Fitchburg State University George L. Mehaffy 2 September 2014

1. Constant Change: The Challenging Context of The 21st Century Fitchburg State University George L. Mehaffy 2 September 2014

2. In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. “The End of the University as We Know It.” Nathan Harden. The American Interest. January/February 2013. http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1352

4. Technology Changes Everything

5. Think about the impact of technology: On journalism… On photography On the music business… On the book publishing/selling business… The Long Tail. Chris Anderson (Hyperion, 2006)

6. One of technology’s impact on business: store closings Abercrombie and Fitch 180 By 2015 Barnes and Noble 223 Over 9 years Aeropostale 175 Next few years JC Penney 33 By mid-2014 Radio Shack 1,100 Just announced Staples 225 By 2015 Sears 500 Going Forward Family Dollar 370 2014 http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/03/12/retailers-closing-the-most-stores/

7. Robert Darnton • Four Great Information Ages • Invention of Writing, Mesopotamia, 4,000 BC • Moveable type • Mass steam-powered presses, Industrial Age • Internet, after 1993 • Now You See It: Attention and the Future of Learning. Cathy N. Davidson, http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/local_resources/pdfs/colloquium-11-12/ccvol2_cathy_davidson.pdf

8. Eight Challenges to Public Higher Education

9. State Expenditures for Higher Education • (as a percentage of all expenditures: local, state, federal, personal) • 1975: 60% 2010: 34% But huge variations in states: From 1980 to 2011- Colorado 69 % decline Minnesota 56 % decline North Dakota 1 % increase Wyoming 3 % increase Based on the trends since 1980, average state fiscal support for higher education will reach zero by 2059. State Funding: A Race to the Bottom. Thomas G. Mortenson http://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/state-funding-a-race-to-the-bottom.aspx

10. 2. Cost Model

11. Sources: College Board, “Trends in College Pricing, 2008”; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009, www.bls.gov ; U.S. Census, Current Population Study-ASEC, 2008. From the Delta Project. Courtesy Jane Wellman

12. Simple Numbers: Median inflation-adjusted 7% household income, 2006 – 2011 Tuition at public four year 18% Institutions, 2006 – 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-college-degree.html?_r=0 Public higher education – an historic threshold: Students about to pay a higher percentage than the state. 2012 – net tuition 47% of public colleges’ costs. http://chronicle.com/article/StudentsStates-Near-a/137709/

13. 3. Business Model Higher education is a set of cross-subsidies: graduate education subsidized by undergraduate; upper division subsidized by lower division Jane Wellman, Delta Project http://www.deltacostproject.org/ We also have cross-subsidies by disciplines.

15. NCES, BPS, undergraduates only Courtesy Jane Wellman

16. Moody’s Inventor Services • Report January 23, 2012 • “Tuition levels are at a tipping point” • Higher education must innovate to remain viable • Collaborations between colleges • More centralized management • More efficient use of facilities • Reduction in number of tenured faculty • Geographic and demographic expansion of • course offerings http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/130434/

17. Moody’s Report, August 2013 • In 2012: • enrollment at public colleges was essentially flat • revenues grew less than 2 percent • expenses increased more than 3 percent “…political pressure to limit tuition increases and little expectation for big improvements in state spending mean that public colleges will have to continue to cut costs for the foreseeable future.” http://chronicle.com/blogs/bottomline/moodys-report-forecasts-a-gloomy-future-for-public-universities/

18. 4. Evidence of Success 2006 American Institutes for Research (AIR) 20% of U.S. college graduates only have basic quantitative literacy skills… …unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station. More than 50% of students at 4-yr colleges lack the skills to perform complex literacy tasks, such as comparing credit card offers or summarizing the arguments of newspaper editorials. http://www.air.org/news/index.cfm?fa=viewContent&content_id=445

19. Academically Adrift R. Arum & J. Roksa Study has indicated that 36% of students did not show any significant improvement in Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) performance over four years.

20. Graduation Rate, 2010 Study 63.2% of 2003 students who began at a 4 -year college earned bachelor’s degree by 2009. Beginning Postsecondary Survey, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. http://www.quickanded.com/2010/12/u-s-college-graduation-rate-stays-pretty-much-exactly-the-same.html New Study 2012 Full time students: 75% in 6 years Part time students: 32% in 6 years New National Tally of College Completion Tries to Count All Students. http://chronicle.com/article/New-National-Tally-of-College/135792/

21. 5. Public Opinion *** 60% (six out of ten) of Americans in 2010 said that colleges today … focused more on the bottom line than on the educational experience of students. http://www.highereducation.org/reports/squeeze_play_10/squeeze_play_10.pdf *** In a recent survey, 80% said that at many colleges, education received is not worth the cost. Time Magazine, October 29, 2012, p. 37 *** Lumina survey in November/December 2012, three quarters (3/4) of respondents said that college is unaffordable. http://chronicle.com/article/Americans-Value-Higher/137023/

22. 6. The Role of Venture Capitalists New Start-Ups Udacity Udemy University Now Coursebook Coursekit Courseload CourseRank http://chronicle.com/article/A-Boom-Time-for-Education/131229/

23. 7. Debt Debt Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year. More than $ one trillion dollars this year Seven in 10 college seniors (71%) who graduated last year had student loan debt, with an average of $29,400 per borrower. http://projectonstudentdebt.org/state_by_state-data.php

24. 8. Inequality 1996 - 2012, public colleges and universities gave a declining portion of grants—as measured by both the number of grants and the dollar amounts—to students in the lowest quartile of family income. The task of educating low-income students has increasingly fallen to community colleges and for-profit colleges. http://chronicle.com/article/Public-Colleges-Quest-for/141541/

