Seizing the Future:
Challenges and Opportunities for the Research University

 Strategic thinking and planning is first and foremost about looking forward, taking into account historical strengths, future trends, and unique opportunities.  It is about assuming an effective role in shaping what should be, as well as responding to what might be.  Higher education, and especially the research university, has a special role to play in society.  No other institutions have had the same freedoms and responsibilities to produce new knowledge and to educate the next generation of workers, citizens, and leaders.  While those roles remain, increased expectations of accountability and less public fiscal support pose significant challenges that can only be met by the thoughtful analysis of those forces shaping our future and our willingness to act on what we believe should be done to fulfill our missions with the highest degree of excellence.

 We enter the 21^st century in a world of profound change.  Although its exact future cannot be known, we do know that it will be a world that is more global, more diverse, and more technological.  It will be a world filled with exponential increases in new knowledge.  Yet it will be a world shaped by, and vulnerable to, basic human emotions and organization.   As the intellectual core of a major research university, the College of Arts and Sciences will be expected not only to respond to those changes, but also to provide knowledge and leadership to shape those changes in the best long-term interests of society.

 The following list identifies what we believe will be among the most significant changes shaping the challenges, opportunities, and responsibilities that research universities in general, and the UW and the College specifically, face in the coming years.

 1.      Increased importance of higher education – Significant increases in the number of students of traditional college age groups, the shift to an information-based economy, and the increasing emphasis on life-long learning, will create substantial demand for greater access to higher education.  The work of the 2020 Commission highlighted this priority for the State.[1]

2.      Constrained public fiscal support for higher education – Increased demand for higher education is occurring at a time when there is great pressure to reduce public spending at all levels of government.  While the state of Washington has formalized this trend through I-601 (whose formula does not reflect the disproportionate growth in the demand for public education at all levels), the structure of state taxes nationally will generally yield increases in revenue much less than the growth in personal income, substantially increasing the pressures on higher education budgets,[2] requiring more creativity in how we fulfill our missions and in our development efforts.  The Higher Education Coordinating Board’s new master plan calls both for increased commitment of state resources and for more effective and efficient use of existing resources.

3.      Closer connections between K-14 (K-12 and community colleges) and universities – The K-12 system throughout the U.S. has come under much greater scrutiny as a result of the declining success of its graduates.  Many state legislatures, including the Washington legislature, have mandated new standards to ensure success throughout the K-12 experience.[3]  The University of Washington, like many state universities, is not only affected by the academic achievements of state high school graduates, who make up the overwhelming proportion of the incoming first year class, but also is increasingly looked to for leadership in improving K-12 teaching and student success.  President McCormick emphasized these points in a recent editorial in the Seattle Times.[4]  Nearly a third of the students at the University of Washington come from community colleges which are themselves undergoing significant change.  It is very important that the coordination between community colleges and the UW be as effective as possible.[5]

4.      The growing information/knowledge society – Information/knowledge is growing at an exponential rate.  An increasing share of the labor force is devoted to producing, using, and managing information and new knowledge, tasks that are at the heart of research universities.  Higher education is expected to educate individuals to be highly capable in their ability to access, analyze, and produce useful information.  Higher education also has a special role to play in understanding the societal implications of the transformation to an information society, including many new ethical and moral issues posed by the transformation.[6]

5.      The growing impact of technology – Technological change is dramatically re-shaping the way we work and live.  Nowhere is this being felt more keenly than in the use of computers, telecommunications, and scientific instrumentation.  Although computers have been in widespread use for more than two decades, they have largely been used to replicate the same tasks with surprisingly little impact on productivity.  However, much like the introduction of electricity at the turn of the last century, the availability of computers and vastly increased telecommunications capacity are now beginning to profoundly change the nature of our work and our personal lives.[7]  It is also opening up major new opportunities in higher education, both for teaching and research.  Similarly, the increased sophistication of scientific instrumentation has created new possibilities for advanced measurement in the student lab.  Although this equipment is expensive, it provides exceptional opportunities to involve students directly in the research process.  Similarly, advanced technology is both required and allows for advanced forms of research in faculty labs.

6.      Increased globalization – The proliferation of telecommunications and transportation technologies have provided the opportunity for increasingly complex institutions operating on a global scale.  Thus there is an even greater need for understanding these global institutions and their effect on nations and cultures; for comparative analysis of nations and cultures; and for the study of specific regions of the world. Sophisticated telecommunications and transportation in turn provide the opportunity for higher education to deepen its international curriculum and to be highly connected to some of the most remote parts of the earth.

7.      Increasingly diverse society (values) – Sometime in the first half of the next century the U.S. will have a demographic profile in which members of what are traditionally termed minority races will collectively form a majority of the population.  Significantly, we have come to understand the value of drawing from the unique understandings and contributions of the cultures of each group, although this point is not universally appreciated and there are serious inequities in economic and academic opportunities and progress among these groups.  Universities have a special responsibility and opportunity, not only to create a community that reflects the broader society, but to develop our understanding of diverse groups and diversity itself.

8.      Accelerating pace of change – The amount of change in society, including everything from technological change to changes in employment patterns, has been increasing at an accelerating rate.  The rate of change has become a major social phenomenon in its own right, leading to a broad sense of vulnerability and anxiety among a large share of the population.  The rapid reshaping of many important institutions that has already occurred has challenged those which have not yet experienced such change.  Significantly, the rapid pace of change challenges traditional values and poses new issues to be resolved  Higher education is an institution experiencing dramatic change, it educates students who will live in a world of change, and it contributes to and analyzes that change.