Leading the Learner-Centered Campus E-Book

Michael Harris

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 295

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Praise for Leading the Learner-Centered Campus "This book moves far beyond previous thinking about change. Many in higher education want to create more learner-centered campuses but grapple with how to do it. Harris and Cullen show us how to lead the change to more learner-centered campuses--and offer very practical tools for getting there from here. Every campus that takes student learning seriously should be having the conversation that this book advances and supports."--John Tagg, author, The Learning Paradigm College "This is a dynamite text for all leaders in higher education who want to implement change. It starts with a deceptively simple idea--that change needs to be 'learner-centered,' not just in the classroom, but in every aspect of a campus. Achieving that end is far from simple, but the authors make clear that it's well within reach if readers pay close attention to the wisdom in this book."--Thomas Ehrlich, senior scholar, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and former president, Indiana University "At a time when most of higher education is seeking effective ways to maximize the value of student-centered learning, Harris and Cullen provide a comprehensive road map for completing the kind of paradigm shift that can accomplish just that ... This book merits the attention of everyone with a stake in the future of higher education."--Anthony J. Diekema, former president, Calvin College "If higher education is going to provide what students will need in the twenty-first century, it'll have to complete the transition from teaching to learning that Barr and Tagg proposed back in 1995. Leading the Learner-Centered Campus is an indispensible resource for professors and administrators who are committed to the success of today's college students."--Jeffrey L. Buller, author, The Essential College Professor, The Essential Academic Dean, and The Essential Department Chair

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Foreword

Dedication

Preface

Shifting Paradigms

Purpose

Audience

Scope

Book Structure

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Part I - Learner-Centered Leadership

Content and Structure of Part I

Chapter 1 - Rethinking Our Current Challenges The Context for Change

The Time for Innovation

New Knowledge

Changes in Perception

Demographic Changes

Industry and Market Changes

Process Needs

A Perfect Storm

Concluding Thoughts

Chapter Summary

Chapter 2 - The Instructional Paradigm The Reason for Change

Challenges of Academic Leadership

Rewards of Administrative Work

The Instructional Paradigm

Unmaking the Paradigm

Concluding Thoughts

Chapter Summary

Chapter 3 - The Learner-Centered Paradigm The Goal of Change

The Learner-Centered Paradigm

Research on Learning

Why We Need to Know Learner-Centered Practices

The Learner-Centered Classroom

Concluding Thoughts

Chapter Summary

Chapter 4 - Leading the New Paradigm The Method for Change

Literature on Leadership

Four-Step Strategy for Change

The Leadership Portfolio

Critical Reflection

Concluding Thoughts

Chapter Summary

Part II - Advancing the Learner-Centered Agenda

Introduction

Content and Structure of Part II

Chapter 5 - Fostering Faculty Development

Seeing the Influence of the Instructional Paradigm

Realigning with the New Paradigm

Assessing Degree of Learner-Centeredness

Modeling a Learner-Centered Approach

The Leadership Portfolio

Chapter Summary

Chapter 6 - Orienting New Faculty

The New Generation of Faculty

Seeing the Influence of the Instructional Paradigm

Realigning with the New Paradigm

Assessing the Process

Modeling a Learner-Centered Approach

The Leadership Portfolio

Chapter Summary

Chapter 7 - Assessing Teaching Quality

Seeing the Influence of the Instructional Paradigm

Realigning with the New Paradigm

Assessing the Process

Modeling a Learner-Centered Approach

Chapter Summary

Chapter 8 - Supporting Learning Through Renovation of Spaces

Physical Space and Learning

Seeing the Influence of the Instructional Paradigm

Realigning with the New Paradigm

Assessing the Process

Modeling a Learner-Centered Approach

The Leadership Portfolio

Chapter Summary

Closing Thoughts

References

Index

Michael Harris

Roxanne Cullen

Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harris, Michael, 1956-

Leading the learner-centered campus : an administrator’s framework for improving student learning outcomes / Michael Harris, Roxanne Cullen. p. cm. - (The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-62544-6

1. Universities and colleges-Administration. 2. School improvement programs.

3. Educational change. I. Cullen, Roxanne Mann. II. Title.

LB2341.H324 2010

378.1’01-dc22

2010003735

HB Printing

The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series

Foreword

Interest in the learned-centered paradigm, largely launched by Barr and Tagg’s now widely referenced 1995 Change magazine article, remains high. Unlike many other new ideas with fleeting popularity, this one continues to generate dialogue, both among faculty in the classroom and among academic leaders who envision institutions more focused on learning.