25. Who Receives Merit Aid? 1 in 5 students from families with income over $ 250,000 1 in 10 students from families with income under $ 30,000 Percentage of 24 Year Olds with College Degrees 1970 2011 Top-income quartile: 40% 70% Bottom-income quartile 6% 10% http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/magazine/freebies-for-the-rich.html?_r=0

26. “The higher education system is more and more complicit as a passive agent in the systematic reproduction of white racial privilege across generations.   Since 1995, 82 percent of new white enrollments have gone to the 468 most selective colleges, while 72 percent of new Hispanic enrollment and 68 percent of new African-American enrollment have gone to the two-year open-access schools.” http://cew.georgetown.edu/separateandunequal/

27. Are we vulnerable to disruption? • Christensen and Eyring argue that disruption comes from cheaper and simpler technologies that are initially of lower quality. Over time, the simpler and cheaper technology improves to a point that it displaces the incumbent. • The Innovative University. • Clayton Christensen and • Henry J. Eyring. 2011

28. The challenge is enormous. We have a confusion of purposes, distorted reward structures, limited success, high costs, massive inefficiencies, and profound resistance to change.

29. Clay Shirky --- “The biggest threat those of us working in colleges and universities face isn’t video lectures or online tests. It’s the fact that we live in institutions perfectly adapted to an environment that no longer exists.” http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/01/

30. The greatest challenge to our survival and success is our inability and/or unwillingness to change.

31. Churchill House of Commons

32. “The Chamber should be oblong and not semi-circular; there should not be room for all its Members; it should be designed to preserve that intimacy of debate and discussion, freedom and sense of urgency and excitement…” http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/jan/25/house-of-commons-rebuilding "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” House of Commons (meeting in the House of Lords), 28 October 1943.

33. Dungeons and Dragons: Prisoners of Our Own Beliefs; Tyrannized by Mythical Beasts

34. The Key Issue How do we educate more students, with greater learning outcomes, at lower costs?

35. What should a 21st century university look like? (we’re only slightly more than 1/8 of the way into this new century, so let me describe some emerging characteristics of 21st century universities not the final product)

36. Core Commitments

37. Commitment to Access Mission Statement: Arizona State University “measured not by who we exclude, but rather by who we include and how they succeed” “I don’t think the taxpayers of Florida voted to tax themselves to build a university that their children could not attend.” John Hitt, President The University of Central Florida (UCF)

38. A commitment to ACCESS: Multiple entry points • Make every effort to get students into the university: • early college programs in high school • summer preparatory academies • testing in 11th grade and using 12th grade for remediation, etc. • community college pathways • And then make sure they succeed!

39. And challenge old assumptions: who’s college ready? A simple example: college mathematics Are students not prepared? Or are we the ones who are not ready? Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Statways and Quantways

40. Success for At-Risk Students University of Texas Chemistry 301 David Laude Took 50 students with risk indicators: Low SAT, low income, first generation (200 points lower on SAT) Separate class, special interventions: Extra class hours, mentors…and high expectations. Outcome: Same grades as large section Higher overall graduation rate 3 years later http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html

41. Two key ideas: Belonging and Ability One 45 minute intervention for first year students resulted in an 86% completion rate (completing 12 hours of credit in first semester) for disadvantaged students (black, Latino, first generation) …cutting in half the gap between advantaged students (90%) and disadvantaged students (82%)

42. Commitment to Student Success A set of studies by AASCU, Ed Trust, and the National Association of System Heads (NASH)

43. Commitment to Learning Outcomes • New Tools (CLA, CAAP, and MAPP) • New Organizations (NILOA, New • Leadership Alliance, etc.) • New Initiatives (Degree Qualifications • Profile DQP) • New Pressures (Academically Adrift) • New Expectations (business, parents and • students, government, accreditors)

44. What Learning Outcomes? What are the key work attributes of the 21st century? --- Solving unstructured problems --- Working with new information --- Carrying out non-routine tasks--- Complex communication --- Expert thinking The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market. Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane. 2005

45. Teaching As Valued As Research • Comparing Teaching Effectiveness: • Tenure and Non-Tenure Faculty • Ac­a­dem­ic per­form­ance, 8 co­horts of freshmen: 15,662 students, from fall 2001 to fall 2008. • Taking a course from non-tenure track fac­ul­ty mem­bers: • In­creases the like­li­hood that a stu­dent will take an­oth­er class in the sub­ject • In­creases the grade earned in that sub­se­quent class • Produces the greatest gains for weakest students • Northwestern University Study • http://chronicle.com/article/Ad-juncts-Are-Bet-ter/141523/

46. Commitment to be Stewards of Place For the 21st century university, a focus on citizenship preparation, P-12 education, health care, economic and community development, and internationalization. AASCU published a second and third volume in the Stewards of Place series in August 2014

47. Commitment to Reducing Costs • Time to Completion • 120 hours for all majors • Reducing bottlenecks in completion • Charging out-of-state for 30+ credits beyond graduation requirements • Intrusive advising and early remediation • Flat rate for summer courses

48. Commitment to the Right Incentives What counts in the new university? What really matters? What are the metrics of success? Who gets rewarded / recognized?

49. Perverse Incentives Cardiac surgeons turned away the sickest and most severely ill patients after adopting performance-based health report cards. Health disparities widened among White, Black, and Hispanic patients after introducing physician report cards. http://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/HillmanViewpoint.pdf

50. Commitment to Rethinking Status and Prestige Our institutions were created as teaching institutions, instead of learning institutions. From Teaching to Learning - A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. Robert B. Barr and John Tagg. Change Magazine. Nov./.Dec., 1995.