The virtual university, a mere ten years ago, would have still had a ring of science fiction.  Yet today, at the turn of the 21^st Century, which university in Australia, or anywhere for that matter, is not clamouring to get some of its courses ‘on-line’?  The impact on higher education of the ‘new communication technologies’, and in particular the Internet, has been likened to the impact of the printing press on the education of the ‘masses’.  For universities, which have for centuries held the monopoly on knowledge (or at least the kind of knowledge that was packaged in the form of degrees) this spells a new kind of danger.  With the arrival of the Internet and the almost infinite opportunities it has opened up, a host of new players have arrived on the ‘higher education’ scene.  Providing a cost-effective, flexible, accessible alternative to the increasingly over-priced, time-table bound, traditional university courses, the World Wide Web based courses offered by the new ‘convenience institutions’ are already a reality.  While the responses of both students and academics to these virtual institutions (such as the Western Governor’s University, operating from California, and the World Bank’s African Virtual University) have been mixed, there is no doubt that their arrival has sent the traditional, even the ‘elite, brand-name’ universities, scurrying into their IT research laboratories to load some of their courses on the Web.  A number of issues arise as a result of the new technologies which are changing as fast as they are being created - issues such as accreditation of virtual courses, equity and access for those without access to the new technology, and of course quality control.  There is no doubt however that the new technologies are not only facilitating the creation of new ‘for-profit’ virtual institutions, but also changing forever the time-worn character of traditional university life.  

The De-Humanisation of Higher Education  

While not the only forces of change on the higher education horizon, corporatisation and virtualisation are the worst offenders in terms of the human, particularly the social, costs.

The massive forces of globalisation have been largely responsible for bringing to an end the traditional humanistic dimensions of the university.  The economics of globalism has led university leaders (usually administrators who have effectively appropriated the leadership role once held by professors) to believe that they must sacrifice the very traditions that once defined the core business of university life.  In the restructuring process, academic tenure (not to mention freedom), research time (unless commercially funded) and non-commercially viable disciplinary streams (such as humanities), have all but disappeared, in the new ‘market-sensitive’ universities.

The social costs of virtualisation may turn out to be even greater.  Feelings of  alienation, fragmentation and loss of meaning will undoubtedly continue to increase among students and probably also academic staff.  As the human side of face-to-face collegiate collaboration and student-teacher contact diminishes behind the screen (or is it scream), the disempowerment already being felt by many young people about the future is unlikely to improve.  And we are yet to see the full extent of human ‘redundancy’ in the higher education sector that will come when virtualisation takes its expected place at the table.  Already in some regional NSW universities the full time academic staff are only catering for around 30-35% of the students.  The remaining 2/3rds of students are ‘taught’ by the army of cheap labour provided by casual academics, many of whom carry an almost full-time teaching load (while working from shared offices) for a salary resembling one quarter of that of a base grade, full-time lecturer.  This situation reflects a new academic underclass of highly qualified personnel, mostly with Doctorate degrees, some of whom are retrenched (previously tenured) academics.  Based on experience in other industries, it is likely that what we have seen so far is just the beginning.

While outside the ivory walls global problems continue to grow, environmentally, economically, politically and of course socially, to what extent are universities today providing the intellectual, professional and practical resources to drive a positive transformation of global problems?  The answer is negative and cyclical – universities are no longer providing solutions and the reason is economic rationalism, driven by globalisation which places profit ahead of all else. 

The key to breaking such cycles is inspired human agency.  This could occur if universities were centres where humans joined together their skills, knowledge, experience and wisdom to solve problems, combined with the social conscience to become sites of dissent against dehumanisation and the will to become centres of action/praxis.  Yet at the very time when the world most needs humane, creative action from its most educated and knowledgeable members, academics are at best being muzzled, and at worst retrenched, and/or casualised, and thereby disenfranchised.  It may be useful to examine some of the responses of academics to the current trends and also to look at alternative scenarios for academics, from the gloomy to the idealistic.   

