Tuesday, 22 September 2015 - 2:27pm
For the last 40 years, I've lived with one foot in the Ivory Tower and one chasing profits in corporate America. The Academy and business worlds used to feel like very different and distinctly unique places and experiences. Lately, not so much.
This shift worries me. While the Academy is certainly a business that has to be managed properly, it was never designed to produce dollars over productive citizens and engaged lives. In fact, private colleges counted on their successful graduates to appreciate the value of the experience so much that they would return as alumni contributors. Our leaders invested in public land grant colleges that were designed to facilitate the best in research and to produce graduates who literally would change the world. And they have.
Community colleges were designed for local access and affordable pathways of promise for everyone. And they are.
But something has fundamentally shifted. Since the early 1980s, we've insisted that the delivery system for a university education must look and feel like a profit-seeking venture with all of the attendant risks.
And, the Ivory Tower has tilted and may, in fact, fall. (read more)