Change Is in Our DNA
By Richard R. Spies
Executive vice president for planning and senior advisor to the president, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Like it or not, the world has changed for all of us who live and work in higher education—and not just recently. The changes I am talking about have occurred over time; since the last period of extended recession in the 1970s, the economic, social, and political systems that govern our lives have been significantly and permanently altered.
The good news is that higher education institutions are unusually well-suited to respond to this changing landscape and become better and stronger in the process. But, doing so will require that our leaders understand what this change is all about. How has the world changed and how do those changes affect higher education?
First and foremost, our society has evolved into one driven primarily by the knowledge and creativity of people rather than by access to physical or even financial resources. Increasingly, the capacity to create and utilize new knowledge determines our ability, both as individuals and as organizations, to achieve our goals and contribute to the larger society.
Second, the world is much more interconnected than at any time in history: A housing bubble bursting in one country can spur a worldwide financial crisis which, in turn, sparks a staggering global recession. Identifying and implementing solutions to the challenges that result from interconnectedness ultimately depends on our ability to understand and take advantage of those interconnections.
Finally, because these factors have greatly increased the importance of the knowledge "business," higher education is more critical than ever. At the risk of oversimplifying, the mission of higher education is to prepare the students of today to actively shape the larger society now and into the future—and to help develop the knowledge and tools they will need to do that.
Serving that mission requires constantly challenging ourselves to understand and anticipate the direction of change. The good news is that universities are designed to understand and respond to—and lead—change. This is what universities do: It is in our DNA. It is part of our culture to seek out the widest possible range of opinions and perspectives and to train individuals who will be agents of change.
Our mission of education, research, and service is about as close to eternal as one can get, and our structure and culture call for ongoing reinterpretation and redefinition of those missions. If nothing else, turning over an entire student body every four years certainly keeps a university on its toes.
But, as underwriters are required to disclose in the prospectus for a financial security, past performance does not guarantee future results. The fact that universities have evolved and been leaders of change in the past does not guarantee that they will do so in the future—or that the current level of effort will be sufficient.
Picking Up the Pace
If I am right about the ways in which the world is changing, universities will have to step up the pace. Our students will demand it. The larger society will demand it. And, if we don't rise to the challenge—or maybe even if we do—universities in other countries will pass us by.
In this context, I offer the following advice to all of us in universities:
- Seek diversity even more aggressively than we have in the past. As the world grows ever more complicated, the notion that any one group of people has a monopoly on the best ideas becomes more obviously absurd.
- Encourage collaboration in more and different ways. Bureaucratic constraints and institutional or individual arrogance must not hinder the practice of reaching out to others on questions and problems of mutual interest.
- Engage proactively with the community outside the campus, both locally and globally. It is not enough for us to identify and provide a great education for the most exceptional students; in this fiercely competitive, knowledge-based world, we must align the quality of education with the demands of the larger world for all our citizens.
- Plan and focus. One of the greatest challenges for universities is to keep focused on an agreed-upon plan when new ideas and opportunities constantly pop up all around them. The wisdom to understand which opportunities really advance the university's core mission—and then the discipline to say no to all other good ideas—is critical.
Like so many others who have a great passion for universities, I have an off-the-charts belief in the power of ideas and a deep faith that any institution that provides open access to those ideas will not just survive but will make major contributions to advancing the economic and social well-being of us all. Combined with a good strategic plan and targeted use of resources, this kind of faith will enable universities to rise to the challenge of our ever-changing world.
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