The Multi-Faceted Impact of the Virtualisation of Higher Education 

If the current trends that are being set in motion by the rapid corporatisation and virtualisation of higher education continue globally, the role of academic staff will become extremely different as a result of the changes occurring.  In such a future, what, if anything, will lecturers and professors (if they still exist) actually be doing?  Recent research into the transformations currently occurring in higher education globally, attempt to chart the stormy waters ahead for academics.

Michael Skolnik, Professor of the Higher Education Group, from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto has been researching the impact of the virtualisation of the university on academic faculty.  He reports the mixed responses, from rejection to adaptation, that have occurred across Canada and North America.  In 1996, the American Federation of Teachers ‘encouraged its affiliates to oppose courses taught on the Internet … unless they met faculty members standards of quality’.  In a similar move, at the large York University in Toronto, the faculty took action to obtain ‘direct and unambiguous control over all decisions relating to the automation of instruction, including veto power’.  At the other extreme, he reports that some faculty have adapted brilliantly to becoming ‘professors on-line’ and have an almost ‘educational epiphany’ experience.  Between these extremes, Skolnik strikes a firm note of caution to all academics who are rushing to be involved in putting their courses on-line, as they may be laying the foundations for their own demise.  His greatest concern is the potential loss of jobs that will inevitably occur.  He encapsulates the likely scenario in a joke circulating around Canadian campuses: 

A former professor who retired from his position in a large research university in 1998 and has been out of touch with the university runs into one of his old colleagues in the year 2003.  When the  first professor asks, "What's new at the old place?", his colleague says, "Well, the good news is that the minimum salary for tenured professors at our university is now $300,000". He then pauses, and adds, "but the bad news is that there are only 12 tenured professors!"  

While James Dator, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Hawaii Research Centre for Futures Studies at the University of Hawaii, sadly farewells the privilege of academic freedom that he has enjoyed throughout his career, his colleague, Peter Manicas, Professor of Sociology and Director of Liberal Studies, also at the University of Hawaii places responsibility for the future survival and direction of universities firmly back in the hands of academics.  Tom Abeles, a former tenured professor who is now President of Sagacity Inc, a knowledge management consultancy firm, takes a similar but tougher view.  He charges present-day academics with abrogation of responsibility.  He argues that ‘the Academy, the bastion of liberal and social thought, is the only industry where the workers have essentially given up their power to participate in the operation of the institution’.  He believes, consequently, that it is time for the Academy to face its own demise (and rebirth) and for faculty to begin asking the deep questions, such as ‘What is their purpose?’.  His own position is that there needs to be a return to the core business of providing what he calls ‘long half-life knowledge’ or ability to synthesise (wisdom).

This might mean taking some lessons from a reshaped Caribbean approach to higher education.  While not negating the likely benefits to students in the small Caribbean universities of the broader offerings of some on-line courses, Anne Hickling-Hudson, Deputy Director of the Centre for Policy and Leadership Studies, Queensland University of Technology believes that the flavour of university life for academics is flagging.  Her solution to this is for academics in the Caribbean to return to their roots, to rediscover the soul of the university rooted in Caribbean soil, as a source of what she calls ‘scholar-activism’.  This would put scholarship at the service of the Caribbean people and the sustainable development of its culture.   

Now why couldn’t all universities follow this example?  

The Human Face of the Virtual U - By 2030  

Given the more likely probability that most universities will continue to be influenced by the economic rationalism of globalism that has created both the corporate university and the virtual university, how might the human face of the faculty change in the wake of the tremendous upheavals and transformations that are unfolding as a result?  And how might today’s academics prepare to reshape their roles?

