This article aims to present a synopsis of inertially‐driven future demographic, economic and technologic realities that will predictably alter the marketplace operating…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to present a synopsis of inertially‐driven future demographic, economic and technologic realities that will predictably alter the marketplace operating environment for post‐secondary education during the next 10 to 15 years. The article also seeks to explore a detailed scenario speculating on multiple implications for the university as it simultaneously confronts all of the predictably changing elements of its operating environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A convergence of published long‐term demographic, economic and technologic trends and forecasts is examined that has begun to produce structural and operational changes throughout the business world, setting in motion five fundamental transformations in the context of all enterprises: the globalization of the economy; the information of work; the disaggregation of organizations; the maturation of the workforce; and the reconfiguration of employment. The practical implications of these long‐term realities for industrial era universities are described, and a scenario for the future evolution of the “post‐industrial university” is presented, modeled on – and in consonance with – transformations already under way throughout corporate enterprise.
Findings
Reliably forecastable aspects of the University's operating environment, including a shortage of qualified faculty, stagnant personal income and baccalaureate markets, mounting competition from for‐profit schools and an explosion in new applied knowledge in every field and discipline are likely to coerce innovation and change in higher education in spite of institutional intransigence, necessity being the mother of invention.
Originality/value
A scenario based on multiple statistically valid forecasts does not constitute an infallible prediction of the future, but it does present decision makers and strategic planners with sound benchmarks for the pace and scale of change that may reasonably be expected, as well as raising issues and posing options that routine linear extrapolations are unlikely to have revealed.
Details
Keywords
David Pearce Snyder and Gregg Edwards
Presents an historic model of technologic maturation and examines five emerging information technologies projected to achieve marketplace pre‐eminence during the next three to…
Abstract
Presents an historic model of technologic maturation and examines five emerging information technologies projected to achieve marketplace pre‐eminence during the next three to five years that will pose transformational implications for traditional classroom‐based teacher‐mediated education.
Details
Keywords
Judith Tröndle, Lisa Pfahl and Boris Traue
The role of caregivers and issues of parenting are controversial in research on disability. While appreciating the historical and political reasons to critique power relations in…
Abstract
The role of caregivers and issues of parenting are controversial in research on disability. While appreciating the historical and political reasons to critique power relations in care systems and care relations, we argue that it is important to consider parents' and other caregivers' positions. A reconsideration provides insights into pervasive effects of ableism defining not only the individual child but parents and other relatives as well. We draw from extensive research on couples parenting a child with disability in Germany (Tröndle, 2022a). This study seeks to understand how parents of a child with disability cannot avoid understanding themselves as “special parents.” Through analyzing shared life stories of couples and individual biographies, the study reconstructs how identities evolve differently depending on their work-sharing arrangements. Based on our findings, the couples experience difficulties in maintaining dual employment arrangements. They become “unable” to step outside of the logic of welfare and health provision and structures of the labor market. Couples begin to explain their situation and the discrimination they experience by reflecting themselves as “special parents.” Heteronormative and ableist expectations hinder them in articulating resistance and gaining agency as allies of their children, facilitating positions of complicity. We argue that the approach suggested by this study – namely including the ambiguous situation of caregivers in Disability Studies – can encourage other researchers to consider othering and ableism of and by caregivers.
Details
Keywords
This article aims to review the response of the National Academies of Science, in the USA to the question posed by the US Congress as to how the USA can remain competitive in a…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to review the response of the National Academies of Science, in the USA to the question posed by the US Congress as to how the USA can remain competitive in a world with rapid advances in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It posits that the responses via rapid scaling up of research cannot meet the needs as it has in the past as with putting a person on the moon or mastering nuclear energy.
Design/methodology/approach
The article reviews alternatives that describe and reframe the problem and provides alternative possibilities for a response by the USA.
Findings
The ability of knowledge to migrate globally via the internet or the migration of humans coupled with the rapid rise in education and research in India and China suggest that the USA needs to reassess its position in a changing world both from an technological and economic perspective.
Originality/value
The analysis provides a future perspective that is counter‐intuitive and offers an alternative from which to develop policy and support of technology development in a global society.
Details
Keywords
Reflecting on the forces that produced the first universities 800 years ago provokes consideration of today's universities at the start of the new millennium. The paper…
Abstract
Purpose
Reflecting on the forces that produced the first universities 800 years ago provokes consideration of today's universities at the start of the new millennium. The paper complements Snyder's critique by suggesting that higher education engage in an exacting review of its most cherished assumptions, from the categorical definitions of disciplines to the fundamental structure of its pedagogy.
