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The Future of Universities
12 June 2004
Currently I am involved in a conference of fifty Presidents and
Vice-Chancellors of 'New Generation' universities from around the
world and it has been a stimulating experience. As one colleague
said to me, it is very rare to be in a group to discuss such
intellectually challenging ideas, and that makes attendance
worthwhile despite the long journey to Canada.
I have been a keen supporter of the 'New Generation' coalition
since we started planning our University in 1994 when a very small
group of us exchanged ideas across continents.
Some members of that group have seen their universities succeed,
some individuals have not survived in their roles, and in one case
the university planning was such a failure the project was
abandoned.
In the last ten years a lot more universities have been created
anew, especially for example, in the new countries of Europe
following the collapse of communism.
It is also interesting to see the emphasis USC placed on
community engagement now being adopted as a defining characteristic
of all 'New Generation' Universities, and gradually being
mainstreamed even in major research-led universities like the
University of Pennsylvania in the US. There are very few university
leaders who continue to believe that engagement means being locally
constrained. Being engaged in detailed cross-disciplinary regional
issues of health, environment, business, industry development, or a
range of other specialisations, far from being restrictive, opens
up the regionally engaged university to problems that are global.
The opportunities for universities to connect internationally as a
result of their local engagement strategies are multiplied many
times.
What has become evident is that private universities are also
growing in number in a trend that is becoming international.
One of the people I met in 1994, who was the President of the
powerful University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has now
become the inaugural President of a new 'Sea to Sky' private
university due to open in 2006.
In his talk as a 'New Generation' President he expressed his
frustration with discipline-based undergraduate education, with
large classes (over 300 in the University of British Columbia) and
that public universities had spent most of the Twentieth Century
simply churning out 'more of the same' instead of addressing future
needs, and doing so amidst government funding cuts that were
causing dismay to those interested in quality public higher
education.
His response has been to persuade sponsors to provide him with a
gift of very valuable land, some of which he can sell for high-end
housing around the new university itself. He has also obtained
private gifts including one of $35 million last week from a private
benefactor who believes in his alternative vision of higher
education.
He is well advanced with planning the 'Sea to Sky University'
for only 1200 students and based on the US four-year liberal arts
college model. The intention is to educate students to be
critical/liberal thinkers, involved in a course that is 50 per cent
proscribed, thus delaying discipline studies to the postgraduate
level. Classes will be no larger than ten students. He has
established links with major world universities and is already
overwhelmed with applications for staff positions.
He claims that people have become progressively more frustrated
with public universities starved of funds, and it is time to
reassess what a modern liberal undergraduate education should look
like.
It is just one of the stimulating papers that we have discussed
that that makes international conferences such as this so
valuable.
The future for universities in the Twenty-first Century is going
to be a profoundly interesting one.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast