Beyond the Crossroads: The Future of the Public University in America

Citation

Duderstadt, James, J. and Womack, F.W. (2003), "Beyond the Crossroads: The Future of the Public University in America", On the Horizon, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 29-31. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748120310508064

No, Doctor Professor, the boot is on the other foot. It is your established curriculum and your concept of School that were dictated by technology‐the pre‐twentieth century technology of writing, printing, and calculating. The real offer of digital technology is liberation from the consequences of having been restricted by these primitive tools! (Seymour Paper, 1998).

When the fleet sails into the home port and the retired captain of one of the major ships of the line mounts the podium at the harbor, we give that individual complete attention. James Duderstadt is such an individual, the president emeritus of the University of Michigan, one of the flagship public universities in the USA; his co‐author is Farris W. Womack, the university’s former chief financial officer. From this “bridge”, they held a commanding view, not only of their institution but also that of the entire higher education system in the USA. They could see the rise and progress of the US public university; and, they were in a position to assess the state of the institution. With this experience, they should have a firm grasp of the needs of the present times; and with foresight, they should understand the future needs in order to sail into a digital sea where “there be dragons”, private for‐profit virtual institutions as well as the global higher education community, more than a little interested in commanding a portion of the (variously estimated between $265 and $350 billion) higher education market in the USA.

While the authors use this podium as a “bully pulpit” to explore the issues of public education, one must listen with caution. First, the University of Michigan is one of the few public institutions with selective admission to its undergraduate programs and the entire institution is often considered on par with the elite private institutions. Second, the fleet, the “public institutions” of which the authors speak are in the USA. Duderstadt and Womack point out that when these institutions were created, geography defined their reach or field of influence. Many consciously, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, have expanded these boundaries; and, with any campus and potential student a mouse click away from a university’s entrance portal, neither the student nor the institutions have the same bonds as in the past. Here, it is interesting to note that at one time the University of Michigan was part of a nascent global educational consortium, Universitas 21, a virtual institution which has recently opened its portal to students, internationally, without Michigan’s participation.

The virtual world and the opening of the higher education marketplace create a schizophrenia which Duderstadt and Womack recognize. Should these majestic “tall ships” be restored to their original majesty, perhaps with upgraded electronics, or are these wooden ships no match for the new “iron clads” and the emerging era of high technology. Globally, academics cling to their robes and rituals; they are slow to change and expect that the “winds of change” will soon die down. Yet, even in the “medallion” private institutions, there is growing evidence that the intellectual and fiscal storms will not soon abate. And, as the authors suggest, some masts will be toppled, some ships sunk, and others salvaged through mergers and acquisitions, both in the private and public sectors.

Institutions that can continually change to keep up with the needs of the transforming economy they serve will survive. Those that cannot or will not change will become less relevant and more vulnerable to newly‐emerging competition.

While this is a view from the bridge of a public university, it becomes clear that the institutions may no longer be masters of their own fate. Duderstadt points out that:

… most students tend to pay for the credential of a college degree rather than for an educational experience, since they perceive this to be the ticket to satisfying and well‐compensated careers. Furthermore, for those who can afford it, the prestige of a college or university is usually viewed as more important than the quality of the educational experience they actually will receive in its academic programs.

Thus, in one salient insight, the authors both point out the shift of market forces to a consumer‐driven enterprise, and call into question the privileged position of the university as public intellectual and arbiter of public values to be inculcated through a college education. Of course, the modern public university in the USA and globally, is subject to the whimsy of others who fiscally support the institution, including government agencies, foundations and corporations which both donate and support research.

As Duderstadt and Womack note, “The Achilles heel of the modern university is its overextension, its attempt to control all aspects of learning”. The universities provide undergraduate and graduate programs, manage facilities, provide residences, museums, hospitals, food services, athletic programs and entertainment, to name a few.

