Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:979] Alternative Visions for the Future University
From: Brent Muirhead (bmuirhead@email.uophx.edu)
Date: Sat 27 Jan 2001 - 20:46:41 MET
From: "Brent Muirhead" <bmuirhead@email.uophx.edu> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:979] Alternative Visions for the Future University Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 14:46:41 -0500
Colleagues,
I came across an article found in January 2001 issue on The Futurist, a book
reviewed by Lane Jennings called The University in Transformation: Global
Perspectives on the Futures of the University edited by Sohail Inayatullah
and Jennifer Gidley. Bergin & Garvey, 2000. 280 pages
Lane (2001) relates that the authors outline "some 20 highly varied outlooks
on tomorrow's universities by writers representing both Western and
non-Western perspectives (p. 58)."
Lane (2001) relates that author's concerns that "the Internet University
poses dangers, too. For example, a line of franchised courseware, produced
by a few superstar teachers, marketed under the brand name of a famous
institution, and heavily advertised, might eventually come to dominate the
global education market, warns sociology professor Peter Manicas of the
University of Hawaii at Manoa. Besides enforcing a rigidly standardized
curriculum, such a `college education in a box' could undersell the
offerings of many traditional brick and mortar institutions, effectively
driving them out of business, and throwing thousands of career academics out
of work, note Australian communications professors David Rooney and Greg
Hearn (p. 58)."
Inayatullah and Gidley do admit that global connectivity could resist or
counter a variety of academic dangers such as excessive uniformity in course
content within the virtual higher education community.
The book discusses three new roles for university faculty members: brokers,
mentors and meaning-makers.
"Some would act as brokers, assembling customized degree-credit programs for
individual students by mixing and matching the best course offerings
available from institutions all around the world. A second group, mentors,
would function much like today's faculty advisers, but are likely to be
working with many more students outside their own academic specialty. This
would require them to constantly be learning from their students as well as
instructing them, and could develop an elite of multifaceted,
cross-disciplinary `paracademic' faculty members, many of whom would also
have work experience outside academia (Lane 2001, p.58).".
Lane (2001, p. 58) shares that the authors note "a third new role for
faculty, and in Gidley's view, the most challenging and rewarding of all,
would be as meaning-makers: charismatic sages and practitioners leading
groups of student/colleagues in collaborative efforts to find spiritual as
well as
rational and technological solutions to specific real-world problems."
The current higher education paradigm is already being influenced by market
forces created by rapidly growing distance education schools. Yes, there are
technology challenges involving computer capability issues such as working
online with the multiconferencing unit (MCU). I agree with Art Recesso 's
(Valdosta State University) comment that "as the technology matures we will
overcome many of these issues."
Reference
Jennings, L. (2001). Alternative visions for the future university. The
Futurist, 58 (1), 58-59. Complete article is available at:
http://wfs.org/rev2371.htm
Brent Muirhead D.Min; Ph.D.
University of Phoenix Online
bmuirhead@email.uophx.edu
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