Design/methodology/approach
Comparative historical research fuels a conceptual examination of the university today. It adopts Snyder's view that higher education is currently adrift in fulfilling its academic mission and sustaining itself in a competitive environment. This approach yields a much more dramatic range of future plausibilities for contemporary universities than do more conventional extrapolations.
Findings
Rearranging schools and departments will not solve its problems, nor will it make much of a contribution to the state of the world. But digging deep into the wellsprings of knowledge, learning, and wisdom, and engaging in the great work of harmonizing the university with the emerging needs of its era and the concomitant forces of social change, can only energize the culture of higher education.
Practical implications
The article has important implications for strategic planning in higher education. It argues that universities will become increasingly irrelevant if they fail to recapture the spirit of exuberance, intellectual discovery, and social relevance evidenced by the earliest universities. This can be achieved by reassessing the university's mission and social role, utilizing technology to accelerate the learning process, and rethinking disciplinary definitions to reflect the explosive growth of knowledge and changes in methodologies in virtually every academic field. The most enduring transformation will begin with a dramatic shift in program content and pedagogy rather than reliance upon organizational restructuring.
Originality/value
A historically‐grounded vision of the university's current creative potential establishes a reference frame that bestows the freedom to transcend linearly progressed trends. The university can then be re‐imagined as a vital transformative and healing institution uniquely suited to its mission in an era rife with anxiety, uncertainty, and risk.
Details
Keywords
Tom P. Abeles and David Pearce Snyder
To introduce this “all review” issue, comprising a diverse mix of volumes reviewed by a broad spectrum of individuals.
Abstract
Purpose
To introduce this “all review” issue, comprising a diverse mix of volumes reviewed by a broad spectrum of individuals.
Design/methodology/approach
This article calls into question the future viability of conventional print publishing in general, and the continued use of academic journals both for the dissemination of current research and as the primary means of assessing the work of academics for the purpose of promotion and tenure. It further suggests that the world of clicks and bricks is merging, and that there will be a competitive struggle to determine the value of various paths for knowledge dissemination.
Practical implications
The article suggests that, with the introduction of electronic transmission and storage of knowledge – cheaply, securely, interactively and readily accessible – the future market for, and use of, traditional academic journals needs serious reconsideration and repurposing.
Originality/value
The article provides a challenge to both The Academy and its co‐dependent publishing industry to openly address the techno‐economic realities confronting each, and suggests that much that is currently being done in response to the emerging internet world simply involves the superficial conversion of “bricks” to “clicks,” rather than an honest effort to deal with the transformational issues and opportunities at hand.
Details
Keywords
David Snyder, Ted Fay and Daniel DePerno
Richard Pound, former Olympian, former Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee and Chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency, discusses the impact of doping on sport and…
Abstract
Richard Pound, former Olympian, former Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee and Chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency, discusses the impact of doping on sport and shares his views on steroid usage in Major League Baseball. He reflects upon the Ben Johnson steroid scandal and touches on broader issues related to the Olympics, such as the commercialisation of the Games, the role of the Paralympics, and how controversies surrounding the Games are handled. The interview was conducted on 19 April 2005 at the Fifth Annual Sport Management Awards Ceremony held at the SUNY College at Cortland.
This article aims to encourage universities to go beyond the significant obsession with the technical advances of the knowledge society and carefully assess both the…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to encourage universities to go beyond the significant obsession with the technical advances of the knowledge society and carefully assess both the epistemological and ethical principles that govern their existence. Ultimately, these principles will shape the future well being of both universities and civilization itself.
Design/methodology/approach
Provides a useful discussion on the future of universities.
Findings
The advance of modern technology is assessed within a context of philosophical assumptions such as promethean successism, platonic order, Cartesian rationalism, Newtonian certainty and modern materialism which are challenged by the uncertainties, complexities, and subjectivity promoted by existentialism, quantum physics, and chaos theory. The quest for wisdom takes us beyond the confines of the knowledge society to a values‐based, open, humble, caring and sharing community experience.
Practical implications
People, institutions and communities need to carefully assess their future development in terms of a carefully considered code of ethics and a clear understanding of the limits of their capacity for knowledge.
Originality/value
The thesis is not uncommon. The important difference is in the wide contextual and conceptual perspective together with a focus on urgency as we enter a very different future shaped by nanotechnology, biotechnology, computer science and robotology.