This book came out just as public institutions are facing severe funding cutbacks; governments are seeing revenue shortfalls and deficits, and most states are required to have balanced budgets. While many universities are making cuts and hoping to weather this fiscal tsunami, few believe that they can batten down and survive the storm which has come hard upon several years of growth in operating costs, which also have shown no sign of abatement. The 2003‐2004 academic year is seeing unprecedented tuition increases, curtailment of many programs, and reduction in numbers of classes and sections. With many students in public universities, including the University of Michigan, having to work to cover rising tuition, the program cutbacks are a form of negative feedback, making it even more difficult to match work and class schedules in order to meet graduation requirements.

The suggestion from the bridge is the possibility of deconstructing the university. Of course, much of this is already happening. University hospitals have become public/private partnerships, student housing is becoming much like private apartment developments, and food services look like food courts at major shopping centers. In the USA, 42 percent of faculty in post‐secondary education are adjuncts, graduate teaching assistants and non‐tenure track, part‐time employees. And now, many institutions are able to purchase packaged courses offered by professional curriculum development companies, particularly for virtual programs

In spite of such efforts, “education today is one of the last remaining sectors of the economy dominated by public control which has failed to achieve the standards of quality, cost‐effectiveness, and technological innovation demanded by our knowledge‐driven society. Furthermore, compared to other sectors that have been subject to massive restructuring, ranging from utilities to telecommunications to transportation to health care, the education industry represents the largest market opportunity for the private sector since health care in the 1970s”. Students would be surprised to know that their tuition dollars per hour of lecture at the more elite universities amount to over 50 dollars, the price of a ticket to a college football game.”

Depending on whose figures one believes, of the 4,000+ higher education institutions in the USA, that are licensed to offer degrees, about 5 percent are private‐for‐profit. Many of these have been trade and professionally‐oriented while others have focused on the working adult. They are both campus and virtual institutions. In addition, there are corporate universities, many of which could qualify as degree‐granting institutions. This fleet of privateers has largely avoided the areas covered by traditional institutions. But Duderstadt and Womack, along with many others, see that the for‐profits are in the process of expanding their markets into the arena of the 18‐24‐year‐olds, and compete directly with those institutions which, by virtue of “certification” have deemed this population as almost a sinecure.

Sir John Daniels, the former vice chancellor of the British Open University, watched the US higher education institutions flounder around with distance education, as the Internet became ubiquitous. His opinion was that when the USA found the right formula it would become a formidable force in higher education, internationally. Today, many of the for‐profits are acquiring degree‐oriented institutions, not just in the USA, but globally. One major corporation divested itself of its K‐12 remedial and test preparation business, its major focus, to acquire stakes in higher education institutions, globally. Most of these institutions now have breached the walls of the old Ivory Towers that protected the traditional higher education fiefs.

In other words, they have captured the “low hanging fruit”, the neglected working adult student (claims for the University of Phoenix are that the student’s average age is 35 years and the average income is in the $50,000+/year range with non‐discounted tuition paid, in full by the employer or student). Now they are in a position to seek the less profitable, but higher volume, undergraduate. Duderstadt and Womack report that of this body, only 10 percent are full‐time, about 33 percent work part‐time and about 50 percent attend only part‐time. Thus, the difference between the undergraduate of today and working adults seems to only be age differentiated. For the for‐profits, it is an inversion of what happened at the end of WWII with the returning soldiers seeking a college degree.

In what is almost an aside, the authors point out that the cost of virtual “band width” is dropping rapidly towards zero. This allows learning to take place any time and any place. It frees learning from the semester or quarter‐based course, and the confines of a “classroom”. It offers life long learning, K‐gray, on demand and as required. The education system becomes part of the emerging knowledge ecology almost by default.

As Papert (1998) has pointed out for years, virtual space is not a technology in service of the university but rather its effect is almost as if the fleet has sailed through the Panama Canal and into a new pond where the rules are different. Duderstadt and Womack sense this perceptual warp but, as with most faculty and many technology vendors, are unable to come to grips with its implications. When those intrepid auto pioneers first launched their vehicles they looked like the old buggies and were called “horseless carriages”. Most current virtual space campuses such as Blackboard and WebCT are the equivalent, a mapping of brick space into click space.

