The Golden Age of universities may be dead. And while much of the commentary around the online disruption of education ranges from cost-benefit analyses to assessing ideology of what drives MOOCs (massively open online courses), the real question becomes -- what is the point of the university in this landscape?
It’s clear that universities will have to figure out the balance between commercial relevance and basic research, as well as how to prove their value beyond being vehicles for delivering content. But lost in the shuffle of commentary here is something arguably more important than and yet containing all of these factors: culture.
Online courses can be part of, and have, their own culture, but university culture cannot be replicated in an online environment (at least not easily). Once this cultural difference is acknowledged, we can revisit the cost-benefit analysis: Is cheaper tuition worth it if it pays for education that isn’t optimized for innovation? Will university culture further stratify the socioeconomic difference MOOCs may level? And so on…
While innovation is a buzzword that’s bandied about a bit too loosely, we think this is the lens we need to use in judging the relevance of universities. It’s the only thing that prevents us from programming students as robots, a workforce whose jobs can be automated away. In fact, universities that excel at preparing students for such a creative economy prioritize the same three things that drive successful startup cultures: density, shared resources, and community.
#### Evan Selinger & Andrew Phelps
##### About
[Evan Selinger](https://twitter.com/EvanSelinger) is a Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology who focuses on the collisions between technology, ethics, and law. At Rochester Institute of Technology, Selinger is Associate Professor of Philosophy and is affiliated with the Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction & Creativity (MAGIC).
Density
Density can be pricey, but it has always produced the best results -- both in the physical world, and even in designing something like an MMORPG. Silicon Valley wouldn’t have risen to preeminence without ongoing ties to Stanford and Berkeley (and several other schools engaged in its community). A big part of that is the cultural connection and engagement that those campuses bring to the entrepreneurial and creative process, and the physical proximity and flow of those communities in densely packed areas.
To unleash the potential of nurturing communities and physical proximity, the right kind of density is required. Bars, eateries, and coffee shops are important, as are housing, central academic facilities, and ‘social spaces’ of all varieties. But a Coursera or EdX course is a long way from the community feel of even a World of Warcraft raid, to say nothing of the culture embedded in design studios. Indeed, the collaborative potential of 35,000 students in a shared environment is almost entirely untapped in the current MOOC model and doesn’t seem to be entering the agenda any time soon.
Shared Resources
Many successful education and innovation initiatives minimize expenses by pooling resources: faculty, research personnel, administrative services, coaching, labs, prototyping facilities, and more. This distinguishes university culture from online education: Where is the MOOC that teaches biology with lab-based exercises? Where is the MOOC on painting that doesn’t require each student to self-fund materials? Are MOOCS only suited for software and “soft” disciplines?
Meanwhile, universities have become too bloated to properly allocate their own resources. And too many restrict access to their specialized labs and production capabilities, only allowing entry by department or major, for example -- or tying the use of such facilities to draconian intellectual property and ownership policies. And they don’t pool resources regionally (with other colleges) to enforce tuition differentials. If universities are to stay relevant here, they need to recognize their competition isn’t just other universities anymore. And for MOOCs to play a role here, they may need to partner with makerspaces, company fab lines, and other capital-intensive physical infrastructure resources ... or universities themselves.
Nurturing Communities
MOOC hype compares courses with courses, lectures with videos -- but doesn’t engage in comparing websites with campus communities. MOOC offerings are marketed as self-contained content delivery for individuals, not as a team sport.
Unlike some companies, universities aren’t constrained by meeting quarterly profit expectations. One way they push back against the myopia of focusing too intently on current market trends is by investing deeply in hard problems that require long-term solutions. The challenge they will have to meet is breaking down silos between their departments to embrace more multi-disciplinary methods. Currently, only special entrepreneurial programs, dedicated labs, and “d schools” take care of these functions.
Ironically, the very architectural blood that keeps the heart of nurturing communities beating is now appearing -- sans budget cuts -- at corporate campuses throughout the Seattle-Los Angeles corridor while universities are cutting costs here according to diminishing state and federal support. Google is essentially becoming a college campus while universities are working hard to justify their value in business-friendly terms.
* * *
Recently, universities are being painted with a too-broad brush that equates all forms of higher education into a single model of archaic practice while reducing all elements of the campus experience to only the classroom. The truth is more complex. Universities have been experimenting with distance delivery and digital media in and out of the classroom for quite some time and have insight to offer when it comes to operational models, course delivery platforms, and current use of courseware technology and pedagogical tools.
Meanwhile, MOOCs are also depicted too reductively: Proponents tout the cost-savings and reach, detractors scream about completion rates and credentials. More realistically, there are several instances where a MOOC-based delivery model is ideal, where a campus-based solution is infeasible or not economical, or where a blend of the two models can achieve something where either approach can’t individually realize -- the so-called “flipped classroom” being one much-touted example.
Too much of the public discourse on the value of higher education is driven by staid understanding of universities as degree mills that are easily replaced by online counterparts. But there is tremendous value in a campus, and universities would be well served to emphasize it and support its underlying activities. Likewise, MOOCs and other online education platforms need to recognize these factors to truly add or complement their vaue. We need to be careful here, or we really will end up with a situation where there are, as famously predicted, only 10 universities left in the world. Or we end up with a bunch of isolated online courses without a shared culture.
Editor: Sonal Chokshi @smc90