In the following scenarios, the changes have been mapped into three rather exaggerated characterisations (ranging from the stark to the idealistic) depicting possible futures of the roles of lecturers, professors and other faculty:

·        The ‘broker’

·        The ‘mentor’

·        The ‘meaning-maker’ 

They relate to some degree, though not entirely overlapping, to the three possible future university scenarios, which have been recurring themes throughout the book The University in Transformation, Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University.  These three broad structural scenarios are:

·        The corporatised ‘convenience’ mega-university model (including Virtual U)

·        The traditional or elite, ‘brand name’ model (Oxbridge/Harvard, sandstone Us)

·        The alternative, or regional ‘niche’ model (which includes various spiritually based alternatives) 

The ‘Broker’ – the invisible face of sub-academic futures 

It is 2030 and the position of course broker in future universities is the most common, and is similar in many ways to the positions of insurance brokers or stockbrokers at the end of the 20^th Century.  They are experts in sales and marketing and technical ‘know-how’, without necessarily having any disciplinary or content knowledge.  Many work from home or from mobile offices as they primarily need a lap-top and e-connection for their operations.  Brokers may or may not have university qualifications as the main requirement is being able to ‘do business’.  Brokers are paid fees by the students for arranging courses for them, as well as commission by hungry providers for students they catch.  So it can be a lucrative business for the keen operator though not without its tensions. Competition in the marketplace is fierce and experienced hackers sabotage many a well-constructed ‘course’. Electronic hijacking of potential students is not unknown. The brokers are mostly private consultants though a few are employed under short term contracts to some of the corporate and convenience institutions – though they have to provide enough in revenue to cover their retainer (and more) if they expect to ‘be renewed’ – the new term for what was once called ‘tenure’. 

Of course the seeds of this development were already happening in the late 1990s, with the casualisation of academic staff, who came to be known as ‘Gypsy faculty’, the expectation for faculty to provide the equivalent of part of their wages through ‘consultancies’, and the emerging demand of students to construct their own courses in a cross-disciplinary and even cross-institutional manner.  In addition, already in the 90s there were university brokers, doing deals between traditional universities, industries and private providers; and ‘stitching together’ arrangements ‘offshore’.  What is different in the 2030s is the proliferation of these positions as more and more technologically literate unemployed graduates (and retrenched academics) seek new ways of making money through providing a range of services, such as these, for fees, in lieu of other employment opportunities.

This is hardly the chosen profession of young, idealistic post-docs with a passion for pure research, nor does it appeal to mature-age professors seeking to enter ‘early retirement’ with their academic freedom intact.  (However, if any of you out there are opportunists looking for a lucrative future in and around future universities, get ready because in twenty to thirty years time the universities of the Net will be crawling with brokers).  

The ‘Mentor’ – the last dance of the Sage 

This is the position most closely aligned to the academic of the 20^th Century, but because of the diversity of offerings that are available in 2030 to students across the global panacopaea of courses, no one teaches courses  any more.  Academic staff in order to survive need to be multi-disciplined and also in approach somewhat more in the mode of counsellor or guidance officer than teacher or lecturer.  Rarely is a lecture given (in real life and real time) to groups of students as very few students opt for straight courses once the barriers that prevented creative course construction came down.  While the brokers link the students with their institutions, there is still a recognized need at least at the preliminary and undergraduate levels for some mentoring through the information labyrinths in order to arrive at something resembling knowledge, at least in the remaining traditional or elite institutions.  (This is far less relevant in the corporate and convenience courses which are geared more to assessment of competencies or no assessment at all in the case of pure interest courses).  So in the case of students seeking a professional or broad liberal education, there is a role for a mentor. 

          Instead of being responsible for a disciplinary subject area or a course, mentors are responsible for a cluster of students (up to 100-200 depending on the size, and budget of the institution) who may be doing the widest possible range of courses and course-combinations.  They are responsible for mentoring these students through whatever course they construct for themselves.  Under the new arrangements of cross-institutional study, students are required to undertake at least 50% of their studies at their core  institution in order to be eligible to acquire a mentor.  This new role for faculty has the potential for being a highly creative one promoting much growth on the part of the mentor as it is not possible for them to be an expert in everything their students study and so they too are actively learning at all times.      