The idea that students should be more responsible for learning and that teaching should be about facilitating that learning has resonated with faculty who deal with students who are, now more than ever, passive and reliant on teachers to direct every aspect of their learning. Not only do the ideas of learner-centered teaching make sense theoretically, college teachers across disciplines have successfully implemented instructional approaches that reflect this new focus on learning. The pedagogical literature of the disciplines is replete with examples of group-work assignments, service learning opportunities, collaborative testing structures, and online discussion forums that illustrate how teachers are encouraging students to see themselves as learners who are responsible for what and how they learn. Across the board, faculty report, and in many cases document, that these approaches positively impact student motivation and result in deeper learning experiences.

So far, learner-centered teaching has mostly been a grassroots movement, changing the landscape of higher education classroom by classroom. The progress is slow, and resistance from students and faculty is common. That students resist is expected; these approaches require that students do more of the tasks associated with learning. For instance, the teacher may ask them to generate examples, rather than copying down examples the teacher lists in class.

That faculty resist and challenge the veracity of pedagogies more focused on learning and less centered on teaching is more perplexing. In part, this resistance derives from not knowing how to teach in these ways, but it also bespeaks a lack of institutional commitment to the learner-centered paradigm. Academic leaders often pay lip service to the idea of becoming a learner-centered institution, but few colleges and universities have put any institutional muscle behind the move to become learner-centered. Creating a climate for learning in a classroom is not accomplished by decree, just as creating a learner-centered institution is not accomplished with public relations materials that proclaim its presence.

Perhaps institutions can be partly excused because higher education has only recently—and incompletely—considered what makes an institution learner-centered. It’s fine to say that your institution is learner-centered, and it’s probably even necessary to regularly reiterate that commitment. However, creating a learner-centered college or university takes leadership at every level and a clear understanding of what policies, practices, procedures, and priorities make learning the energy-center of the institution. What precisely and specifically that entails brings us to the need for and value of this book.

Right from the start, those writing about learner-centered teaching and learning-centered institutions have noted that this kind of change requires a paradigm shift in thinking about institutional goals and priorities. Unfortunately, “paradigm shift” has become something of a cliché used to describe almost any kind of realignment. In this book, Harris and Cullen point out that the kind of change they write about requires something much more dramatic than moving from one line to another and is not a seamless transition. The opening chapters of this book ably elaborate on the significant changes involved when an institution makes a commitment to become learning-centered.

The power of the authors’ voices derives from experience. Yes, they know the literature, amply referencing and documenting the theory and research behind the learning-centered paradigm, but they have also lived what they write about. Their institutional context is similar to what most of us experience. Theirs is not an elitist institution with selective enrollment and a large endowment; it’s a frontline institution with needy students and inadequate resources. The relevance of the authors’ experience adds legitimacy and power to how they propose to realize the goals of the learner-centered paradigm. If becoming learning-centered can happen at institutions like theirs, it can happen anywhere.

Harris and Cullen also write with understanding of and appreciation for grassroots leadership. If classrooms are to become learner-centered, faculty need the local support of their departments. Professors working to implement learner-centered approaches need access to material resources and faculty development opportunities. They need to be working in an environment that values collaboration and recognizes how much faculty can learn from and with each other. They need department and division chairs who recognize that efforts to implement instructional changes don’t always go smoothly, and that sometimes students complain to local leaders about the learning experiences they most need to have (“That professor made us do all the work!”). Harris and Cullen offer department chairs and other local leaders a plethora of information, ideas, and advice that can directly support efforts at the departmental level to become more learning-centered.

