Leadership Forum notes
Highlights from 10/17/05 Higher Education Leadership Forum
Opening Panel:
Kirschner: “Our smartest 18 year olds will not continue to march off to a 4 year college experience”; “2 years in darkened lecture halls: that was distance learning!”
Detweiler: “library is the appendix of the campus—and it has appendicitis”; liberal arts and technology are means to an end: students should learn to discern sense from amid nonsense.
Currie (?) Pre-professional education narrows the scope, we need more interdisciplinarity, fewer silos, and we need to change the rewards system (tenure?) to encourage this.
Have we lost the notion of education as a public good (citizens/democracy) and substituted the private good (I want a job!)?
Don’t shut down wireless in classrooms—just become more engaging so that they will want to stay with you
Twigg: we don’t necessarily need more technology, just more active learning and that requires course redesign
Stoll: anything that gets between inspiring professor and motivated students is bad, lots of money is spent on technology that could better be spent on other things (e.g., science lab stuff). Why do they always pick on mathematics and science to teach via technology? You need more than just problem-solving skills, you need to see the joy, get an intuitive feel that allows you to use it.
Render: higher education emphasizes creating knowledge for others rather than for use in our own institutions. You need to get your enabling technologies in place first, then you can try to align technology with institutional strategical thinking to meet goals (e.g., access, success, equity, diversity – networking and communications; institutional effectiveness – enterprise resource systems; lifelong learning – learning management systems; internationalization – analytics, knowledge management. Map the behaviors of the successful student (depersonalize data first): how many times do they log on, go to library, etc. to learn.
Gregorian: students learn to frame the questions in the context of their disciplines (too narrow!)—then they have no common vocabulary so no true communication can exist; what is valued (knowledge or technical skills) is what is taught by higher ed; public does not understand science, but they do understand technology: result, we are too focused on applications vs. the theory of pure science; “connectivity does not guarantee communication” (Thoreau); “you need something to say before you can communicate”; you can manipulate in a democracy: I can flood you with so much information that you can’t process it all (opposite of closing off information, but same result?); “knowledge does not understand artificial barriers—only universities do”; eventually (now?) only Ivy League schools will value education, others will train—this will set up another kind of divide; if you’re afraid to lose your funding by making a decision (alumni get mad?) then you have lost your leadership
Neal/Keller/Marcum:
We are looking at disruptive technology (The Innovator’s Dilemma)—should be user driven, iterative. Chaotic conditions exist, will continue to grow. Library patrons want personalization, usability. Opportunities exist: we must focus on standards, public policy advocacy. The issue is not whether libraries will survive, but the relevance and impact of them in the future.
Issue is access to information. Section 108 study group will reexamine exceptions; faculty are producing new materials, multimedia, collaborative: how does this work for the tenure system? (not well!); there will be libraries in the future: multiple and collaborative.
Change isn’t new in libraries, but challenges are intracampus (can you afford?, integrate vast arrays of materials; present a representative sample of works and services) and user (teach and enhance reader/user self sufficiency and information heuristic for lifelong learning; provide high touch services when and where needed.)
Zastrocky: Over ½ of our workforce will be over 40 by 2010; average growth of labor force under 55 2000-2025 = .3%
Need to brainstorm creative ways to recruit young faculty/staff by understanding generational characteristics
Need to look for opportunities to transfer knowledge/experience (if you’ve been mentored, you have an obligation to mentor others, but boomers don’t make this a priority)
Need to restructure HR policies and practices where necessary and explore ways to retain key people past retirement (may need to make it more fun!)
GenX: don’t want to work too hard, travel, work just for money. We keep people working way to hard—they’ll quit! We want sprinters speed and marathoner’s endurance and we start new races before the old ones are done—burn out.
There is a decline in foreign born students and they leave for home even if they are educated here. The hard sciences take a lot of work: they don’t want to do it!
Over 50 in IT—got broad experience, exciting to do new things (generalists), 35-50 are specialists (they can’t succeed you as a leader unless they get assignments that break them out of their silos); under 35 are again getting to implement broadly (work all over campus to put up web sites, etc.) are versatilists and will be possibly more ready for leadership.