Unlike academic work of the late 20^th Century which was seen by many academics to have become dehumanised and disconnected from its core business of working with students (through excessive accountability, the stress and overload of putting courses ‘on-line’, and the limitations of primitive distance education delivery), mentor positions are considered rewarding.  Needless to say, not all the mentor’s contact with their cluster of students is in ‘real time and space’.  However, part of the commitment of these ‘high quality futureversities’ is that the mentor is required to meet face-to-face with students at least once each semester.  Naturally, these mentor positions are highly-prized but oddly enough not going to professors who had climbed the specialist ladder of the 20^th Century, but rather to multi-faceted, cross-disciplinary ‘pracademics’ who had also had experience outside the walls of academia.

The seeds of this emerging future profession of undergraduate mentoring was seen in the 1990s primarily in the relationship that was sometimes fostered between postgraduate students and their academic supervisors.  When successful, it was a far more empowering learning relationship for the student than the traditional one of passively attending a multiple series of lectures, with the occasional tutorial where the student was allowed to contribute. 

The ‘Meaning-Maker’ – the emerging face of tomorrow’s elders 

While the larger convenience or mega-universities (which have by 2030 mostly merged with hybrid media giant/internet companies), are now primarily staffed by CEO’s and brokers in lieu of academics as we knew them in the 20^th Century, the few remaining traditional (or brand name) universities pride themselves on their ‘value added’ mentor model.  In the early 21^st Century however a new player emerged more strongly on the scene with the proliferation of smaller, alternative, niche universities.  Out of this mushrooming of new, mostly spiritually-based, alternative universities, grew the occupation of ‘meaning-maker’ which even by 2030 was still considered a rare privilege available only to the few as it is an emerging role which will continue to grow throughout the 21^st Century.  These new more organic institutions came to be known as ‘humanversities’ as they began to work consciously to reverse the dehumanising trends of the previous Century.  In their seed form they began in the late 20^th Century as a counter-reaction to the harsh, inhuman, economic rationalist policies that underpinned most universities at that time.  At first small, private non-denominational initiatives began to side-step the materialist secular paradigm of ‘higher education’ to offer alternatives which addressed the depth and potential wisdom of the whole human being.  In addition, several spiritually-based higher education initiatives also arose with similar concerns.  The trademark of these humanversities is the recognition by their founders that higher education, if it were to be adequate to addressing the complexities of 21^st Century life, needed to be underpinned by a ‘higher order meaning system’, such as that provided by spiritual cosmologies.  

          As the economic, social and political disintegration of the late 20^th Century continued to gather momentum globally into the early decades of the 21^st Century, more and more small organically grown and sometimes net-based institutions of alternative higher education arose.  Networking between some of the members of these humanversities began to strengthen both humanly and electronically, until by 2030 a critical mass had developed and this movement to rehumanise higher education had become self-perpetuating.  Yet if we could look further into the 22^nd Century we would see that it was still in its relative infancy at this time.  Joining the ranks of initiators and supporters of the humanversity movement were many of the previously retrenched and disenfranchised academics, professionals and activists – the new nomads.  The humanversities became increasingly popular with young students (born in the new century), many of whom had become disenchanted with the novelty of ‘wizz-bang’ Internet courses that lacked meaning and human context.    

          Although these new more organic institutions were as diverse as the individuals and communities who founded them, a fairly typical humanversity of the 2030s would be a kind of hybrid of a regional ‘niche’ university, with a personal growth/healing and arts centre, combined with several outreach activity centres engaged in ecological and social work.  All this was usually underpinned by a spiritual direction (some single strand denominational, but most being more spiritually eclectic).

          The role of the Meaning-maker is quite a diverse one and somewhat akin to the role of the elder in traditional cultures.  The title arose in a curious way.  In the late 90s the recognition had only just begun to surface from some of the youth futures research that many young people were experiencing a sense of loss of meaning in their lives.  However, while the World Bank was reporting at that time that the second greatest global problem of the early 21^st Century would be depression (emotional, not economic), it was not until 2010 that it reported that a highly significant proportion of the world’s population was experiencing a ‘crisis of meaning’.  Everything had changed so dramatically, so rapidly, that very few were spared severe soul crises as a result.  As a reaction to the ‘overtechnologising of language during the phase of post-modernity and political correctness’ people (even academics) began to use simple language again – language that meant something. The masters of this recovery of the word began to be called the ‘meaning –makers’.  Later it became a generic term for the new profession of transdisciplinary ‘elders’ who tried to put the world back together again for the young people and the future’s children.

