BRYAN ALEXANDER STEVE BRAGAW

MARK RUSH (ALPHABETICALLY, SPIRITUALLY,

LENGTH OF BEARD)

AACU ANNUAL MEETING AND

SNOWBALL FIGHT 22 JANUARY 2016

Liberal Education: Embracing the Challenges

of Our Success

Why We Are Doing This Panel

Different background experiences leading to

Common shared

celebration of liberal ed success

concern about challenges to traditional model of higher ed

and defensive responses from contemporary stakeholders

The Challenges

Challenges posed by successful responses to previous “higher education crisis” phases

Challenges posed by successful internationalization

Challenges posed by successful incorporation of technical competence

What this panel is not

Yet another session about the apocalypse facing higher education

What this panel is

A plea/invitation to

a positive discussion of challenges to the traditional model of higher education brought about by its success

with

a spirit of stewardship for future generations of students and faculty

STEVE BRAGAW

WASHINGTON & LEE UNIVERSITY

@STEVEBRAGAW

Strategy and Finance challenges for liberal education

Higher ed crisis in America! (?)

The Challenge:

• Experts predict that between ten percent and thirty percent of America’s 3100 colleges and universities will close their doors or merge with other institutions…On many campuses the fear of imminent contraction or demise is almost palpable…The specter lurks in colleges and universities of all sizes, public as well as private, although smaller private colleges and the academically weaker state colleges and community colleges are widely expected to be the worst hit. Indeed, hundreds of college and a few universities are already near an end.”

The problem: That was 1983

George Keller, Academic Strategy

Crisis of late 1970s-early 1980s

Challenges:

demographic dip

over expansion from 1960s

flat stock markets

Response to the previous “Crisis”

Demographic dip——changing enrollment strategies

over expansion——changing infrastructure

1970s economy——changing development and endowment management

TODAY

Challenges—-

Debt—-Student and institutional

Price/value proposition—-question of the cost

Adjunctification

Particular challenges to liberal arts colleges—vulnerability as compared to comprehensive and state institutions with their own particular challenges

The greatest threat

My argument:

The greatest threat to liberal arts colleges in the current environment is failure to recognize that they are businesses, whose business model is potentially threatened by changes in current environment

Emphasis on liberal arts colleges being “different” because of

mission

tradition of shared governance

This can lead to grave failure to recognize threats and adapt

How do we think our way out of this current situation?

Disruption

Liberal arts colleges are “content bundlers”—-their business model hinges on “bundling” together a number of fixed costs in one package

“Content bundlers” are under incredible stress as consumers try to pry the pieces they want loose and only pay for the parts they want

Core questions:

• How should colleges and universities not just adjust, but

fundamentally rethink their strategies accordingly? How can they

find ways to take advantage of this new environment?

• How do these changes place stress on the core business model of

the college or university?

• My answer: don’t focus on how liberal arts colleges are different

from other for profit and not-for-profit businesses. Instead, ask

what can we learn when we focus on what they have in common?

• What’s the institution’s unique competitive advantage? What

forces are going to influence the institution’s strategic position?

Viewing the challenge in a different way

Michael Porter “The Five Forces”—

Competition with established rivals

Threats from new entrants to the market

Bargaining power of suppliers

Bargaining power of buyers

Threat of substitutes

Viewing disruption through Porter’s Five Forces

Challenge of “disruption”

Challenge for business models of liberal arts colleges come from:

Threat of substitutes (online, mostly)

Bargaining power of buyers—-price sensitivity, desire to purchase the pieces of the degree credit hours elsewhere

Not a bricks versus clicks argument, but rather threat of pieces of the degree being bought elsewhere.

Disruption and content unbundling in the newspaper and publishing industries

Key takeaways

• Faculty, administrators, and trustees need to understand how

their institutions are not immune from strategic imperatives of

competitive forces that challenge key assumptions upon

which their business models are formed.

• Responsible stewardship requires adjusting and adapting by

challenging fundamental assumptions and values, regardless

of who is upset.

• Educating stakeholders to embrace rather than resist

• Difference between “failure is not an option” versus

“failure cannot happen”

Embracing the potential of technology, collaboration, and internationalization not as threats but as ways to grow the business model of liberal arts colleges

We’ve worked our way through many types of crisis before. Secret now is to not shy away from core threats or treat them with old strategies, but embrace new thinking and approaches.

LIBERAL EDUCATION’S DEMOCRATIC DILEMMA?

MARK RUSH

Successful Internationalization

The Liberal Ed - Liberal Dem Connection

"The approach to higher learning that best serves individuals, our globally engaged democracy and an innovating economy is liberal education." —AAC&U Board of Directors, 2002

AACU “What is a 21st Century Liberal Education?”

The Challenge of Internationalization

We have opened our doors…

but to Which Democratic Values?

What Happens when Liberal Education leaves the symbiotic confines of Liberal Democracy?

Successes: U.S. Branch Campuses Abroad, 2015

Freedom House

Score

Count Percent

Free 37 45.1

Partially Free 17 20.7

Not Free 28 34.1

Total 82

Sources: Freedom House; SUNY Albany’s Global Higher Education http://www.globalhighered.org/branchcampuses.php

Success: Internationalization Trends

974,926 international students attend US universities 2014/15 (www.iie.org, Open Doors)

304, 467 US Students abroad 2013/14

Delaware, 2014: 935,614 (census.gov)

1 congressman and 2 senators

=1.5 Vermonts, btw…

An Increasingly Illiberal World

Freedom House 2015: 54% of countries are partially or not free.

