president-innovation-universities

Controversial university president: Stop pushing for immediate gratification


President’s speech seen as a micro-study of the pressures currently facing research and teaching universities

president-research-universitiesAs education leaders nationwide grapple with defining the true purpose of institutions of higher learning in the 21st century, Bill Powers used the occasion of his last annual speech as president of the University of Texas at Austin to make what may have been his most impassioned plea for the importance of teaching and research to date.

“We are often asked to justify the kind of education we offer at a teaching and research university,” Powers told students, faculty and alumni who packed into UT-Austin’s Student Activities Center Ballroom for his annual “State of the University” speech Monday.

Not mincing words, the embattled yet popular president of nearly nine years said universities keep the brightest young people from the workforce “because we think those students will be more creative and innovative in the future.”

“It’s the broad outline for the value proposition of a great research and teaching university like UT,” he said. “I believe in it deeply. I have staked my reputation on it.”

His message was unmistakable: an innovative curriculum, plus faculty given the freedom to experiment and fail equals thoughtful future leaders. Anything less — anything that sacrifices long-term yields for instant gratification, that sets aside future goals for the passion and drama of the here and now — is unacceptable. He asked those assembled to remember this over the next two decades, as Texans look ahead to the state bicentennial in 2036.

“We need to do more than just focus on the cost side, simply making our work as cheap as possible,” said Powers.

(Next page: Powers’ own struggle and a new “third-wave” institution)

Powers’ own struggle in keeping UT’s flagship university on the teaching and research track — while keeping his job — is a micro-study of the argument taking place in colleges and universities across the nation.

At its core is the question: Should public universities groom students for the workforce, shifting resources and focus to the majors that translate most immediately to in-demand jobs? Or should they focus on creating an environment that fosters innovative and thoughtful students in the long-term, even at the expense of an immediate return?

“This is a moment when we’re having a fairly healthy national debate about the role of higher education in society. This battle is really about immediate gratification and long-term investment,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UT alumnus who currently teaches media studies at the University of Virginia, where a similar ideological clash almost resulted in the ousting of President Teresa Sullivan in 2012.

“Everybody who has a stake in higher education has been watching Bill Powers’ struggle,” he added.

Unyielding

After years of sparring with Texas higher education advocates proposing an ideological and financial shift away from research, Powers reached an agreement this summer with the UT System Board of Regents to step down in June 2015. However, he has remained adamant, some would say unyielding, in his efforts to maintain UT-Austin as a traditional teaching and research university.

Jenifer Sarver speaks for a group of powerful UT alumni and donors dubbed the Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education that has been a dogged defender of Powers. He thought it necessary to defend teaching and research, she said, due, in part, to the distractions and negative repercussions caused by the debate over UT’s future.

“We hope we can return to a time where excellence in higher education is valued above all,” Sarver said.

Former U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who recently took over UT alumni group the Texas Exes, and Vaidhyanathan agreed that Powers’ methods are ushering in a third-wave type of institution, a hybrid that focuses on fulfilling current and future market needs while focusing on quality teaching.

“I think he said we need both. You don’t have to say we will not value research, we will only value classroom time,” said Hutchison, noting Powers spoke specifically to bringing in more non-tenured faculty to avoid locking in “long-term relationships or arrangements that might be out of kilter with the needs of a changing student body.”

Powers also said while the university may not be able to add as many new teaching positions as in the past, its new Faculty Investment Initiative would increase hires in strategic areas and shift new endowed chairs into vacancies that could receive supplemental pay.

(Next page: Not everyone’s drinking the Kool-Aid)

Some aren’t happy

Not everyone is enamored of Powers’ vision for the future, however. Former UT adjunct professor, businessman and Rick Perry donor Jeff Sandefer, whose “Seven Breakthrough Solutions” helped spur the UT fight that culminated in lawmakers threatening to impeach one of the regents and sparked an ongoing investigation into admissions practices, questioned the positive outcomes under Powers’ tenure.

“Performance matters more than rhetoric or good intentions,” Sandefer wrote in an email. “In the last eight years, UT-Austin has slumped eight places to number 53 in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, and now ranks just below Yeshiva University. Costs per student have risen 41 percent and, according to The Washington Post, UT-Austin is in the bottom 23 percent among peer institutions in critical thinking skills delivered to students. None of this should be acceptable to students, parents or taxpayers.”

With less than 10 months left in a 38-year career, Powers sounded anything but disappointed. He touted reaching his goal of bringing in more than $3 billion in capital investment, while making the campus more diverse, giving greater control to the faculty and breaking ground on a new medical school and teaching hospital: “To be immodest for a moment, I’m proud of what we’ve done.”

“To those who think universities never reform themselves, that universities never change, just look at what we have done,” he said. “We’ll see the impact of these changes for years to come. Crucially, the impact will be at the core of our mission: on our faculty and the research they do, and on the learning experience of our students.”

©2014 Houston Chronicle. Visit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.com. Distributed by MCT Information Services

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