It should be noted that the position of meaning-maker is not like a job that one could apply for – it is conferred by others.  There is a natural hierarchy in identifying ‘meaning-makers’ based on recognition of elder status which related to degree of breadth of experience and synthesis capability e.g. three meta-spheres of work became recognized as being equally valuable, these being intellectual (or what used to be called academic);  aesthetic/artistic (including visual, performance, literary);  and practical, professional, (including business/praxis).  For a person to reach the status of meaning-maker they had to have considerable experience in all three spheres as well as a deep understanding of spirituality.   It is considered that such breadth of experience not only maximised synthesis capability - a major underpinning paradigm of the humanversities, but also generally led to humility of management style which overcame the disadvantages of the old narrow academic hierarchies of the 20^th century.  Unlike the CEOs of the ‘for profit’ corporate and virtual universities, the Meaning-makers of the 21^st Century demonstrate inspired and visionary leadership in their institutions leading to a mutually enriching relationship between these niche universities and their communities. It might be interesting to note that the best and most popular meaning makers are usually also talented and imaginative story tellers or myth makers. Through their visionary leadership the power of the image begins to reclaim its central place in the shaping of culture as foretold by the likes of Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner, Rabindranath Tagore and Joseph Campbell throughout the 20^th Century. This is of course no secret to the advertising industry which has capitalised on this ‘best-kept secret’ for several decades.

Educational methods in these ‘centres of meaning’ include a revival of many traditional learning processes, (such as Socratic dialogue, lectures and discussion, theatre, writing) and the new technologies (including film, and the Internet for research and distance delivery).  The new technologies, however, having lost some of their glamour, are recognised as just another learning tool, like books, to access information, which then needs to be contextualised and synthesised to arrive at knowledge with meaning.  The focus in these centres, as they proliferate, leads the cultural shift from an information society to a meaning society.            

Economically these ‘humanversities’ are supported by communities seeking to recover wholeness, who after decades of fragmentation no longer accept the lie that the information society will be any more successful than the industrial society in restoring the human dream.  These communities in turn are supported by the ‘humanversities’ which provide expertise in solving the problems that developed through the last twenty years of the 20^th Century and accelerated exponentially over the following decades.  It should be remembered that the massive global problems that grew during this time went almost entirely unnoticed and without contribution from the late 20^th Century universities which were then too preoccupied with the frenzy of getting their courses ‘on-line’ or where their next grant was coming from.  

What can Academics do Now to Recreate their Futures? 

While these scenarios are just a few imaginations drawn from the trends and counter trends that are emerging, they may be taken as a starting point in the creation of many possible inspired, humanly active futures for university academics.  Scholars and academics of all persuasion need to become more creative and agile in our imaginations in order not to just accept the so-called inevitable trends of dehumanised futures of a muzzled and marginalised automation of scholarly activity.  The disturbing trends of corporatisation and virtualisation of what was once the bastion of human wisdom should be taken as a challenge for academics today.  Will these trends be allowed to become destiny?  Or can higher education be re-humanised by a return to its core business of fostering higher order thinking.  What will academics today need to do to resist rather than assist their own demise? It’s time to start thinking and acting. 

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This essay is based on the new book The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University. Edited by Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley. Bergin and Garvey. Greenwood Publishing Group. Westport, Conn. LC 99-16061. ISBN 0-89789-718-8. H718

(Available 01/30/00) http://info.greenwood.com/books/0897897/0897897188.html 

Jennifer Gidley is an Educational Psychologist and futures researcher.  She is currently working as a counsellor and consultant to schools (public and private) as well as lecturing (casually!) in Social Sciences at Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, 2480, NSW, Australia. jgidley@scu.edu.au