In order for public colleges and universities to remain viable and effective in the coming years, higher education leaders must revamp the way they do business and refocus on delivery modes that lead to higher rates of completion.
Such are the main messages in a new report titled Front and Center: Critical Choices for Higher Education.
Produced by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, the report calls on higher education leaders to “take several actions, none of them comfortable.”
Those recommendations essentially call for a leaner, meaner higher education system, if you will, that focuses more on accountability, using online and other technology to get better results, de-emphasizing “general education” and keeping a tight rein on research.
The report—borne largely through a meeting convened in December 2010 in Charlottesville, Va., by the Miller Center, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices—drew both praise and sharp criticism in various quarters of higher education.
Dr. Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, called the report “essentially schizophrenic” for its endorsement of liberal education on the one hand but then calling for certain students to bypass liberal education altogether.
“Whatever you’re majoring in, whether medical records or engineering, everybody needs big-picture knowledge,” Geary Schneider said, explaining that liberal education inculcates essential things such as critical thinking and ethics.
