We should all be concerned. Increased control
and uniformity over higher education by the federal government will likely lead
to increased mediocrity and higher cost. The students will suffer. The faculty
will become disenchanted. Society will be ill served. Can the
Alfred Lubell
From:
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:07
AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: Commission on the
Future of Higher Education
Tbers,
I am very concerned about the framing of the future of higher education being
put forward by the new federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education. It
seems to me that this is a continuing attempt to corporatize education, or to
make it subservient to corporate interests. I think we will see more and more
of this as corporatist government becomes stronger and more hegemonic.
More on “The Future”
The
Rick Uttich
<http://chronicle.com/>
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/07/2006071203n.htm
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Rethink Higher Education for a Changing World, Best-Selling
Author Tells Conference-Goers
By JEFFREY
SELINGO <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Colleges
need to refocus their missions in order to help American students compete in a
global economy, Thomas L. Friedman, the best-selling author and New York Times columnist, told a
standing-room-only crowd of university officials at the "Campus of the
Future" meeting here this week.
Mr. Friedman, the author of The
World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,
entertained the audience of more than 4,000 during an hour-long speech with
anecdotes from the reporting of his book and personal stories about his own
encounters with globalization. Speaking without notes, he told the joint
meeting of three higher-education associations that
Regarding
Still, he warned, if the
He urged educators to focus less on concrete outcomes like grades
and test scores and more on teaching students how to learn, instilling passion
and curiosity in them, and developing their intuitive skills. He compared
educating students for an uncertain future to "training for the Olympics
without knowing which sport you will compete in."
Less and less, he said, universities should be training students
for specific jobs -- many of which could be outsourced in the future -- and
instead should focus on eight skills he identified as essential for the
middle-class jobs of the future.
Commenting on those skills, he said that students will need to be
synthesizers, explainers, and adaptors, as well as leveragers, who can figure
out how one person can do the job of 20, and localizers, who can discover local
angles to global businesses.
They must also have skills as collaborators and passionate
personalizers, he said, and as developers of "green," or
environmentally sustainable, enterprises.
He illustrated collaboration by describing a trip to
As an example of a passionate personalizer, he told the story of
a lemonade vendor at Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles, who not
only sells lemonade, but does it with a sideshow. "At the end of the day,
he has a stack of bills in tips greater than anyone else in the ballpark,"
Mr. Friedman said. Now the vendor has been hired out for parties.
And sustainability, he said, will be increasingly important as
See also the following related article:
The University As Economic Savior
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i45/45a01801.htm
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© 2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education <http://chronicle.com/>
Posted to Teaching Breakfast list with permission.