By Mary Jo Frank
America’s research universities will change dramatically during the next decade, President James J. Duderstadt predicts. How much?
On a scale of 1 to 10, Duderstadt is guessing 20.
Speaking to Senate Assembly Nov. 15, Duderstadt said the mission of the University as we know it today—teaching, research and service—was shaped by the needs of an America of the past. Since the nation and the world are changing at an accelerating pace, he said, it is appropriate to suggest that the present idea of a research university must also evolve rapidly to serve the highly pluralistic, knowledge-intensive world nation that will be America of the 21st century.
Duderstadt ticked off major changes that have occurred since he became president in 1988, including:
Higher education also has changed dramatically.
To many, Duderstadt said, the American research university is seen as being big, self-centered and greedy; having spoiled, badly behaved students and faculty; being plagued by the “isms” of racism, sexism, elitism and extremism; suffering the deterioration of intellectual values; and gouging parents with high tuition and the government with inappropriate charges for research.
“Note, this is not just a laundry list dredged up by a few malcontents—the revenge of the C-student or tenure casualties. These reflect not only genuine concerns of the American public about higher education, but also a serious mismatch between what the public wants and what we are providing them,” the president said.
The great American experiment of quality public higher education appears to be coming to an end, Duderstadt said. During the past several years, 42 states have had to cut appropriations for higher education. The U-M has seen its state support drop to less than 12 percent of its operating budget, with little hope that it will stop plummeting in the years ahead.
What form will the U-M take on its 200th anniversary—only 23 years away?
Outlining the strategic planning process the University is using to guide it into the next century, Duderstadt noted that in a rapidly changing environment, it is important to use a planning process that is not only capable of adapting to changing conditions but also, to some degree, capable of modifying the environment.
Within any successful strategic planning process, the goals, objectives, actions and tactics evolve, Duderstadt said. Goals developed in the mid-1980s included focusing resources to build “spires of excellence” and developing a “change-oriented” culture, with highest priority given to bold, new initiatives.
Planning activity in 1990 sharpened a bit with the introduction of new goals:
research
As the administration refines the strategic process, Duderstadt said the administration’s proposed goals can be separated into three categories: leadership, resources and trail-breaking.
He listed a number of specific goals in each category, including:
Leadership—enhance the quality of all academic programs, achieve more “firsts” for the University, become the leading research university in the nation, and develop a new paradigm for undergraduate education.
Resources—acquire resources to compensate for the loss of state support, restructure the U-M to better use existing resources, increase private support to exceed the state appropriation by the year 2000, increase endowment to $2 billion by 2000, and dramatically improve the quality of U-M facilities.
Trail-breaking—restructure the University to better respond to intellectual change, position the U-M as a world university and as the electronic university of the 21st century, make the U-M a leader in knowledge transfer to society, and make the Ann Arbor area the economic engine of the Midwest.
Duderstadt acknowledged the growing concern that our present institutions, such as universities and government laboratories, which have been the traditional structures for intellectual pursuits, may be obsolete and irrelevant in the future.
“I worry sometimes that the U-M may be just as vulnerable to a world of change as GM and IBM have proven to be,” Duderstadt said.
He shared with the faculty possible models for the university of the 21st century, including the “state-related but world-supported university,” the world university, the multicultural university, the networked university, the creative university, the university as a capstone of a lifelong sequence of education, and the laboratory university.
A new U-M model, he suggested, could be based on such long-held values as excellence, leadership, critical and rational thinking, liberal learning, and diversity and community, along with hopes for the future.
Whatever we do, Duderstadt said, “We must also accept the fact that higher education is evolving along with the rest of our society, just as it has done throughout our history. We can anticipate and shape change, but we cannot stand still or go backwards.”
