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The Future of UniversitiesAn Example of the Harman Fan

Scenario Approach

Note: This presentation contains active fields to move you through it.

© 2002 UHCL Futures Studies Department Acknowledgements

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Introduction

The Harman Fan was originally developed by Willis W. Harman and is described in ‘An Incomplete Guide to the Future’ (Norton Publishers, 1979). It is a tool that helps in designing divergent scenarios that describe how the future of society as a whole (and in our particular case the future of higher education in the USA) may unfold. The method comprises three sequential steps:

1. The identification of the 22 different future states of the system.

2. The organization of these future states in a fan model based on assumptions whether a state may occur sooner or later in the chronology (one may want to add specific time intervals, but this is not necessarily required).

3. The identification of possible sequences through time of different states. The description of how this sequence of states may occur (the evolution from one state into the other) becomes a scenario.

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The Case: Futures of Universities

Although the model is intended for overall, large-scale developments, we applied the Fan to the specific case of the future of higher education (university education). This resulted in an interesting array of contrasting states of the university, which will be presented in the next part of this presentation.

The exercise was done in 45 minutes with a group of 10 people within a classroom setting. Due to time constraints, the group did not bring the fan down to possible scenarios, but the reader is free to add and change comments, and to design scenarios in the fan that s/he may consider plausible or interesting/though-provoking. An example of a possible scenario has been added afterwards by the transcriber of the workshop outcomes to add some flavor to the abstract ideas.

In the next slide you will find a representation of the Harman Fan. Behind each of the elements of the fan, you will find a more detailed description. Some elements that could not be placed have been summarized in a separate worksheet.

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Sooner Later

Sooner

Later

Business

Satellite

ContinuousEducation

Exchange

Bookless

Access without exam

No University

Multi-cultural

ExperienceDegrees

Student led

Corporate Owned

SplitTeaching/Research

Multi mode

No calendar

No Bowl

All have access

Mentor

Star Prof

Intel Inside

SpecialInterestGroup

Holodeck

Grasshopper

other

The Harman Fan contains possible future states of universities. They have been organized in chronological orderfrom sooner to later in the evolution process. By clicking on each of the states,a description can be obtained.

Sample scenario >>

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Business University

• Programs custom-tailed to corporate needs• Outreach programs attempt to educate in all

institutional locations• Skills increasingly tech-based and

administration• Governmental university localized programs• Universities accommodate working

individuals

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Satellite University Distance Learning University

• Stay at home and graduate

• Virtual classrooms

• Students choose best programs on the WWW

• Students pay well for super-instructors

• Affordable learning

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Continuous Education University

• Increasing ‘professionalisation’ of school, as more mid-career students come back for ‘continuous learning’

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Exchange University

• Students leave home and live in other countries

• Students have daily interactions with other cultures

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End of Entrance Exams University

• End of standardized testing (SAT, GRE, etc.)

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Bookless University

• Books are eliminated

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Experience University

• All learning is experimental• Universities that utilize life experiences to a

greater detail. For example professors that have actually done the work

• Experience degrees• A more ‘hands-on’ approach in Applied Sciences

field• Universities become totally experimental, and

focus on observational and intuitive ways of knowing, and research is done on answering the question ‘knowing what?’.

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No university

• Regressive university. Students learn at home, on their own, or with a company. Universities are not supported anymore, which leads to an instantaneous stagnation.

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Multicultural University

• Shift toward ‘deep’ multiculturalism in the structure and content of classes driven by new waves of imagination

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No Calendar University (24/7/365)

• Asynchronous international university: the global university online

• Elimination of academic calendar: one can enter university and graduate at any moment in time

• You create your own contract and are graded on how much you stretched yourself in it.

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No Bowl University (A university without athletics)• There will be no more athletic programs

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Multi Mode University

• The system for higher education: 1. Multimedia knowledge bases

2. Professors as personal mentors

3. Computer-aided testing

• Non-professional/non-vocational subjects will be transformed into vacation experiences, out of university

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Split Teaching and Research University

• Universities focus either on teaching or on research. Both are given premium resources, either through private investments or tax-money.

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Corporate Owned University

• Vocationally oriented and owned by and for private corporations

• Employees tied to corporation and vv• Universities lose market share to professional

training corporations• Your job is your degree• End of liberal arts: only professional and

technical universities exist

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Student Led University

• Universities that allow students to assist with the defining of the university goals.

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All have access university

• High education is paid by checks that are given out to everybody. Those who make use of them have to reimburse within 20 years.

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Mentor University

• Face to face tutoring back in vogue

• Lifelong learning = lifelong tutoring

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Star Prof University

• Star teachers/professors

• Hollywood University

• Master teachers are the norm – accessed through Internet

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Intel Inside University

• University Brainchip for degrees.

• Get program today!

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Special Interest Group University

• Creation of bioethics, nano-ethics,technology transfer type of programs as science yields greater fundamental insights

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Holodeck University

• Teledildonic learning, holodeck learning, with as final product the ability to reprogram the holodeck.

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Grasshopper University

• Universities become focused on learning compassion, peace and self-awareness. A new culture arose as a backlash against the virtual worlds of the 2050’s. By then, computers do it all; we can learn to love.

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Other ideas

• An international body regulates degrees• English language dominates on WWW• Tuition differences will be based on how is taught,

rather than on prestige• Universities that personalize the learning experience.

Smaller classrooms.• Dramatic expansion of small scale universities due to

outside threats (terrorism etc.)• New learning societies formed based on worldview.

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Sooner Later

Sooner

Later

Satellite

Bookless All have access

No calendar

Scenario: The tailor-made on-line university

This scenario assumes that we move from our current university towards more distant learning (satellite university), which slowly replaces all hardcopy learning as we know it today. While working with new media it will become more and more easy to cater individual student schedules (everybody studies at his own rhythm) which will lead us to a no calendar university. Since university will become widely accessible with marginal extra costs and with higher marginal outputs per dollar invested, as well as the overriding principle of democracy through the Internet, government will finally provide the means to give access to both elite and low-income class students with repayable grants, which will be deducted from income salaries during the professional life of the graduates. << Back

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Acknowledgements

The workshop has been facilitated by Ruud van der Helm and recorded by Eric Kellum.

Participants: Grayling Alexander, Haley Ashland, Amy D’Angelo, Marianne Kestenbaum, Pero Micic, Zane Ney, Beth Price, Wendy Schultz, John Smart, and Andrew Zolli.

Venue: University of Houston Clear Lake

Date: July 1st 2002

Preparation for the web: Ruud van der Helm

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