Chapter Seven, for example, tackles the tough issue of faculty evaluation and makes clear the important distinction between formative and summative evaluation. Academic leaders need one kind of information to make personnel decisions; faculty need very different kinds of information to implement changes that positively impact learning outcomes. Moreover, if the goal is to use pedagogies that engage and involve students, then the instruments used to assess instruction should not be asking numerous questions about didactic teaching methods. It’s a chapter that beautifully illustrates how efforts to become learner-centered involve changes that depend on leadership at every level within the institution.

As Chapter Eight points out, the configuration of learning spaces, like classrooms, can become symbols of a new commitment to learning. Classrooms with seats permanently laid out in rows with a podium positioned in front do not encourage faculty to use group work. Classrooms with moveable seats and a less clearly defined front of the room make students and teachers aware of the possibilities of learning together.

You’ll enjoy reading this book. Harris and Cullen offer material that is intellectually rich and provocative yet, at the same time, pragmatic and useful. How these authors propose making institutions learner-centered is rooted in reality. What they propose is sensible and doable. For any academic leader, whether a faculty curriculum committee chair, a department head, dean, provost, president, or the person charged with orienting new faculty, this book offers much needed wisdom on those realities that make institutions learning-centered.

Maryellen Weimer

We would like to dedicate this book to our families for the sacrifices they have made. For their support, understanding, encouragement, love, and patience.

Michael Harris dedicates this book to his wife, Tali, and his sons, Ronen, Asaf, and Amit.

Roxanne Cullen dedicates this book to her husband, John Cullen.

Preface

Institutional core values, unlike missions, are intended to represent the values that underlie our work, our interactions, our practices. They guide our decision making, direct our processes, determine how we reward accomplishments, and represent our most fundamental beliefs. They are the values of the paradigm in which we operate.

In 2004, the authors of The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric Reality and the Risks of the Market, an investigation of the market forces affecting higher education, wrote, “[T]he list of . . . fissures between higher education’s rhetoric and its performance is long and it is growing” (Newman, Couturier, & Scurry, p. 6). One of those fissures is the disconnect between institutionally espoused core values and practiced core values. The core values currently espoused by institutions of higher education on websites and in public documents reflect media trends and read like responses to the public concerns over a perceived lack of accountability. These statements more often represent rhetorical exercises in public relations rather than thorough, critical examinations of true operating values and processes.

In this book we argue that the disconnect between institutionally espoused values and true operating values is not solely a result of outside forces affecting institutions but rather the result of the anachronistic paradigm that dominates our thinking. Because of our unwitting acceptance of this paradigm, we operate according to a set of core values that we would not privately adhere to or publicly promote. Institutional rhetoric remains disconnected from the reality of institutional behaviors because of this phenomenon. What is needed is a shift from the instructional paradigm to the learner-centered paradigm.

Shifting Paradigms

The term paradigm shift, as originally used by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), referred exclusively to scientific theory; however, its meaning has become more generic and now refers to radical changes in thought that require complete reenvisioning of systems or organizations. To us, the word shift makes the challenge of radical change seem too easy, like changing place with someone in line or shifting gears on a bicycle, suggesting that if leadership makes one adjustment, the rest of the gears will fall into place and the new paradigm will be operational. But that will certainly not be the case. Shifting gears on bicycles allows riders to maintain their cadence as the terrain becomes more difficult. This is most definitely not how shifting paradigms works. Our cadences will be interrupted. Shifting paradigms is unbalancing and unsettling because it is about shifting thinking and attitudes.

Leading the transition to a learner-centered campus will involve everyone—governing boards, presidents, provosts, vice presidents, deans, chairs, faculty, academic and nonacademic staff, and, of course, students—reenvisioning their work. Shifting thinking and attitudes is an organizational metamorphosis requiring all parties to shed the old while growing the new. The shift that must take place is counterintuitive in many ways, thus requiring individuals to pay conscious attention to their actions and decisions.

Institutions of higher education are being challenged on all fronts, attempting to change their ways of doing business in order to answer calls for accountability, transparency, access, and relevancy. Incremental changes in response to these challenges abound; however, incremental changes are not enough. In order to respond to our rapidly changing environment, we need comprehensive change, a change in paradigms. The concept of shifting toward a learner-centered paradigm is certainly not new. Faculty in the United States and abroad have been experimenting and adopting learner-centered practices with great success. However, if the comprehensive shift to a new paradigm is to become a reality, then the efforts to transform our practices need to extend beyond the classroom. Institutions themselves must become realigned with the new paradigm to become learner-centered institutions.

