Speeches

Higher Education's Biggest Unrecognized Opportunities

Good morning and thank you for that kind applause. It's a pleasure to be at Florida State University, an institution that has much in common with my own university, Penn State. Both Florida State and Penn State are institutions concerned with strong teaching and research traditions, and our institutions have excellent reputations within the higher education community.

I'd like to talk today about what I believe are some of higher education's biggest unrecognized opportunities. American institutions of higher education have always had a pretty tall order to fill. Everyone from the general public to students to legislators, businesses, schools, and organizations look to our institutions for solutions. We have delivered well on our promise to educate the citizenry while producing some of the world's finest research and technology. In fact, about 60 percent of the basic research done in the United States today comes from our universities. Our research has led to better heart-assist devices, more productive agricultural lands, new sources of fuel and the discovery of new planets, to name just a few. We are the engines of discovery for our nation and have worked diligently to solve some of the most pressing problems facing society.

By all measures, we have been successful in our missions of teaching, research and service, but we are facing an era of unprecedented and rapid change. We must confront not only demographic changes and increasing competition, but economic, political and technological transformations as well, if we are to continue to be successful.

The Context for Change

One very recent indication of the intense scrutiny we now face can be seen in a report titled "Measuring Up 2000," which was issued by the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. This state-by-state report card pegged most states as average in the undergraduate education arena and everyone got an "incomplete" in the area of student learning. Our institutions find themselves in a changing marketplace with broad attacks on everything from tenure to increasing tuition to faculty workloads to the role of research to the place of affirmative action.

At the same time, competition among universities and other agencies for use of state tax dollars is becoming more intense. In Pennsylvania, for example, tuition long ago replaced state support as the primary source of funding for state-related universities. Public colleges across the nation raised tuition this year an average of 7.7 percent -- the highest rates since 1993. Slowing state economies had already created a budget crunch for a large number of institutions, and public colleges throughout the nation are now being hit with new reductions in their state support as a result of the continued worsening of the economy and the financial aftershocks of the events of September 11. Many states have either ordered, or told public colleges to prepare for, midyear rescissions in their state appropriations, and have sent out warnings to plan on no increases for next year.

A report by the Council for Aid to Education said that assuming tuition increases no faster than inflation, by 2015, U.S. colleges and universities will fall $38 billion short of the annual budget they will need to educate the student population.

All of this occurs as we are being expected to educate more students more efficiently. The U.S. population has doubled since 1930, but during that same time, enrollment in higher education has expanded tenfold. It has been estimated that our nation must be prepared to educate 4 million more students by 2015 simply because of population growth.

Unrecognized Opportunities

These trends present either an insurmountable challenge or an extraordinary opportunity. Being somewhat of an optimist in the face of what appears to be impossible odds, I think I am on the side of Albert Einstein who said, " In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity." Then again, as president of an institution that is facing such challenges, it is possible that Albert Camus was closer to the truth when he said, " What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

Either way, institutions of higher education must take charge of the change that surrounds them and recognize the opportunities that wait. I'd like to highlight briefly what I consider the top three unrecognized opportunities facing higher education. They are:

• The challenge to become more engaged with the publics we serve;
• Refocusing the allegiances of our faculty; and
• The promise of a true learning society through the use of information technology.

The Engaged University

Some of you may be familiar with the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. The commission, a group of 25 university presidents and chancellors, came together over a two-year period to discuss the problems facing institutions of higher education. This group outlined the responsibilities of public higher education and devised a blueprint for reconnecting our universities to the communities we serve. The result is a vision for "engagement" -- a concept that has rapidly gained enormous support both within academe and outside our institutions.

Engagement entails partnerships between universities and communities, government, business and industry and other education institutions -- partnerships that allow us to not only share our knowledge with the public, but to also listen to our constituents.

The Kellogg Commission's work has provided a model that transforms our historic mission of teaching, research and service into a forward-looking agenda of learning, discovery and engagement.

