NOTES FROM Brien Lewis Dean of University College, Winthrop - PDF document

NOTES FROM … Brien Lewis Dean of University College, Winthrop University Suite A, Bancroft Hall Rock Hill, SC 29733 USA (803) 323-3900 lewisb@winthrop.edu 1

African proverb posted on factory floor of auto parts manufacturer in China: “Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.” (Friedman, 137) Friedman contends that, taken together, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the Windows operating system, the internet browser, the software revolutions and the explosion of fiber optic connections means: 1. The individual can author his or her own digital content and send it anywhere; 2. Everyone is everyone else’s neighbors; and 3. There is a universal platform for collaboration. 2

We need to change habits – silo connections have shifted from vertical to • horizontal to capture productive time. (Friedman 276) “In Globalization 3.0, individuals have to think globally to thrive, or at least • survive. This requires not only a new level of technical skills but also a certain mental flexibility, self-motivation, and psychological mobility.” (Friedman 276) What course should you take to “learn”? Take the teacher or professor that truly • engages you and helps you learn to love to learn! (Friedman 302-303) Warp Factor “There is not enough time to tinker around edges – we must rethink and clarify goals.” - Carol Geary Schneider, President of AAC&U “This flattening process is happening at warp speed … The faster and broader this transition to a new era, the greater the potential for disruption, as opposed to an orderly transfer of power from the old winners to the new winners. To put it another way, the experiences of the high-tech companies in the last few decades that failed to navigate the rapid changes brought about in their marketplace by these types of forces may be a warning to all the businesses, institutions, and nation-states that are now facing these inevitable, even predictable, changes but lack the leadership, flexibility, and imagination to adapt – not because they are not smart or aware, but because the speed of change is simply overwhelming them.” (Friedman 49) 3

Gene Sperling, former economic adviser to President Clinton, on today’s workers: “They have to prepare like someone who is training for the Olympics but doesn’t know what sport they are going to enter. … They have to be ready to do anything.” (Friedman 290) Alan Blinder, Princeton economist: “It is clear that the U.S. and other rich nations will have to transform their educational systems so as to produce workers for the jobs that will actually exist in their societies …In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them.” (Friedman 302) “It is going to take more than just doing your homework to thrive in a flat world, though. You are going to have to do the right kind of homework as well. Because the companies that are adjusting best to the flat world are not just making minor changes, they are changing the whole model of the work they do and how they do it – in order to take advantage of the flat-world platform and to compete with others who are doing the same. What this means is that students also have to fundamentally reorient what they are learning and educators how they are teaching it. They can’t just keep the same old model that worked for the past fifty years, when the world was round.” (Friedman 277-278) 4

(qtd. in Friedman 422) “If you want to flourish in this flattening world, you better understand that whatever can be done will be done – and much faster than you think. The only question is whether it will be done by you or to you. Will you drive the innovation or will one of your competitors use it to drive over you?” (Friedman 425-426) [italics in original] "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, • but that it is too low and we reach it."– Michelangelo 5

(Friedman 366) “ To make such a transition campus members must have a level of pain or ‘anticipatory pain’ that induces them to realize that there is an urgency to undertake fundamental change. (People need a compelling reason to make fundamental changes in how they work.)” (Guskin) 2005 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report http://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Research/ResearchLibrary/2005+Nati onal+Satisfaction+Report.htm 6

The Compelling Reason: The World is Flat and We Are Not Darwinian view: species that survive are the ones "most responsive to change". We may be “ok” now but … if students (and their families) do not perceive the university as being relevant , responsive , and a worthwhile investment they will connect and collaborate with a “competitor” (or simply an alternative) who can give them what they seek/need faster and cheaper. Where we don't provide what they need, others do - or soon will. "Facebook" is a perfect example of that on the social front - while we are trying to create affinity groups, our students are a step ahead of us, doing so (for better or worse) in their own ways. How can we position ourselves to be the best enablers of students? Those who will fuss that these conclusions are driven by a "business" model miss the point entirely. Our students (and prospective students and their families) are not looking at us in that light. They are individuals who will find ways to "connect, collaborate, and compete" without us if we do not make the case that they need us in order to do so - or at least that we can enable them to do these things better than anyone else. “Our educational institutions were created in a world defined by boundaries that are now dissolving—disciplinary boundaries, organizational boundaries, national and regional boundaries, even boundaries between teachers and students or professors and entrepreneurs. While they have evolved significantly from their origins as seminaries and professional schools, few colleges or universities today see their role as the education of truly creative, entrepreneurial innovators. And yet, while our colleges and universities perhaps were not designed for the tasks that lay ahead, they are better positioned than any of our other institutions to meet the needs of an innovative society. They are the institutions that we rely on for nurturing talent, performing frontier research, and generating breakthrough ideas.” Wince-Smith, Deborah L.. The Creativity Imperative: A National Perspective. Peer Review, Spring 2006. http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-sp06/pr-sp06_analysis3.cfm 7

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.” – Einstein Solutions must focus on enhancing student learning, and maintaining and enhancing the quality of faculty and staff work-lives. We can no longer “muddle through” – we need to transform: shift from concept of (and emphasis on) faculty teaching/productivity to student learning/productivity (Guskin). “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur (qtd. in Friedman 136) 8

Employ the most effective educational practices that best enable and empower • student learning. Encourage and facilitate connection, collaboration, innovation, and integration. • Be nimble, efficient, informed and responsive. • Use outcomes based assessment focused on core capacities. • Align resources and time with priorities that reflect and enact guiding principles. • Significantly improve timely graduation rates. • Internationalize. • Significantly simplify systems and expedite processing of internal academic and • administrative information and services. Define and revise expectations, roles, and basis for rewards for members of the • campus community. Define and revise process of and standards for allocation of resources to • accomplish objectives. 9

Reform academic calendar to facilitate integrative approaches. • Implement and emphasize integrative study opportunities for students to engage • in creative, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and individualized programs. Establish Global Literacy focus for all programs and majors. • Integrate academic and administrative systems, programs, and processes to • facilitate information access, service and planning. Revise expectations, roles, and rewards to align with integrative approaches. • Facilitate realignment using University College: unique platform because of its • interdisciplinary foundations, its role as a converging point for academic and student life, and its international component. Adopt budgeting process to align resources with integrative approaches. • (Giamatti 144) “Thinking horizontally applies to everything from business to education to military planning. It takes an adjustment to move from vertical to horizontal thinking …. Because 10