Prognostications on the 21st century and higher education

I was reading a number of posts last week on Change11 on the topic of the 21st century University. Given how far things had progressed in the previous century it's hard to prognosticate on anything that's more than 10 years away...so in lieu of a guess or prophecy of what is to come, here's more of a wish: let's all just learn to work together!

This past year I had attended a few conferences, both in person and virtually, and I've met colleagues that have been in situations that are similar to my own: their online and face-to-face sides of the institution are different, with different funding lines and different organizational charts. This type of organizational behavior does have adverse reactions in the teaching and learning realm in that more innovative teaching and learning opportunities are hampered by campus politics and funding lines. In our institution for example, face to face courses are offered through the "regular" university; while online courses, as well as hybrid courses are offered through University College (formerly the division of continuing education).

This means that degree granting programs may be left traversing the political waters of the institution when they want to offer more than one delivery mechanism to their curriculum. Variety, they say, is the spice of life, so a course can be offered as face to face, hybrid, HyFlex, or online depending on the student demographic and the reach of the course, but institutional structures may prevent having something offered as anything other than face to face.

I hope that in the next few years these barriers can come down and the modality of the course will be chosen based on factors other than the college through which it is offered, this way everyone can benefit from the delivery method that is best suited to the course. :-)

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