Qualify for your MOJO ribbon by reading a Planning article this fall, then commenting on it. Find out more. Sign up now.

Did you know that you can listen to podcasts of Rehm’s shows (or read its transcript)? Here’s the description of this higher ed conversation with some heavy hitters:

The nation’s top universities have traditionally offered courses to an elite few. Only qualified students with enough financial resources need apply. But today, hundreds of thousands of people around the world are enrolling in classes at universities like Stanford and MIT. These higher ed institutions and many more now provide free online classes to anyone, anywhere. At the same time, other universities are offering on-campus students the opportunity to enroll in a growing number of online classes. As universities move toward instruction online, observers say higher education—and possibly the business model—is being redefined. Diane and her guests discuss the new generation of online learning and what it means for the future of higher education.

Guests on the show included Daphne Koller, founder of Coursera and professor at Stanford University; Jeffrey Selingo editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education; Kevin Carey director of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation; and Peter Struck professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Qualify for your MOJO ribbon by reading a Planning article this fall, then commenting on it. Find out more. Sign up now.

Quote of the Week

We're next headed away from hard, confined definitions of learning timeframes. We're trying to change from the old agricultural cycle—or whatever it is that semesters are currently based on, because nobody really knows—to cycles based on learning outcomes. That might mean a course could take two years and other courses could take three weeks. How can we allow students to individualize their learning in a structured institution? We're looking to use technology and analytics to help us move into a much less constrained time structure.

Diana Oblinger, of EDUCAUSE, interviewing Michael M. Crow, president of ASU. These are two of SCUP’s favorite prognosticators. Where do they think higher ed is going? Worth a look at ‘No More Excuses’: Michael M. Crow on Analytics. 

Question. What are the main obstacles standing in the way of an entirely a entirely affordable, accessible, high-quality, and open world of higher education? Are they technological, social, matters of government policy or the conduct and structure of institutions?

Answer. Tradition dies hard. Once you establish a hierarchy of what counts as the pinnacle of excellence (with Oxford and Cambridge in England, Harvard in the U.S., Tokyo University in Japan) it is hard for those who have proted within that system of hierarchy to admit that reputation is not always equal to excellence, that esteem does not necessarily lead to innovation. So institutional resistance, deeply nestled within the class system and reward systems, would top the list. There are also billions of dollars resting in the current system, so there is much resistance to major change.  

 ^{Go directly to the original of the resource described below.}

This video is from 2–3 years ago, ahead of the very real timeliness of this issue. Sandy Shugart is president of Valencia College (formerly Valencia Community College, which name change he refers to in this presentation) and is the Sunday evening plenary speaker at SCUP–47 in Chicago, July 7–11, 2012; higher education's premier planning event. In this video he asks and addresses the question, “Can Our Institutions Accommodate to People Who Don't Believe In Them.” 

Shugart is an accomplished poet and musical artist, as well as the man who recently accepted on Valencia’s behalf, the designation of the Top Community College in the United States. If you just want the talk, skip ahead to about 30 minutes. But you’ll be missing a really good singing performance, with commentary. We very much hope that he brings his guitar to Chicago for SCUP–47.

Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops is a Wired magazine article by Thomas Goertz. It seems useful to better understand this for change management. He also discusses the use of real-time sensors and responders, which could be useful for planners.

A feedback loop involves four distinct stages. First comes the data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage. Second, the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in which it was captured but in a context that makes it emotionally resonant. This is the relevance stage. But even compelling information is useless if we don’t know what to make of it, so we need a third stage: consequence. The information must illuminate one or more paths ahead. And finally, the fourth stage: action. There must be a clear moment when the individual can recalibrate a behavior, make a choice, and act. Then that action is measured, and the feedback loop can run once more, every action stimulating new behaviors that inch us closer to our goals.

We've been hearing a lot of good things about this recent article from SCUP's journal, Planning for Higher Education, and requests to be able to read it. So we've brought it outside password protection for a wider audience. SCUP hopes you find this integrated planning look at things to be both useful and inspiring.

This content was previously unavailable to the public. SCUP members and those who attended SCUP–45 in 2010, can download the entire 49-page booklet of SCUP-45 executive summaries here. The document, below, cannot be downloaded, printed, or copied from—only viewed.

The plan was a catalyst for the establishment of an integrated planning process at VIU that will coordinate planning for strategic, academic, research, and ancillary services, and fiscal, operational, social, and physical activities for maximum focus and performance of future developments. The plan supports the academic plan by addressing required infrastructure and facilities deficiencies, enhancing research and learning capacity, and accommodating new programs and technologies.