Until now, little discussion has taken place regarding the role of administrators at all levels within institutions and in all areas of the institution, not solely academic affairs, in fostering this institutional shift. If the shift toward learner-centeredness is to be realized as a true paradigm shift, that discussion must begin. It is time for administrators to consider their role in making the paradigm shift a reality.

Purpose

The purpose of this book is to begin that discussion and to offer a method for campus leaders who are willing to take on the challenge of reenvisioning their own practices in order to make the shift in paradigms complete. Our aim is to provide leaders with a framework for examining their work in light of the instructional and learner-centered paradigms and to offer some specific strategies for critically examining habitual practices in order to make every aspect of our work intentional. The goal of this process is to bridge the disconnect between institutionally espoused values and our true operating values.

Audience

We offer leaders a method for change that recommends (1) examining their current practices to see how they are governed by the instructional paradigm; (2) considering how they could realign these practices to be consistent with the learner-centered paradigm; (3) finding ways to infuse assessment into the process to drive the change; and (4) modeling the way by adopting new behaviors that illustrate learner-centeredness within their own work habits. This process is one that leaders can apply to all facets of organizational behaviors or practices within their spheres of influence.

Department chairs can use this process to look at departmental procedures, such as scheduling classes, providing faculty development opportunities, or recruiting new faculty. Deans can apply the same process to college-wide systems and procedures, such as looking at the process for allocating budgets, developing and supporting new programming, procuring funds for needed equipment and learning spaces, or allocating faculty rewards and initiatives. Vice presidents, provosts, and presidents can follow the same process to analyze operating behaviors at the divisional or institutional levels.

Scope

In this book, we will provide an examination of the need to shift, offering an explanation for why change within institutions of higher education seems to be so difficult to achieve. We will frame that discussion in terms of the paradigm that currently governs our thinking and approach to problem solving, the instructional paradigm. There is a tremendous amount of personal challenge in this process for it asks us to step outside our habitual ways of doing things and to consider if time-honored practices that seem natural and logical to us are as natural and logical as we have assumed. The difficulty of recognizing our paradigm is best articulated by Stephen Brookfield (1995) when he writes, “Paradigmatic assumptions are the hardest of all assumptions to uncover. They are the structuring assumptions we use to order the world into fundamental categories. Usually we don’t even recognize them as assumptions, even after they’ve been pointed out to us. Instead we insist that they’re objectively valid renderings of reality, the facts we know them to be true” (p. 2). However, we must learn to see the paradigm we work in if we are to change it.

Part of the challenge in this process is resisting the temptation to look for technical solutions. We will argue that our penchant for looking for ways to fix things, or “how to do it,” is an outgrowth of the instructional paradigm. In writing about process frontiers, which he defines as new areas of activity or modifications for organizations, organizational change theorist Peter Vaill (1996) warned, “Institutional learning philosophy and practice have bred into many of us an obsession with ‘how to do it.’ This obsession amounts to a desire not to have a learning experience! We do not want to go through the creative process that process frontiers require. Rather, we want a protocol that takes the messiness and anxiety out of the process frontier. We want our learning to be targeted and efficient” (p. 136). We would like reading this book to be a learning experience, so rather than providing a one-size-fits-all solution or practice, we ask readers to reflect, analyze, and create new possibilities within their own frame of reference by applying a more general framework. Although we provide examples of some of our attempts to put into practice this model for change, we resist offering specific directions on “how to do it.” Rather, we present ways of seeing and trying to train ourselves to see in a new way, to remove the corrective lens of the instructional paradigm.