True Engagement

So what does it mean to be an engaged university? In discussions within the Kellogg Commission it meant three things:

• An engaged institution must be responsive to the needs of today's students and tomorrow's -- not yesterday's.
• It will enrich student experience by bringing research and engagement into the curriculum and offering practical opportunities for students to prepare for the world they will enter.
• And it will put knowledge and expertise to work on problems its communities face.

Full engagement means not only educating citizens but also partnering more closely than ever before with our communities through outreach and service. We must extend our research and technology transfer endeavors and expand our roles as economic engines for our states and the nation. We must open up, through new technologies, to a broader audience in order to truly be centers of lifelong learning.

Our engagement with the communities we serve has everything to do with the public confidence and support we can expect to win in the years ahead. I focus on this point because it encompasses so many of the other concerns that institutions of the 21^st century must embrace -- concerns about students, about access, about lifelong learning, and about campus culture.

The university that listens to its constituents, that is intimately connected to its community and supports the needs of learners across the lifespan is the university that will ultimately stand out in the growing landscape of education providers.

Putting Students First

While the nature of our relationship with our many communities certainly is a critical part of engagement, putting students first is vital as well. Through their teaching mission, America's colleges and universities have a profound potential to influence the future of what is now commonly characterized as a learning society. The key is to broaden our notion of students to include so-called non-traditional learners of many different circumstances, to place them at the center of our learning communities, and to be committed to meeting their needs, wherever they are, whatever they need, and whenever they need it.

Institutional flexibility is an essential characteristic in serving a diverse group of learners across the lifespan. We are greatly assisted in embracing this idea by the new technologies that are highly supportive of anytime, anywhere learning. I will touch on technology a bit later in my remarks.

Putting Knowledge to Work

Another characteristic of an engaged university is putting knowledge to work. Through our research capacity and the expertise of faculty, institutions such as ours have tremendous resources for enhancing the quality of life.

Faculty involvement is absolutely essential in creating truly engaged institutions, but issues of policy, practice and perception often prevent universities from engaging with the public as fully as we might. The academic culture tends to reward allegiance to a discipline, which deters faculty from a broader institutional agenda of outreach and engagement and discourages interdisciplinary approaches that are essential to solving the complex problems of our world.

In one of its reports, the Commission discussed campus culture, noting that the intellectual landscape of our institutions tends to be made up of mine shafts. Without abandoning these shafts that lead to important discoveries, we need to build corridors between them. We need to reinstate a sense of institutional coherence that more effectively supports our missions.

Which brings me to the second unrecognized opportunity for higher education: refocusing the allegiance of our faculty.

Changing the Academic Culture

Ever since becoming a faculty member in 1973, I have been troubled by a cultural phenomenon in higher education that exists in every major university. It haunts Penn State and I suspect plagues your institution as well.

An experience I had early in my presidency at Penn State illustrates my frustration. One of our deans called me, concerned that one of the college's best young faculty members, a rising star, was about to leave for another institution. "Please call and convince her to stay," the dean asked. I get such requests occasionally, and I always do as the dean asks. I invited the faculty member to meet with me. I can be persuasive, and I certainly tried to be here.

I learned that this recently tenured associate professor had an offer from a top-ten department, whereas her department at Penn State was currently ranked in the second 10. The salary was going to be the same, so that wasn't an issue. We had given her a huge amount of support during her tenure, favorable teaching assignments, release time to get a research program going, and lots of nurturance and encouragement. No complaints.

I then proceeded to hear an analysis of the comings and goings of the people in the field, an analysis of likely future ranking shifts due to retirements and hires, and other variables that reflected an undebatable, yet cold-blooded logic about academic hierarchies. The move was viewed as important to the faculty member's career, but the analysis gave me the chills.

By the end of our conversation, I was almost glad she was leaving. Why? Because I found, in listening, no attachment to the university after eight years, no feeling of gratitude for all that her departmental colleagues had done, no expression of emotional attachments to students. In short no compelling reason to stay. The faculty member was, for all intents and purposes, unconnected to the institution. The individual's psyche was attached only to the discipline, to a personal research agenda, to a national network of similarly situated colleagues.

