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Session 5 : Next Generation
Faculty
Co-chairs Gene Takle (Iowa
State University) and
Kaye Howe (UOP)
The paragraphs from James Duderstadt
that follow are meant to provoke discussion about one of
our culture's most ancient, successful and adaptable institutions,
the university, and its core reality, the faculty. There
are significant challenges revolving around authority and
ubiquity. Can the next generation of faculty, or more urgently,
this generation of faculty address those challenges and
how?
From the Introduction to Duderstadt’s
Testimony to the US House Science Committee, May 2000.
Today our society and our social
institutions are being reshaped by the rapid advances
in information technology–computers, telecommunications,
and networks. These rapidly evolving technologies are
dramatically changing the way we collect, manipulate,
and transmit information. They change the relationship
between people and knowledge. And they are likely to reshape
in profound ways knowledge-based institutions such as
the research university. While this technology has the
capacity to enhance and enrich teaching and scholarship,
it also poses certain threats to the university. We can
now use powerful computers and networks to deliver educational
services to anyone, anyplace, anytime, no longer confined
to the campus or the academic schedule. Technology is
creating an open earning environment in which the student
has evolved into an active learner and consumer of educational
services, stimulating the growth of powerful market forces
that could dramatically reshape the higher education enterprise.
From “The University of
the 21st Century” (March 2000)
“No question is out of bounds:
What is our purpose? What are we to teach, and how are
we to teach it? Who teaches under what terms? Who measures
quality, and who decides what measures to apply? Who pays
for education and research? Who benefits? Who governs
and how? What and how much public service is part of our
mission? What are appropriate alliances, partnerships,
and sponsorships?”
“There is great unease
on our campuses. The media continue to view the academy
with a frustrating mix of skepticism, ignorance and occasional
hostility that erodes public trust and confidence. The
danger of external intervention in academic affairs in
the name of accountability remains high.
...The faculty feels the stresses from all quarters: There
is fear that research funding will decline again when
the economy cools and entitlement programs grow. Faculty
members are apprehensive about the future of long-standing
academic practices such as tenure and academic freedom.
They express a sense of loss of scholarly community with
increasing specialization, together with a conflict between
the demands of grantsmanship, a reward structure emphasizing
research, and a lover and sense of responsibility for
teaching. While most believe that the university will
remain an important, perhaps even essential social institution
in our future, it is also clear that we are entering a
period of profoundly important debate about the future
of higher education.”
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