But administrators are not the only ones involved in this transition.
Convincing faculty members to accept technological change could be one of the key challenges for college leaders over the next ten years.
The beginnings of this growing conflict can already be seen at places like San Jose State University, where its president’s embracing of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has led to a schism of sorts.
SJSU’s Academic Senate voted overwhelmingly Nov. 18 to request an independent review of the university’s governance after many faculty members publicly opposed a MOOC partnership there.
And as more and more tasks originally designated to faculty, like lecturing and evaluating, are handed over to private companies, the debate can only get more heated.
“Post-secondary institutions have outsourced non-mission critical services like food services, laundry services, and printing services for years,” said Ellen Wagner, executive director of the WICHE Cooperative for Education Technologies. “Outsourcing curriculum development or assessment services or content management or analytic services that are normed to company needs rather than institutional needs seems to be a little bit different.”
As a result, some predict that administrators will have to think and act more like business leaders.
That has faculty skittish – and perhaps rightfully so, as there is no way of truly knowing what the effect will be on higher education, experts said.
John Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, the rare private institution that touts its online learning program, said it will be important for institutional leaders making technology decisions to remember that faculty will be the ones using this tech on a daily basis.
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