I contrast this to my own feelings in 1982, when I left Penn State -- having been a faculty member for nine years. I experienced a wave of intense sadness and wondered if I would ever get over it. Fortunately, I did get over it, 13 years later when I was invited back as president.

How can we build a university if our faculty are attached only to their own fields of study? How can the goals of our institutions ever truly be realized if we have faculty who are not inclined to put the institution first in their work, or at least accord their employer equal standing in their priorities?

The solution must be seen as a two-way street, of course. We must do a better job of assessing potential faculty and staff for their proclivity to become part of the larger university community, and in turn we must do more to make faculty and staff feel better connected.

Nationwide, there has been a recurring conversation about how to get faculty to be more actively involved with their universities. Many faculty members are really independent operators who are only marginally tied into the life of the university. Their allegiance is not to the institution for which they work, but to their discipline nationally and internationally, an orientation that tends to be reinforced by the academic reward structure. Hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions are based in the department, or college, and the department's strongest frame of reference is its academic discipline viewed globally. This phenomenon, of course, can also be an impediment to fostering multidisciplinary and collaborative teaching and research.

Must this be viewed as an "either/or" struggle? I believe an allegiance to one's university, pride in our shared mission and stature, commitment to our students, and loyalty to our colleagues can be entirely compatible with standards of academic excellence, prominence as a scholar, and national recognition as a department. Many of our faculty indeed exemplify such a profile each and every day.

I challenge faculty to get more involved in the lives of our students. Our nation's research universities have spawned two faculties: those who believe it is their responsibility to engage fully with each cohort of students and those who do not see this as their primary responsibility. To be honest, every experienced department head can point to casualties--cases of junior faculty members ultimately denied tenure because they became so immersed with student advising and programming that they neglected their scholarship. So let's admit up front that we indeed expect an exceptional level of scholarship from our faculty. But balance is the key. Balance.

What a shame that only a tiny portion of faculty attend a commencement ceremony in any given year. What a shame that so few faculty can be found at undergraduate student awards banquets, or having lunch with students in the dining halls. This situation exists at all leading universities. It is a situation of our own collective making. And despite all protestations to the contrary, we continue to orient the reward structure so that interaction outside the classroom with undergraduates counts for very little.

There are, of course, countless examples of faculty who exemplify the very best models of commitment to our students. They participate actively in campus life while shining as scholars and researchers. We need more of these individuals if we are to build and maintain a university that truly serves students and society.

Information Technology

The third unrecognized opportunity in higher education is the convergence of resident instruction and online distance learning, a manifestation of great advances in information technology.

Anyone who is not yet aware of the global revolution that has been spawned by information technology will stand out like a sumo wrestler at a beauty pageant. Information technology has already altered dramatically the way we live, work, and learn. It has become so pervasive that there is scarcely a segment of life that has not already been affected by it. To give you some idea of how quickly information technology has gripped the populace, consider this: It took 38 years for the radio to acquire 50 million users and 13 years for television to become as common, but it took only four years for the World Wide Web to attract that same number of users.

I know that some eyes tend to glaze over on the topic of "emerging technologies," but I believe that the advances offered by information technology provide unprecedented opportunities for us to develop a true learning society.

Technology allows us to overcome the obstacles of time, place, and distance that only a generation ago were viewed by many as insurmountable barriers. The most prominent and familiar form of technology is, of course, the Internet. Every day, the number of people using the Internet jumps by more than 50,000, and it has been estimated that by next year, 490 million people around the world will have Internet access.

The power to share vast quantities of information and data is the foundation of the world's new "knowledge economy," in which information and ideas are a commodity. The astounding flow of knowledge and information -- much of which has been created by universities -- has fueled the growth and development of nations, produced scientific discoveries and generated the development of more technologies.

For higher education, the promises of emerging technologies are manifold. Not only are they a tremendous tool for scholars and researchers to collaborate worldwide and broadly disseminate discoveries with lightning speed, they also hold the promise of limitless learning. Students are no longer hindered by location and with learning materials available 24/7, as they say, education is not restricted. Learning experiences can be tailored, making education more flexible, more interactive, more comprehensive, more hands-on, and thus more relevant.

