Not all universities will survive the COVID-19 crisis. Many niche institutions will alter their models to stay afloat. Other vulnerable higher education institutions without effective safety nets may downsize, consider mergers or declare bankruptcy. New institutions with new solutions will come to replace them.
We have seen something similar before. In the 1960s and 1970s, the wave of experimental higher education institutions offered new models and practices, which mainstream higher education could not ignore. This is how problem- and project-based learning, student-centred education and individualisation became the norm. Now universities have come to the point when they cannot but innovate. To succeed without betraying their values, they need new solutions.
In global higher education, we can now see three conversations. The most popular and the most obvious one is the forced and hasty pivot to online. The second concerns institutional survival strategies for the autumn and beyond. And then there are the sleeping dogs: old problems we knew we had but could get away with ignoring. Well, the dogs are wide awake now.
Rethinking university models
The central and established institutions might seem immobile and inert – a luxury, we assume, sponsored by vast reputational and financial resources. However, a careful historical analysis shows that the Cambridges and Lunds out there are anything but static. They have reinvented themselves many times over.
Central higher education institutions need transformation to stay in the game. The peripherals cannot enter the game without it. New ideas can shine brighter when they come from unexpected places.
To maintain the uninterrupted flow of teaching and research, universities usually try to be as stable and tranquil as possible. All new approaches, both intellectual and organisational, can cause conflict. What the current chaos has granted us is a window of opportunity to turn conflict into a lasting change.
But how can universities walk the line between stability and innovation? This is where experimentation kicks in. Test-runs save resources in the long run and are the safest course of action from a tactical point of view. They also allow for more imagination because if you start small, you can be bolder.
Experimentation sits between ignorance and knowledge: an experimenter has an idea of what the outcome will be, but is never certain until the experiment is over. Yet, they have to proceed if they want to solve the problems they are facing.
Domains of experimentation
Universities are among the most economically sustainable organisations and even so, they have still taken large hits. Experimentation with management and financial models could put scenario planning, safety nets and emergency protocols into long-term institutional strategies.
Universities have multiple stakeholders with diverse and sometimes conflicting interests. This is why redesigning decision-making processes may allow them to balance the plurality of arguments and the brute necessity to make strong decisions before it is too late.
University faculty have historically enjoyed an elevated professional status. Normally, they perceive their work as less of ‘a job’ and more of ‘a calling’. This, and academic freedom, make up the basis of HR in higher education. At the same time, taxpayers expect accountability and a clear impact for the research they are funding. We need considered thinking about research funding, employment models and public outreach.
Teaching and learning have the highest number of stakeholders: national states, local communities and families, industries and, of course, students, faculty and other university professionals. Experimentation can affect content, methodologies, evaluation of learning, formats of delivery, learning environments and more.
Given the many parties involved, educational experiments can also easily backfire. Is there a way to mitigate the risks? Only up to a point.
The blind spots of higher education
Higher learning is experimental in at least four aspects. First, when students sign up for an educational program, they never fully understand the consequences of their choice. Paradoxically, one has to actually complete the program to fully assess its impact. Students are not customers buying a simple service which they know they need. So, as a student, you are constantly experimented upon – without giving informed consent, so to speak.
Second, educators have no clear solutions to anything. The context matters too much for any one solution to be universally superior. Lectures are often declared obsolete and yet, done well, they can provide unrivalled learning experiences. Groupwork is said to be beneficial, but to what degree should we push students to collaborate?
The three- or four-year bachelor degree has been called out as inefficient, but can anything really compare? Problem-based learning is viewed as a perfect methodology – but only by roughly half of educational experts.
Third, there is no holistic evaluation of the results of higher learning. We measure one dimension by disregarding the others, be it residual knowledge, employability or student satisfaction. We can make connections between a teaching intervention and student performance within a specific course, but we cannot do the same for the outcome of the whole student journey.
Finally, these blind spots – we teach without informed consent, are fundamentally unsure about the advantages of the techniques we use, and have no methods for holistically evaluating learning outcomes – are not considered problematic. Higher education moves along as a series of large-scale experiments, which involve millions of students, faculty and administrators.
The real problem is that, in most cases, experimentation at universities lacks reflection and controls. What we need is a more thoughtful and careful approach, as well as a more conscientious experimental mindset.
Experimental mindset
A proper educational experiment should have a clear hypothesis, grounded in data and theory. Theory can guide you to go beyond the conventional and give you the tools to break the rules. Experimentation invites rule-breaking, at least as a possibility.
Of course, breaking the rules is justified only if you understand them. There are too many visionaries who declare the end of disciplinary learning without considering the role of academic disciplines, who destroy university hierarchies without offering a functional alternative and who otherwise disrupt traditional formats for the sake of disruption itself.
What we need is an honest, sympathetic and paced dialogue between conservative principles and new ideas. We need this dialogue within universities as much as between them.
Some experiments, if not most, will fail. But some will succeed. We need special ‘laboratories’, which design and test new models, like EDLAB at Maastricht University or University Innovation at Stanford’s D.School. And we need them all around the world.
Historically, the West and the North have had a monopoly on producing this kind of higher education innovation. Now organized experimentation in central and peripheral universities must become the norm. After all, mutation is how we evolve. ♦
