators talked about excellence, unwittingly they bracket the question of values in favor of measurement and substitute accounting solutions for questions of accountability. As an integrating principle excellence has the advantage of being meaningless: it is non-referential.

Societal Expectations

In a recent post (Who are our customers for education:II Society as customer. April 22, 2007) I discussed possible societal expectations for higher education in an increasingly globalized world.  In this, I drew some parallels with societal expectations for American corporations as they expand globally.   Interestingly, the most recent McKinsey Quarterly (unfortunately subscription only) has an extended look at societal expectations regarding corporations.  Insofar as these expectations may be pertinent in understanding the societal expectations for universities as they expand, it is useful to review some aspects of what they found.

Interestingly, globally, 84% of executives of large corporations and 89% of consumers believe that corporate obligations to shareholders must be balanced by contributions to the broader public good. However, when executives grade themselves in their performance on this scale, only 68% of them say that corporations make a  “generally”or “somewhat” positive contribution to the public good.  The consumer’s view of the success rate of corporations is much less positive: 48% believe that corporation are making a “somewhat” or “generally” positive contribution to the public good.  However, although the executives grade themselves on this measure with some consistency around the world, the consumer’s viewpoint varies radically according to geographic location. Only 35%-40% of consumers in Europe, Japan, and the US say that large business makes a generally or somewhat positive contribution to social issues, while consumers in China (76%) and India (78%) view large corporations as positive on these measures.

The UC Berkeley Energy Biosciences Institute - a link in the knowledge supply chain?

There has been a lot of conversation and concern over the proposed Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley.  The UC description of EBI puts it directly into Pasteur’s quadrant of research that is both fundamental and applied to problems of importance to society:   

The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI)  is a new research and development organization that will bring advanced knowledge in biology, physical sciences, engineering, and environmental and social sciences to bear on problems related to global energy production, particularly the development of next-generation, carbon-neutral transportation fuels.

However, the controversy stems not so much from the nature of the research, but the partnership behind the project, which involves an unusually close university-corporate relationship:

EBI represents a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and BP, which will support the Institute with a 10-year $500 million grant. EBI's multidisciplinary teams will collectively explore total-system approaches to problems that include the sustainable production of cellulosic biofuels, enhanced biological carbon sequestration, bioprocessing of fossil fuels and biologically-enhanced petroleum recovery.

EBI will educate a new generation of students in all areas of bioenergy, and will serve as a model for large-scale academic-industry collaborations. By partnering with a major energy company, EBI will facilitate and accelerate the translation of basic science and engineering research to improved products and processes for meeting the world's energy needs in the 21st century.

This relationship will involve both the presence of 50 or so resident BP scientists on the campuses of UC and the University of Illinois, and a shared governance (and funding) process involving both BP and the academic institutions.  Details are still being worked out, but faculty, understandably and appropriately, have raised numerous issues relating to commercial influence on research and academic freedom, and the impact of this new entity on university internal issues of shared governance.

From my perspective, this partnership is another step for Berkeley towards a leadership role in what I earlier described (What business are we in? March 1, 2006) as management of the knowledge supply chain. In that earlier post, I suggested that one of the roles for universities in the future could be to both create new knowledge, and to see that that knowledge moves swiftly and effectively to the end users.  This would involve new types of close partnerships -process networks (see What has offshoring got to do with research universities? Feb.22, 2006) - between knowledge producers and users working towards a common goal.  Such partnerships need not be either exclusive or permanent, but would focus on an area where the partnership could bring mutual benefit. Of course, many partnerships already exist between academe and industry, but this EBI arrangement, through its scale and aspirations (including creation of the new discipline of Energy Biosciences), would seem to move to the next plane.

Who are our customers for education? II. Society as customer.

(Continuing the discussion of Who are our customers for education? I. The employer as customer.)

"Society" has traditionally been a major "customer" of higher education.  At different times and places, higher education has been called on by society to do such diverse things as help create and/or maintain national identity, display national cultural and intellectual excellence, create societal mobility,  preserve the societal status quo, contribute to economic growth and improved living conditions, fend off and counteract  foreign ideas and influences, and provide critical expertise in times of war.  Thus,  the expectations of society as customer have and will vary according to time and place.  In return for meeting these expectations, higher education (at least the non-profit side) generally has been well rewarded by society. Much of higher education globally traditionally has been run by the state, and thus received the great majority of its support from the state.  Private non-profit institutions have received de facto state support through tax breaks of a variety of types, and are typically eligible for some types and levels of state support.  Thus, the challenge is not to determine whether or not society is one of the customers of higher education- it is - but to define in this rapidly changing and globalizing world what "society" is, and what it expects (and will expect) of higher education.  Further complicating the issue is that "society" has many levels, ranging from governmental structures at one end of organizational complexity to individuals at the other, and the relationships between these, and intervening, levels is also changing rapidly.