The capacity of information technology to fundamentally alter the teaching and learning process has never been more evident than now. Last year, almost 60 percent of college courses nationally used e-mail as a tool for instruction, up from 10 percent in 1994. Thirty percent now use a Web site. By 2005, over 90 percent of U.S. higher education institutions are expected to offer some form of e-learning.

The formerly religiously separate domains of distance education and resident instruction are converging. I believe this to be among the most significant unacknowledged trends in higher education. It creates some exciting prospects for educators. Learning can occur online or in campus classrooms through a combination of these two approaches. We can expect to see students living on campus taking classes online from their dorm rooms. We will see some distance education students commuting to college campuses for an occasional resident instruction course. There will be more flexibility in scheduling. For example, a course could involve a weekend in residence at the beginning and end of the course, with online learning sandwiched in between. And how long will we continue to be hung up on the superiority of the rigid semester calendar?

A recent report estimates that by 2002, 2.2 million college students will be enrolled in distance education, up from approximately 710,000 in 1998. Through the "clicks and mortar" approach, students are empowered to take control of their own learning. I am not one who believes that modern information technologies will displace the primacy of resident instruction in institutions such as ours, but I believe that the current rigid distinctions between distance education, commuter, and residential students will be increasingly blurred. We will see a shift in the learning process, combining face-to-face and online instruction with more real-world applications of concepts being studied. Our students will have the most up-to-date information as cutting-edge technologies enable us to expand what we bring into the classroom.

It reminds me of one bit of advice I gave to a student when he began college. I said, "Now that you are on your way to the university, there are two words you should avoid. The words are 'awesome' and 'cool.'" After a pause, the student said, "Okay, so what are the words?"

Well, the use of virtual reality as a learning tool is awesome. And the use of simulated surgical scenarios for medical students is cool. Engineering and architecture students have the capability to walk through their own designs using highly interactive, immersive technologies. Students in introductory physics classes can analyze the fight pattern of the space shuttle through, digital technologies while students in law schools can evaluate their courtroom performance skills through Web-based programs that enable them to digitally view themselves as they practice their cross-examinations.

National statistics underscore the market for lifelong learning. They show that nearly half the adult population in our nation -- some 76 million people --pursues some form of continuing education annually; 40 million participate in work-related courses; and 38 million participate for personal enrichment. Nearly 60 percent of these individuals have a college degree.

Yet in a survey conducted for the Kellogg Commission, more than two-thirds of the higher education and political leaders who responded identified a long list of obstacles to supporting lifelong learning at public universities. These included skepticism about faculty members' expertise in teaching via distance education; the lack of a consumer-driven orientation to education; lack of incentives for faculty to integrate technological innovations into the curriculum; and limited institutional flexibility to bring about change.

To date, institutions of higher education have used a hodge-podge of approaches to integrate technology into their curriculums in an effort to meet the education and training needs of students and businesses. These methods have strained resources and created many new academic challenges. Institutions that fall behind in providing an adequate infrastructure will find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide and risk losing students.

We cannot and should not deny ourselves the possibilities of more interactive learning, a more productive work environment, and the ability to extend our reach to thousands of new learners. The greatest barrier to more effectively integrating technology into our institutions will not be the technology itself, but our attitudes toward it.

A Final Word

Universities and the work they do are an integral part of the success of our nation in this new knowledge economy. We are experiencing our own evolution -- some might call it a revolution -- as we work to deal with changing demographics, globalization, and the rapid advances in information technologies.

Instead of bemoaning the impossibility of tackling these problems, we should be welcoming these new challenges as unrecognized opportunities that can help us build stronger ties to our communities and reach out to more individuals to create a true learning society. As they say, the impossible is often just the untried. To quote Isaac Newton, " No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess."

By embracing new opportunities, while preserving our fundamental purposes, we can thrive during this era of change.