Type: Article

Subject(s):
SYSTEMS university, social, knowledge of
EDUCATION delivery, purpose, learning technology
TECHNOLOGY information, communication
BEHAVIOR models of instruction

Executive Summary: The author examined the hypothetical effect of the technologization of society with focus on the university system. Source tenets and economic theory lay the foundation for a transformation from an elite university system charged with gatekeeping theory and intellect to a self-guided university society in which information and mastery are freely-flowing. Extrapolating further identifies shifting roles and needs of said society as new skills are required to sort useful information from useless and to place knowledge in appropriate context.

I. Complex aspects of education, research and the application of knowledge depend on whole-person relationships. In order to fully realize the benefits of the information age, we must create public and non-governmental institutions for the funding of the public good that work and can be trusted. All of us, as participants in the democratic process of social evolution, must learn what knowledge is, what it is good for, and how its benefits can best be realized.

II. Predictions about change in the structure of education institutions: a list of ten transformations likely to follow the widespread adoption of new technologies, derived from the logic of the technologies in interaction with relevant behavioral principles. Summarized by a vision of a not-too-distant educational landscape in which there is a shift to manipulating knowledge as professional brokers of information rather than experts generating or maintaining original theories.

III. Institutional restructuring in a "university society" outlined in terms of modern and postmodern requirements, a narrowing of disciplinary and credentialing functions and an expansion of mechanisms to facilitate the management of complex systems of society and its relationship to its ecological context.

IV. The economics of the "university society" is fundamentally an economics of cooperation and collaboration with people and the environment. Facilitators would be highly skilled both at accessing information and at facilitating cognitive and emotional human development. Further characterized by interdisciplinary teams working to ensure the functionality of society, invoking the Benthamite criterion of the "greatest good for the greatest number." (Public spending and philanthropy.)

Executive Summary: Excerpts from Greater Expectations, a report of the association of American colleges and universities

Executive Summary: The Greater Expectations National Panel puts forth a Call to Action to higher education. The report cites major changes in significant arenas of society which put increasing pressure on the college and university systems as society transitions to the realities of the 21st century. Heavily-stressed components are the vast number of changes in the way we live today, the global nature of major problems, renewed emphasis on civic responsibility and the development of communal goals, and the spectre of decreased funding. The report suggests that a New Academy with learning at its center is emerging as the answer to what college aspirants and society need for the future. It further outlines several conceptual shifts necessary to progress from the present situation to the New Academy and makes recommendations to begin adapting college campuses to the pressures of the 21st century.

I. Included are considerations of the changes in workplace, in the demographics of college attendance, in enrollment patterns, the technologic revolution, the information explosion, a stricter regulatory environment, and changes within the educational system itself, e.g. distance and on-line learning, corporate universities, etc.

II. Action steps encompass participation by state and federal policy-makers, boards of trustees, accrediting associations, school boards, educational leaders, high school, college and university faculties, university graduate faculties, high school and college seniors, organizations responsible for national assessment of educational quality, employers, university and college presidents and deans, chief academic officers, state boards of education, high school and college academic advisors, business leaders, national associations, parents, students, national media and foundations.

III. The “New Academy” includes a rigorous, practical liberal education for all students built on the notion that all student can succeed at higher levels of education and deserve access, and is enacted through the educational system: individual colleges and universities, college and university faculty, curriculum development and classroom practice.

IV. “From rich and intertwined alliances, we look forward to the growth of a true learning society, one that prizes creative intellectual activity as the basis for personal growth, practical intelligence, moral leadership, economic success, and societal strength. A culture that celebrates all manifestations of powerful and continuous learning.”

[SUMMARIES FROM STUDENT J. FROILAND]