Book Structure

The first four chapters, Part I, are organized around this conception of change. Chapter 1 presents the context for change, the forces affecting higher education that make the time conducive to action. Chapter 2 examines the reason for change, namely, the instructional paradigm that governs our current operations. We look at specific features of the paradigm: issues of power and control, ownership of knowledge, organizational fragmentation, and isolation and unhealthy competition. Reviewers of our manuscript accused us of adopting a “finger-wagging” attitude in this chapter, as if we were anti-administration. If our fingers are indeed wagging, they are not wagging at administrators but at the paradigm that makes administrative work so very difficult. We argue that it is the attributes of the instructional paradigm that make change difficult to manage and likewise the factors that make administrative work so demanding and in some cases unfulfilling. Chapter 3 examines the goal of change, the learner-centered paradigm. We begin the chapter with an overview of the characteristics of the learner-centered paradigm and the research on learning upon which it is based, trying to make a case for why this knowledge is necessary for academic leaders. Chapter 4 offers an examination of the leadership qualities that individuals must have in order to lead the shift to the new paradigm. We review the literature on leadership according to three main features of the learner-centered paradigm: power sharing, community building, and assessment and evaluation.

Lick (2002) notes that in order to shift paradigms, a new breed of leader is required, one who is able to “lead the new paradigm from rough concept to practical application” (p. 30). Part II provides the practical applications. Chapter 5 looks at ways of fostering faculty development in the new paradigm. Chapter 6 presents a framework for orienting new faculty based on the learning community model. Chapter 7 considers the evaluation of teaching quality in the new paradigm, and Chapter 8 looks at renovating physical learning spaces to accommodate learner-centered practices. Each chapter in Part II first considers how current practices are informed by the instructional paradigm and then offers an illustration of how we attempted to realign the practice within the framework of the new paradigm, infusing assessment to drive the change and modeling best practices in the process.

Acknowledgments

Many individuals have helped us during our research and writing. Two special individuals made this book possible. Thomas Ehrlich, Senior Scholar, The Carnegie Foundation, and Former President of Indiana University, and Anthony J. Diekema, Former President of Calvin College. Both are mentors to Michael. We also wish to make particular mention of Maryellen Weimer, who supported the concept and development of this manuscript from its inception; David Brightman, whose belief in the project and editorial expertise were of profound assistance; David’s assistant, Aneesa Davenport; Cathy Mallon, who oversaw production; Paul Blake and Reinhold Hill, who read drafts and gave thoughtful commentary; Ariel Harris for his unconditional love and support; Roy Tamir for his friendship, support, and belief; Mindy Britton for her commitment and dedication; Ron Snead and George Menoutes, who serve as models of value-based ethical leadership; the Jossey-Bass reviewers for helpful comments; Judith DaDay, who assisted with editing; and Mary Ply, who coordinated scheduling and provided untold administrative support. Finally, we acknowledge and express gratitude to the many students, faculty, staff, and administrators whom we learned so much from and who helped us create the vision.

About the Authors

Michael Harris serves as the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Kettering University and as a professor of public policy. He received a Ph.D. in public policy from Indiana University, a master’s degree from Tel-Aviv University, and an undergraduate degree in economics and business administration from Bar-Ilan University. He is a graduate of two of the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s programs (IEM and MDP). He has published three books as well as articles in a variety of journals. Dr. Harris has been recognized for his teaching excellence and serves as a political commentator to a variety of broadcast and print media.

Roxanne Cullen is a professor of English at Ferris State University, where she has also served as Writing Center director, administrative head of the Department of Languages and Literature, interim associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and assistant and associate vice president for Academic Affairs. In addition to her administrative service, she is a recipient of the university Distinguished Teaching Award. She received a Ph.D. in English from Bowling Green State University and a B.A. in English from SUNY Geneseo.

Part I

Learner-Centered Leadership

While the focus on student learning has come to the forefront of institutional planning, there has been very little discussion of the magnitude of this proposed systemic change. Instead the focus has been on classroom pedagogy with most of the effort and literature on the learner-centered paradigm and the scholarship of teaching focused on strategies for faculty. And although incremental change has occurred, the larger, systemic change that defines a paradigm shift has not. The first four chapters that constitute Part I are about systemic change.

Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation, noted how change occurs through critical reinterpretation: “Scholars develop powerful skeptical and critical capacities to reexamine old truths using the lenses of new conceptual frameworks” (Shulman, 2008, p. 7). A reinterpretation of old truths using a new lens is what we offer in Part I. While others have documented the market influences affecting higher education, the shortfalls of the current system, and the impact of demographic changes and offered solutions for various facets of this multifaceted challenge, we offer a systemic and sustainable solution by examining our core values in relation to the current paradigm and extend a framework for moving to a new paradigm. The focus in Part I is on the role of leadership in bringing about a transformation to a new paradigm.

Transformative experiences trigger new ways of perceiving and defining one’s world. Often these experiences are life changes, for example, becoming a parent. Such a transformational experience leads individuals to redefine their roles and their purpose. The birth of a child often leads new parents to reevaluate their priorities, to become intentional about their choices, to examine their fundamental beliefs. Simply put, “When people critically examine their habitual expectations, revise them, and act on the revised point of view, transformative learning occurs. Transformative learning leads to perspectives that are more inclusive, discriminating and integrative of experience” (Cranton, 2006, p. 19). The process that we outline in the first part of this book is based upon transformative change, specifically examining our habitual practices in light of the instructional paradigm and critically examining them through the lens of the learner-centered paradigm in order to gain a new perspective.

Content and Structure of Part I

In Chapter 1 we will attempt to make a case for change by presenting the current forces affecting higher education that make the time conducive to change. In Chapter 2 we examine our current paradigm, the instructional paradigm, which is the reason we need to change. Chapter 3 provides the vision for the future, an examination of a new paradigm that can guide the shift and serve as the goal state. And finally, in Chapter 4 we present the leadership qualities that are needed to make that happen.

1

Rethinking Our Current ChallengesThe Context for Change

In this chapter we will discuss the challenges in higher education that are currently creating a climate conducive to change. We will look at our opportunities for innovation through the lens that Peter Drucker (2002) offered in relation to conditions that make change possible. Drucker outlined seven areas of potential opportunity which can support innovation. Five of those are apparent in higher education today: new knowledge, changes in perception, demographic changes, industry and market changes, and process needs.

The Time for Innovation

Before we outline our strategy for undertaking this monumental task of shifting to a new paradigm, we need to make the case for making this shift at all. One of the many points that we debated as co-authors was whether it was absolutely necessary to recount the litany of stresses currently affecting higher education. Since everyone reads every day about the technological, societal, market, and political pressures on higher education, we questioned whether more discussion of these pressures would be informative, repetitive, or simply depressing for the reader.

After much thought, discussion, and coffee, we realized that we were thinking about this question from a habitual way of seeing the issues, in part because we too have read so often about these issues as problems. Instead of viewing these issues as negatives, the high winds and hard rains of the perfect storm intent upon sinking our ship, we reminded ourselves that storms are not solely forces of destruction but natural events that generate great power, that usher in a new weather system, that clear debris and refresh our environment. Our goal is to demonstrate how the forces that we read about and discuss on a daily basis are, in fact, power to be harnessed, opportunities for change. In Clark Kerr’s 1994 analysis of the history of higher education, a history that he says gets more glorious upon reflection while fear of the future gets more dreadful, he poses the question, Why are we always so happy looking backward and so unhappy looking forward? We will undertake the challenge of looking forward, if not with complete happiness, at least with cautious optimism.

If we analyze the evolution of higher education in the United States we will see strategic junctions and times of significant challenges. In each era, academic institutions responded and took action, and higher education, subsequently, was strengthened. The calls today to reevaluate higher education are consistent with that pattern. We are at a strategic junction in which many internal and external variables are leading to questions and concerns about the relevancy of higher education, its current status, and its path to the future.

As a result, many universities, organizations, accreditation bodies, governments, and researchers are engaged in efforts to innovate. Their goal is to find ways to assure that, despite the significant challenges higher education faces, it will continue to be relevant, a key contributor to advancing knowledge and educating people for productive and successful lives. This role of higher education is necessary for sustaining a prosperous civic society. The study of the current challenges will be benefited greatly by examining colleges and universities as open systems, dynamic organisms, shaped by and shaping the environment. It is the unique structure, mission, role, and value of each university, understood in the context of the changing environment, which will allow us to address the challenges, maximize the opportunities, and also develop an enhanced vision for higher education. While there are general features and challenges common to all institutions, each institution also has unique features and challenges; there is no one-size-fits-all challenge or solution. With that in mind, we will discuss general and significant threats all institutions face, large or small, public or private. It is a time of great opportunities for those who have an interest in shaping the future of higher education, for those who, like Ernest Shackleton, maintain optimism in the face of extreme challenge.