Opening Panel:
Kirschner: “Our smartest 18 year olds will not continue to march off to a 4 year college experience”; “2 years in darkened lecture halls: that was distance learning!”
Detweiler: “library is the appendix of the campus—and it has appendicitis”; liberal arts and technology are means to an end: students should learn to discern sense from amid nonsense.
Currie (?) Pre-professional education narrows the scope, we need more interdisciplinarity, fewer silos, and we need to change the rewards system (tenure?) to encourage this.
Have we lost the notion of education as a public good (citizens/democracy) and substituted the private good (I want a job!)?
Don’t shut down wireless in classrooms—just become more engaging so that they will want to stay with you
Twigg: we don’t necessarily need more technology, just more active learning and that requires course redesign
Stoll: anything that gets between inspiring professor and motivated students is bad, lots of money is spent on technology that could better be spent on other things (e.g., science lab stuff). Why do they always pick on mathematics and science to teach via technology? You need more than just problem-solving skills, you need to see the joy, get an intuitive feel that allows you to use it.
Render: higher education emphasizes creating knowledge for others rather than for use in our own institutions. You need to get your enabling technologies in place first, then you can try to align technology with institutional strategical thinking to meet goals (e.g., access, success, equity, diversity – networking and communications; institutional effectiveness – enterprise resource systems; lifelong learning – learning management systems; internationalization – analytics, knowledge management. Map the behaviors of the successful student (depersonalize data first): how many times do they log on, go to library, etc. to learn.
Gregorian: students learn to frame the questions in the context of their disciplines (too narrow!)—then they have no common vocabulary so no true communication can exist; what is valued (knowledge or technical skills) is what is taught by higher ed; public does not understand science, but they do understand technology: result, we are too focused on applications vs. the theory of pure science; “connectivity does not guarantee communication” (Thoreau); “you need something to say before you can communicate”; you can manipulate in a democracy: I can flood you with so much information that you can’t process it all (opposite of closing off information, but same result?); “knowledge does not understand artificial barriers—only universities do”; eventually (now?) only Ivy League schools will value education, others will train—this will set up another kind of divide; if you’re afraid to lose your funding by making a decision (alumni get mad?) then you have lost your leadership
Neal/Keller/Marcum:
We are looking at disruptive technology (The Innovator’s Dilemma)—should be user driven, iterative. Chaotic conditions exist, will continue to grow. Library patrons want personalization, usability. Opportunities exist: we must focus on standards, public policy advocacy. The issue is not whether libraries will survive, but the relevance and impact of them in the future.
Issue is access to information. Section 108 study group will reexamine exceptions; faculty are producing new materials, multimedia, collaborative: how does this work for the tenure system? (not well!); there will be libraries in the future: multiple and collaborative.
Change isn’t new in libraries, but challenges are intracampus (can you afford?, integrate vast arrays of materials; present a representative sample of works and services) and user (teach and enhance reader/user self sufficiency and information heuristic for lifelong learning; provide high touch services when and where needed.)
Zastrocky: Over ½ of our workforce will be over 40 by 2010; average growth of labor force under 55 2000-2025 = .3%
Need to brainstorm creative ways to recruit young faculty/staff by understanding generational characteristics
Need to look for opportunities to transfer knowledge/experience (if you’ve been mentored, you have an obligation to mentor others, but boomers don’t make this a priority)
Need to restructure HR policies and practices where necessary and explore ways to retain key people past retirement (may need to make it more fun!)
GenX: don’t want to work too hard, travel, work just for money. We keep people working way to hard—they’ll quit! We want sprinters speed and marathoner’s endurance and we start new races before the old ones are done—burn out.
There is a decline in foreign born students and they leave for home even if they are educated here. The hard sciences take a lot of work: they don’t want to do it!
Over 50 in IT—got broad experience, exciting to do new things (generalists), 35-50 are specialists (they can’t succeed you as a leader unless they get assignments that break them out of their silos); under 35 are again getting to implement broadly (work all over campus to put up web sites, etc.) are versatilists and will be possibly more ready for leadership.
posted by Elizabeth at 7:26 PM
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