James J. Duderstadt

President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Technology
University of Michigan

Reinventing the Research University to Serve a Changing World

The seemingly incompatible imperatives of a changing world–massification (extending college degree attainment), league table rankings (achieving world-class research capacity and quality), exponentiating technologies (cyberinfrastructure, open learning resources, social networking), and shifting public priorities (viewing education as less a public good than a private benefit)–are all posing formidable challenges to higher education. While these are driving many institutional changes at the margin (increasing enrollments, expanding use of part-time faculty, rising tuition levels), recent studies at the international, national, regional, and institutional level suggest that not only is a more fundamental restructuring of higher education necessary, but new paradigms of learning, scholarship, and engagement may be required that will radically change the public purpose, mission, and character of the research university itself.