Who are our customers for education? I. The employer as customer.

My son Wade has an MBA, which often leads (and enables) him to look at issues with a somewhat different perspective than I.  He recently suggested that it is possible that we in higher education were defining our customers incorrectly.  Perhaps, instead of viewing students and their parents as our customers for education, we should view the future employers of our students as our real customers.  Since I am always advising groups for which I consult to move up one level in abstraction in their thinking, I recognized that this really what my son was suggesting to me.   In this post, I want to follow up on this suggestion, with one addition to his definition of customers: I want to define the real customers of higher education as both future employers, and society generally.  This addition of society to the list of customers enables a broader discussion of the role of higher education in a changing world.

THE EMPLOYER AS CUSTOMER
Let me begin by focusing on the “future employers” component of this definition, turning later to the “society” component.  This customer focus is quite consistent with my earlier post that described higher education as being in the knowledge chain management business(What business are we in?, March 1, 2006).  In that post, I argued that a role that would take on increasing importance for higher education was that of moving new knowledge quickly to potential end users. (That post also discusses other critical aspects of knowledge chain management, such as creation of new knowledge.)  And the best known way to move information, skills and knowledge from one place to another is through an educated person.  Thus, this view changes our relationship with our students, because our graduates become a key part of the knowledge supply chain which moves knowledge from the creators and explicators to the users. In addition, it may create a different kind of long-term relationship with our graduates than now exists.

Modularity in university higher education: Education

(Continuing the discussion begun in Modularity in university higher education, June 16, 2006)

Education, as a module or modules, is a lot more complicated than research.  Choosing the appropriate definition for a module is not a sure thing since globalization may cause us to rethink our organization of education, and therefore of the appropriate definition of modules.

One example of the way in which educational modules are being redefined by the forces of globalization is given by the Bologna Process.  The Bologna Process describes a truly immense and courageous educational reform movement encompassing most of Europe.   In the past, most European countries had a first higher education degree that took of the order of six years to obtain, and was at a level roughly equal to that of an American Master’s degree. That, therefore, probably would have been a reasonable module for European education.  However, characteristics of these degrees varied significantly from country to country, thereby making student movement between countries difficult, and the long time to degree kept students out of the workplace for a long period.  Lack of uniformity in degree definitions, and the long time to degree significantly decreased the desirability of these programs to non-European students.  Increasing global competition made those undesirable consequences.  In order to get around these difficulties, the Bologna Process set out to have in place by 2010 a European Higher Education Area.  Within this area, the old six year programs will be divided into a 3-4 year Bachelor’s program, and a 1-2 year Master’s program, thus moving into closer alignment with the typical Anglo-American approach.  The resulting bachelors will in many cases be less “professional”and broader and more general than was the original longer degree, with professionalization coming through the Master’s.  The stated goals of this process are twofold: 1) to create an intellectual community that will help to define the identity of the new Europe; and 2) to attract the best students from around the world to the new European education.  Thus, at least in this instance, forces of  globalization have pushed one important region into a set of educational modules similar to those that would be most reasonable to define for the United States, but it need not always be this way.

De-fragmenting the university

From time-to-time I check the Millennium Project website to see what Jim Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan,  is writing and talking about.  He is one of the most visionary and articulate leaders of higher education today, and you can count on finding a new set of thought-provoking articles whenever you check in. 

A recent article Fixing the Fragmented University: A View from the Bridge is simply excellent. Any attempt to summarize it does it (and the reader) a tremendous disservice.  Suffice it to say that in a few pages he describes the forces of fragmentation in the modern research university, and approaches that leadership can take to rein in those forces just the right amount, providing some focus and flexibility to meet change without stifling the intellectual ferment that under girds the institution.  He emphasizes the necessity of building approaches that build on the legacy of the particular institution.  Much of what he says is drawn from the experience at Michigan, but it applies beautifully to a broad range of institutions.