Law and Versteeg (2013): Steady, consistent decline of U.S. Constitutional values around the world since 1946. (David S. Law and Mila Versteeg, “The Declining Influence of the

United States Constitution” New York University Law Review 87 (2012): 762)

See also Fareed Zakaria, Illiberal Democracy (and subsequent writings).

History Did Not End: Democracy Evolves

Apologies to Francis Fukuyama (The End of History and the Last Man)

cf.

Robert Kaplan: “Was Democracy Just a Moment?” (1997)

Global Challenges I

“The assumption is that you can only be a great educational and research power if you do it the American way. I think you could be proved very wrong and it may be too late when you find out.”

Ian Gow, 2009 Ian Gow, principal and chief executive of the Sino-British College in Shanghai and former provost of the University of Nottingham’s campus in Ningbo. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/china-on-the-fast-track/2009923.article

Global Challenges II

Yale-NUS cannot simply be a “carbon copy” of Yale’s American campus. Instead, the university “needs a curriculum and a college ethos that respond to the regional context of Asia.”

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (2015).

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/yale-nus-college-has-to-adapt-the-yale-model-to-asia-to-succeed-pm-lee-hsien#xtor=CS1-10

Global Challenges III

“Singapore's Venture With Yale to Limit Protests” (http://www.wsj.com/articles/S

B10001424052702303933704577530524046581142 )

Global Challenges IV

Turkey academics held for criticism of army offensive (BBC 16 January 2016)

Global Challenge V

The Flag that did not fly over the US Consulate in Dubai, June, 2013 (U.S. v. Windsor)

Challenges at Home: Speech?

University of Illinois censured for pulling professor's job offer over anti-Israel tweets (USAToday 18 June 2015)

Challenges at Home: Integrity

In one study, the University of Windsor in the Canadian province of Ontario tracked how many foreign students were being cited for academic dishonesty compared with their Canadian classmates. It found that one in 53 international students had been charged versus one in 1,122 Canadians. (timeshighereducation.com 6 Oct 2011)

Barbarianization of Liberal Ed?

What will the American Model look like in a generation?

Liberal values in an increasingly illiberal marketplace?

Which version of Yale will survive?

Accreditation concerns?

Odoacer, 476-493 A.D.

The Technology Challenge

On to Bryan

The open movement

and liberal education

AAC&U annual conference

Snowpocalypse 2016

Liberal education and open

My thesis: open education has developed to a sufficient level where liberal arts institutions can - and should - participate.

The open revolution

Open education

Open access scholarship

Open source software

Definitions “Open education is about sharing, reducing barriers and increasing access in education. It includes free and open access to platforms, tools and resources in education (such as learning materials, course materials, videos of lectures, assessment tools, research, study groups, textbooks, etc.)…”

“…Open education seeks to create a world in which the desire to learn is fully met by the opportunity to do so, where everyone, everywhere is able to access affordable, educationally and culturally appropriate opportunities to gain whatever knowledge or training they desire.”

“About Open Education,” Open Education Week, February

2012, http://www.openeducationweek.org/about-open-

education/.

Open…

educational resources (OER)

Courseware (OCW)

Courses (MOOC)

teaching

Open…

learning tools (Moodle)

Assessment (badges)

access scholarly communication

learners

universities

Why open?

Cost and flexibility

Improving content, learning

Outreach and visibility

Participate in innovation

Open and liberal education

Early adopter phase

Ex: OA - Trinity, Oberlin, Bucknell, Hope

Why not mainstream?

› Awareness

› Less cost pressure

› Wrong scale

Research on 2013

“We are in baby steps.”

NITLE Network queried

32 campus leaders

› Chief Information Officers

› Academic computing leaders

› Library directors

› IT managers

Why is your institution not pursuing open education at this time?

My institution lacks awareness of open education

My institution does not see open education as being in its strategic interest

Open education is best pursued at the faculty level, not the institution-level

Why no LA engagement until now?

Usage

Awareness

Quality concerns

Inertia

Specific OER

Etextbooks

Production

IP concerns

Sustainability

Faculty time

So why now?

• Technologies all mature

• Growing concerns about equity

• “ “ “ globalization

Student culture

Desire for open content

Experience of open content

Financial pressure of post-2008 world

Liberal education cases

Cyropaedia, Southwestern

Analytical Chemistry Depauw

Microbewiki, Kenyon

OA mandates

Trinity University led the way - 40%+ adoption

The open revolution

Open source software

Example: CLAMP (https://cme.clamp-it.org)

Recommendations

Strategic rationale

Multiple campus populations

Upper-level institutional support

Awareness

Recommendations

Rewards and incentives

Pilots

Experiment pedagogically

Explore sustainability models

The library role

• Informing the community

• Maintaining repository

• Helping faculty find appropriate, high quality materials

• Advocating for open access

Open source hardware?

RepRap

• Open source hardware

• Can serve as a recycler

• (http://reprap.org/)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/watsdesign/17280506475/

One huge implication

Artificial intelligence has open

education to draw upon

http://bryanalexander.org

bryan.alexander@gmail.com

http://twitter.com/bryanalexander