Designing the Future in Higher Education
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Designing the Future in Higher Education Libby V. Morris 1 Published online: 3 August 2018 # Springer Nature B.V. 2018
A large number of institutions struggle to bring about higher levels of student persistence, retention, and graduation in the context of ongoing public concerns about the cost and value of higher education. Concomitantly, it is difficult to plan for the future under the intense pressures created by public scrutiny, tight budgets, and competition for students and resources. Yet, rapid changes in higher education delivery mechanisms, student demographics, and workforce needs demand attention. It is in this context that the Georgia Institute of Technology (Ga Tech) established a Commission on Creating the Next in Education (CNE). Provost Rafael Bras convened and charged the group with envisioning and defining B…the technological research university of the 21st century.^ The Commission recognized that leading institutions will make detailed plans for the future and will incorporate both the traditional linear, fixed-time models prevalent in postsecondary education with new pedagogical paradigms to engage students and graduates for a lifetime. This approach is captured as the Georgia Tech Commitment to a Lifetime Education. I was particularly interested in the CNE 2018 report, Deliberate Innovation, Lifetime Education, because Georgia Tech consistently ranks as a top 10 public institution, recognized around the world for excellence in engineering as well other academic fields. Admissions are competitive; graduation rates are high; and graduates rapidly move into successful careers. Nevertheless, Ga Tech saw dramatic change on the horizon and moved to respond. The 50+ member commission expended hundreds of hours across three years and countless meetings across multiple subgroups to complete their work. I was curious about how a select planning group at a leading U.S. research institution would think about the future of education? Where would the group and the institution see the opportunities and challenges in defining the future? The Commission’s charge was to address Ga Tech’s current educational practices and methods, to benchmark best practices, and to make recommendations about serving learners in the future. In anticipation of the growing diversity of students, the report describes a model that goes beyond college as a place for a specific age-group focused on degrees. That model becomes a platform for serving diverse students, across a lifetime and around the globe. The report is quick to state that the traditional residential experience will remain the core of the GA
* Libby V. Morris [email protected]
1
University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
322
Innovative Higher Education (2018) 43:321–322
Tech mission, while at the same time the institution designs new tools and approaches to serve increasing numbers of non-traditional, socially, economically and ethnically diverse students. The report’s central thrust is to design responsive educational opportunities for engagement across a lifetime. Rec
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