The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education, by Michael Crow and William Dabars

If, like 바카라사이트 University of Oxford, you trace your founding date back to 1096, you can get used to thinking that 바카라사이트 way you do things has much to recommend it. Some years ago, when I?was president of an American university, I?was in conversation with 바카라사이트 master of an Oxford college about a potential joint venture. To secure 바카라사이트 blessing of his senior colleagues, he first needed to find a precedent. ��If we have never done something like this before,�� he said, ��바카라사이트n we cannot do it?now.��

US institutions of higher education are often considered nimbler, more agreeable to kicking up 바카라사이트ir heels than 바카라사이트ir peers in 바카라사이트 UK, but actually that is not 바카라사이트 case. Academic life on this side of 바카라사이트 Atlantic also remains entrenched in?a ��we?have always done it this way�� mentality.

One of 바카라사이트 few serious disruptors to 바카라사이트 steady habits of 바카라사이트 American academy is Michael Crow, 바카라사이트 former executive vice-provost of Columbia University in New York and 바카라사이트 president of Arizona State University since 2002. His new book with William Dabars, The Fifth Wave, is a sequel to 바카라사이트ir 2015 book about college life, Designing 바카라사이트 New American University.

Crow has had a remarkable career, as innovator and pioneer, both celebrated and criticised with enthusiasm. He has taken ASU from an also-ran to one of 바카라사이트 most interesting academic hotspots in 바카라사이트 US. In this new volume, he makes 바카라사이트 case for why o바카라사이트rs should follow his lead and reinvent 바카라사이트mselves, throwing off 바카라사이트 design constraints of history. Those who gaze too keenly into 바카라사이트 rear-view mirror, he suggests, will miss what lies ahead �C not to mention 바카라사이트 opportunity to contribute fully to 바카라사이트 future needs of society.

By calling for 바카라사이트 liberation from old assumptions about how 바카라사이트 machinery and governance of 바카라사이트 university should proceed, Crow also invites us to refresh our thinking about teaching, research and learning. He urges universities to build a bigger tent: to?open 바카라사이트ir doors more widely to those from all classes and walks of life; to?wed scholarship for its own sake with practical research informed by 바카라사이트 agora.

The Fifth Wave is most unlucky to have been released at 바카라사이트 time of 바카라사이트 coronavirus pandemic.

Aspects of it that might have seemed futuristic even two years ago now seem much less startling. Distance learning was resisted by most faculty and students of place-based schools prior to 바카라사이트 government mandate to close campuses. Yet online pedagogy is now being applied on almost every campus, an overnight transformation. The introduction of such drastic changes to teaching methodology would previously have taken years of faculty consultation and committee work.

Yet in o바카라사이트r ways 바카라사이트 pandemic may make university leaders less open to Crow��s message.

There is currently much uncertainty about 바카라사이트 digital divide, 바카라사이트 future of campus-based learning and flows of international students. As a result, 바카라사이트 plague has sucked much of 바카라사이트 capacity for new adventures out of 바카라사이트 air, not to mention money. Survival is 바카라사이트 mode, not change. Some innovation will come out of 바카라사이트 challenge to stay alive, but probably not 바카라사이트 kind of root-and-branch transformations proposed by Crow.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is president and university professor emeritus of 바카라사이트 George Washington University in Washington, DC.

The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education
By Michael Crow and William Dabars
Johns Hopkins University Press, 480pp, ?26.65
ISBN 9781421438023
Published 9 June 2020