Research on innovation and entrepreneurship demonstrates that in times of crisis or economic hardship, the opportunities for innovation increase, for the sense of crisis creates motivation for change. For example, the skyrocketing cost of gasoline in 2008 created a sense of crisis for individuals and businesses, thus creating a climate conducive to innovation in the area of alternative fuels. The sense of crisis creates a willingness and an interest in these innovations on the part of consumers and innovators, who if gas were one dollar per gallon would most likely be disinterested.

Innovative change is greater than incremental change because it results in a new condition that is measurably different from the status quo. Innovation may be achieved through the introduction of new or different policies, regulations, or practices and procedures. Our definition of innovation includes changes and processes that expand and reconceive the scope of higher education.

Management expert Peter Drucker (2002) suggests that most innovations “result from a conscious, purposeful search for innovation opportunities, which are found only in a few situations” (p. 96). He identifies seven sources of potential opportunity through which systematic analysis and knowledge can support innovation. Some are internal to organizations, for example, process needs and market changes. Others are external sources of opportunity, for example, demographic changes, new knowledge, and changes in perception. We will look at five of these innovation opportunities which offer the greatest potential for stimulating change in higher education. These forces are converging to create a climate conducive to innovation and subsequently to transformation. Drucker explains that at the heart of successful entrepreneurship is innovation: “the effort to create purposeful focused change in an enterprise’s economic or social potential” (p. 96). This is achieved through “a commitment to the systematic practice of innovation”(p. 95). The future of higher education depends upon innovative entrepreneurs to lead this purposeful and focused change.

New Knowledge

The first area of potential opportunity identified by Drucker (2002) is new knowledge. New knowledge is influencing higher education on three fronts. First, discoveries and innovations are accelerating at a tremendous rate, changing discipline content and the prerequisites to adequately prepare graduates for the workplace. Especially in the sciences and technology, new knowledge is growing at an exponential rate that nearly precludes adequate preparation of graduates in our current system.

On the second front, new knowledge about how people learn is affecting our ways of teaching and preparing graduates. Many practices that have long been part of good teaching as a result of common sense and an intuitive understanding of human behavior are now part of an emerging body of research into brain functioning and learning, motivation and learning, and the role of memory as well as other affective concerns regarding power and control.

In addition, new knowledge in the form of technology is changing how we teach. Computer technology, specifically, is revolutionizing course management and delivery, and the Internet has tremendously increased the accessibility of information and changed the process of conducting research. All these forms of new knowledge are leading educators to question common pedagogical practices about what to teach as well as how to teach it. New knowledge in terms of what we teach and how we teach has provided the motivation for innovation and change.

Changes in Perception

The second area of potential opportunity identified by Drucker is changes in perception. The public perception of higher education is changing, thus creating a climate conducive to change. Once heralded as the finest educational system in the world, higher education in the United States is now perceived to be falling behind other countries and not producing qualified graduates. John Doerr, considered one of the top technology venture capitalists in the world, called education “the largest and most screwed-up part of the American economy” (quoted in Carlson & Wilmot, 2006, p. 267). Similarly, Peter Drucker said, “Thirty years from now [1997] the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won’t survive.... Do you realize that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost of health care? Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Higher education is in deep crisis” (quoted in Carlson & Wilmot, 2006, p. 267). These and other leaders in business and industry have chimed in on the emerging public outcry for accountability in higher education. Education professors Terenzini and Pascarella (1994) called into question some of the basic tenets of American higher education. They found that educational quality did not correlate with an institution’s reputation or standing. Similarly, they questioned the assumption that good researchers are good teachers, calling into question education techniques, in particular the lecture method.

In an open letter entitled An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education