University Design: Anticipatory Program Development by David J. Staley
The hockey star Wayne Gretzky is purported to have said that one secret of his talent was that he “skated to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” The quote has been employed by business strategists to describe a strategy of anticipation rather than reaction. Colleges and universities might wish […]
University Design: The Ends of Knowledge By David J. Staley
Seth Rudy and Rachael Scarborough King, eds. The Ends of Knowledge: Outcomes and Endpoints Across the Arts and Sciences (London: Bloomsbury Academic,2023). One segment of Marc Andreesen’s recently uploaded “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” caught my attention: “Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from […]
University Design by David J. Staley
The Integrator Chris W. Gallagher, College Made Whole: Integrative Learning for a Divided World (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019). Chris Gallagher begins College Made Whole by observing that “colleges and universities are not designed to promote integrative learning.” (xiii) Integrative learners are those with the ability to “connect and synthesize ideas, knowledge, and skills across […]
University Design | David J. Staley
Knowledge Towns David J. Staley and Dominic D.J. Endicott, Knowledge Towns: Colleges and Universities as Talent Magnets (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023) I have spent the last six months as a consultant with a team developing the campus master plan for a small regional university nestled in Appalachia. The university shares many characteristics of other […]
University Design | David J. Staley
Universities as Geostrategic Assets William C. Kirby, Empire of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2022). My inbox fills each week with reports about the demise of higher education in the United States. These take various forms: the surveys of Americans who feel […]
Side Hustle College by David J. Staley
A few days ago, I had coffee with a recent graduate of Ohio State. An engineering major, he now works for a big Silicon Valley tech firm. He said that what got him his job was not his major or his grade point as much as the side projects he engaged in while at Ohio […]
The University as Public Utility by David J. Staley
One effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the transition to remote work. Many knowledge workers have discovered that given the permission to “work from anywhere” they may seek out places with affordable housing, lower cost of living and better quality of life. Some small towns, secondary cities and rural areas have found themselves in a position […]
An Education for Dynamic Change by David J. Staley
I was recently invited to formally state my teaching philosophy, a useful exercise for any educator to practice every so often. I wrote that “I am committed to ensuring that undergraduate students are prepared to enter into a world of dynamic change, and to lead and thrive in such a complex world.” Rather than training […]
University Design Mindset: An Essential Skill for University Leaders by David J. Staley, Ph.D.
There is a newly emerging field I would like to christen “university design:” an approach, a methodology for thinking about the future of higher education. First, some definitions. One definition for the word design means “to give form.” Thus, when we are talking about industrial design, that means to give form to objects. Graphic design […]
Innovation and Accreditation by David J. Staley
Some of the readers of my book Alternative Universities, while excited at the idea of enterprise-level innovation in higher education, tell me in the same breath that it would be difficult to actually start any of these universities. It’s an interesting thought experiment, these readers insist, but regional accreditors would never sign off on models […]