But, the authors do sense that the academic landscape is shifting and the resultant tidal change will not necessarily raise all ships equally. For example, there is the suggestion that large research institutions might form liaisons with small liberal arts institutions. With virtual space, such merging of campuses can be seamless. In fact in large urban areas such course sharing is becoming common. Also, vertical linkages are possible such as between K‐12 and post‐secondary institutions. This is again happening in certain geographical regions with such ideas as post‐secondary options (high school students taking college courses) or college in the schools (CIS), programs where select high school courses are awarded college credit. Massive multiplayer role‐playing games are now being used to build post secondary programs. Like Abbot’s characters in Flatland, many of these ideas lie well below the authors’ radar, though they seem to sense the presence among other possibilities.

Where does this leave the roll of the “Public University”? The authors leave us no clear picture either for the fleet sitting in the harbor or as a set of guidelines for ship builders of the future. In the USA, government sees that higher education, leading to better jobs, is becoming more of a private than a public good. Though there is some sense of a larger social purpose, what that might be is not clearly laid out by the authors. The past is easy to see. We have the modern university arising from the ideas of von Humboldt and Newman in Europe. The USA has the private universities which were, at one time, religious based with a clear sense of a moral vision. Thomas Jefferson’s idea of a national university can also be studied, even though his was not a populist vision. The late 1800s saw a public interested in promoting agricultural colleges. And, at the end of the Secon World War, we saw major support for the employment of graduates in business and industry. The “public good” has had a very pragmatic dimension.

Since the 1960s there have been waves of social agendas that have moved across both public and private institutions. A number of smaller, usually private, institutions have tried to focus, or refocus, on a modern version of liberal studies, an idea that is gaining momentum with recent corporate scandals and ethical breaches. Service learning where the campus engages with the community has gained some purchase for the moment.

But, in these times, universities, public and private, have few resources to launch unfunded mandates, regardless of how noble the ideal or how congruent with the purposes that are emblazoned on institutional seals and embedded in mission statements. And many opportunities that they do consider are driven by the whimsy of the current funding sources as seen by the shifting of the fleet as it turns in the fiscal breeze. Even in the elite universities, where faculty believed, and some still do, that they determined the direction of the programs, times are changing. As Sterling (1990) wrote in his short story, “Green days in Brunei”:

The “technical elite” were errand boys. They didn’t decide how to study, what to work on, where they could be most useful, or to what end. Money decided that. Technicians were owned by the abstract ones and zeros in bankers’ microchips …

Ever since the first scholar sat on the steps of the libraries of Alexandria, selling their knowledge for coins of the realm, scholars have depended on marketing their skills. Those academic robes had pockets in them for a reason. It has only been in recent times that scholars have had a sinecure, ostensibly to pursue knowledge unfettered, and to work with students unburdened by the concerns for their next meal. Yet, in many ways, this has been an illusion. Humanities scholars seldom received the pay and attention that research scientist and engineers did. And today, the encouragement to develop entrepreneurial spin‐offs from research is greater than ever. Eliot’s Wasteland characters wandering to and fro may have been few and far between. Duderstadt and Womack paint a picture of the present and allow us to glimpse, along with them, a future, seen through the proverbial glass, darkly.

If the authors’ sense and the Hyde Park oratory of Papert and others, rings true, those stately academic ships will become prestigious retreats for those who can afford the luxury and the leisure, while the public purpose will be served by a more utilitarian institution, one that is not bound by geography and time. Here it is interesting to note that Kentucky Virtual University, both a virtual university and a high school, is an institution in name only. It brokers courses which it has purchased on the open market to the citizen of the State of Kentucky. Universitas 21 will award a degree which contains the seal of each endorsing member institution, though none of their courses will be supplied directly to the matriculating students. This of course follows the collegiate sports programs which many have claimed should be considered professional or quasi‐professional since few players, if any, may have ties to the geographical boundaries of the institution. Kentucky Virtual University has such a virtual team, today, the @vengers.

In addition to recruiting, globally, the graduates who are subsidized by public monies may not reside in the state which provided the public benefit. The existence of a virtual public university calls the question in a global society, one which may find its Ivory Towers looming larger in click space than brick space. Perhaps these tall ships riding in the harbor are the current campuses? What then?

Tom Abeles