Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun Opens Colloquium 2012
Feb. 2012
Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University, kicked off the 2012 Colloquium with a thought-provoking analysis of current challenges and opportunities for U.S. higher education in the global context. He described the traditional higher education model as ripe for change, and encouraged the participants by stating, “We are not here to be passive observers, but to shape the ‘new normal.’”
Aoun outlined some of the challenges facing U.S. higher education, including decreased funding and more regulation at the federal level and, at the state level, the “privatization of the publics” and “a general tension toward dismantling public systems.” Given that 80 percent of students attend public colleges and universities, Aoun cautioned, “this should be a grave concern to us all.
“We take it for granted that our higher education system is the best — and it is. But we are facing much more competition,” continued Aoun, who went on to describe how technology provides both opportunities for and disruption of traditional models of higher education. “The fully residential model that we have inherited has been very successful, but is expensive and exclusionary. We consider ourselves successful based on the number of students we reject for admission. But if you are selling iPads, you want everyone to have one.” Aoun sees the ivory tower as no longer sustainable. “We need to move beyond the traditional boundaries, or someone else will,” he said.
Aoun indicated that knowledge delivery is now a mass market, and some countries are simply using what is available as open course work on the Web to prepare students for credentialing. Meanwhile, to compete in the global marketplace, some U.S. institutions are creating new campuses abroad without fully considering the implications and context. For example, he said, “our curricula are not always transportable overseas.” Aoun shared that an education adviser in India told him that the American model of higher education is “not scalable, not affordable, not sustainable and not adaptable.”
But Aoun concluded with words of encouragement for the participants. While there have been some successes and some failures as U.S. higher education has worked toward a new model, here and abroad, “in many ways our system is unique and still the best,” he said. “It is the most open, the most risk taking, the most diverse, in the world. But what is best is that we have entered into a social compact with society. Universities and colleges have a special role to play, to contribute to the betterment of society. It has been a privilege for us.”
Aoun stated, “We have to reaffirm this social compact in whatever community we find ourselves. The social compact is what has allowed U.S. higher education to thrive for the past 100 years. If we want to be global and national, we have to be local. We need to be more in tune with the needs expressed to us than we have been. That is where I see our real opportunity: rebuilding our social compact.”
In subsequent sessions, participants discussed other elements of the “new normal,” including the shifting political climate, dimensions of the new economy, and creating and sustaining student pipelines, as well as other important topics. Click here for further reading related to Colloquium 2012.
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