Will Technology Devour Higher Ed?

By Katy Wiss

Last month, I attended a conference on Higher Education and collective bargaining at Baruch College in New York City.  One of the unique aspects of this conference is that it is a joint endeavor between labor and management.  Speakers, presenters and participants come from both sides of the negotiating table.  They addressed trends and issues in Higher Ed as well as practicalities of negotiating.

Ken Mortimer, educational consultant and former university president, addressed the issue of the Changing Environment of Higher Education.  A fundamental component of his talk was the role of market forces and technology in Higher Education.  He claims that of all the aspects of our society, including business and agriculture, Higher Ed has been among the slowest to embrace emerging technology.  One sign of the change in market forces is evident in the language in use in Higher Education:  students as “customers,” and knowledge as “content.”

Mortimer’s advice to Higher Education is to be mission-centered, market-smart and politically savvy.  He focused on seven areas in which Higher Education needs to pay attention to survive.  He noted that market forces are increasingly influential on Higher Education.  The first evidence of this is the shift from grant to loan support for students.  As a result, students seek the best educational bargain, not the best education.  Second, the single-campus, four-year undergraduate experience is less and less the norm: 2/3 of students attend more than one campus. 

Third, the globalization of science and technology has lead business and industry to rely even more greatly on Higher Education to train its workforce.  The focus on technology also has an impact on intellectual property:  there are increased questions about who owns it--the individual, the institution or industry.

Technology is also a consideration in the fourth factor, educational technology.  The increased reliance on educational technology threatens Higher Education’s control of content.  There is a high profit potential for “content

providers” and a concomitant commercialization of “content.”  Mortimer predicts a time when the “complete scholar” will be “unbundled” and professors’ work will be divided into content, delivery, and assessment. 

Related to assessment, is the fifth factor, which is that there will be increased pressure from outside sources for accountability.  What has happened in K-12, will be extended to 13-16 (college).  As these outside forces demand accountability the sixth factor emerges:  volatility of local issues.  The compact about public higher education is already changing as states decrease support for the idea that higher education should be available even to those who cannot afford it.  Along with these changes is a shift to policies coming from off-campus decision-makers.

The last trend that Mortimer identifies is an increased integration of the university into larger society.  As a result of this integrated university, we will renege on the social compact of public higher education.  Higher education will be privatized and it will no longer be a public priority.

Although some of what Mortimer points out is already occurring, it is not clear that the picture is as dim as he suggests.  For further consideration of these issues, two books that were mentioned frequently at the conference are,  Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom line : The Marketing of Higher Education by David L. Kirp (Harvard University Press, 2003) and Academic Capitalism : Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University by Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). v

Elections for Council Member

The Council Member represents this Chapter on the CSU-AAUP Council. 

The CSU-AAUP Council sets policy, negotiation priorities and oversees the contract on the state level.  The Council also works with a state lobbyist who promotes continued excellence in higher education in Connecticut. 

The Council meets the 3^rd Thursday evening of the month at 7:00 p.m. at the CCSU campus in New Britain.v

Voting Instructions

1. Vote for one candidate.
2. Place your ballot inside a blank envelope.
3. Place the blank envelope inside a second envelope and address it to AAUP office, White Hall 111.

Clearly print your name on the outside of the second envelope for check-off purposes. v

 BALLOT for WCSU-AAUP Council Member

Vote for ONE candidate

Ballots are due in the AAUP office, White Hall 111, Thursday, April 28 at noon.