The above quote is from the 2010 SCUP Awards Jurors, 2010 SCUP Award for Institutional Innovation and Integration. Below, a SCUP concurrent session executive summary:

This content was previously unavailable to the public. SCUP members and those who attended SCUP–45 in 2010, can download the entire 49-page booklet of SCUP-45 executive summaries here. The document, below, cannot be downloaded, printed, or copied from—only viewed.

After SCUP–45 in 2010, SCUP commissioned executive summaries of 20 plenary and concurrent sessions, which became a 45-page PDF resource available to SCUP members and SCUP–45 attendees only. Starting this week, we will be bringing the contents of one executive summary out each week for everyone to see. This is the first of 20. Read it and see why you need to be at 2011's premier higher education planning event! Registration is open now.

So, what do you think. Will we look back in 40 years and see nothing but the memories or bones of academic libraries? Or, will there still be units performing related duties that we still label, or at least think of occasionally, as libraries?

This blog post links to three, related commentaries. What do you think from the unique perspective of a SCUPer? Reply in the comments below, or go to SCUP's LinkedIn group and engage with the discussion there. Be sure to share not only your thoughts, but links to related resources. Thanks!

Early in 2011, before most of academia was even out of winter holiday hibernation, Brian T. Sullivan of Alfred University wrote a letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is written from the perspective of a 2040 autopsy on the body of the dead academic library. His autopsy concluded that the death of the library could have been avoided by more realistic planning now.

In summary, it is entirely possible that the life of the academic library could have been spared if the last generation of librarians had spent more time plotting a realistic path to the future and less time chasing outdated trends while mindlessly spouting mantras like "There will always be books and libraries" and "People will always need librarians to show them how to use information." We'll never know now what kind of treatments might have worked. Librarians planted the seeds of their own destruction and are responsible for their own downfall.

As you might expect, there was a lot of buzz in the comments.

Nearly three weeks later, The Chronicle published another opinion, by Patricia A. Tully of Wesleyan University, who writes (labeling Sullivan as a Cassandra) that the end of the library is a long ways off:

Mr. Sullivan ends his article by stating that librarians "planted the seeds of their own destruction and are responsible for their own downfall," and he implies that this was in part by participating in the digitization of print materials and the development of a variety of online, unmediated services. But librarians should not be resisting these efforts to increase and enhance access to content—a central value of our profession is to make content as discoverable and accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

And in leading these efforts, we are not making our professional obsolete. Librarians in 2050 will be doing the same thing we are doing now—making content accessible to our users. We will be doing this very differently, of course, just as we are doing things very differently now than we did in 1960. The library will look and operate differently, and perhaps provide a different kind of experience for students and faculty. But the library's end is a long way off.

 Then, last week, James C. Pakala of Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis), asserts that Sullivan's autopsy report "Overlooks Libraries' Other Roles," saying that libraries do more than serve undergraduates, and also that faculty and staff require a great deal of information searching and analyzing assistance.

And as to IT taking over libraries, the opposite tends to predominate, owing to such factors as librarians' faculty ties, organizational ability, relational skills, etc. Ironically, the last Educause Review issue of 2010 even warns that campus IT operations could fade as technology becomes ubiquitous and consortia or other competitors beckon.

So, what do you think. Will we look back in 40 years and see nothing but the memories or bones of academic libraries? Or, will there still be units performing related duties that we still label, or at least think of occasionally, as libraries?

This blog post linked to three, related commentaries. What do you think from the unique perspective of a SCUPer? Reply in the comments below, or go to SCUP's LinkedIn group and engage with the discussion there. Be sure to share not only your thoughts, but links to related resources. Thanks!

What next for architects? What are the big issues to be faced in the next decade? In Architectural Record, Clifford A. Pearson, assembles recognized experts to share their expectations.

Among them is SCUPer Bob Berkebile of BNIM (Kansas City, MO) from SCUP's North Central Region, who has made valuable contributions to sessions at SCUP's international and regional conferences. Bob has worked diligently through professional organizations such as SCUP, AIA, and USGBC.

• William F. Baker on Structures
• James P. Barrett on BIM
• Robert Murray on the Economy
• Bob Berkebile on LEED
• Paul Nakazawa on Big Firms
• Rickey Burdett on Cities
• Sheila Kennedy on Materials
• June Williamson on Suburbia
• Alexandra Lang on Criticism
• George Baird on Theory