The University, Economic Recovery and the Changing StateUniversity Relationship

1
The University, Economic Recovery and the
Changing State-University Relationship

• Mary Lindenstein Walshok
• Associate Vice Chancellor, Public Programs
• University of California, San Diego
• September 2004

2
The Problem with the Three Legged Stool Metaphor

• Research, teaching and service
  intrinsic/extrinsic rewards vary and are
  differentially enforced for each activity
• Increasingly the discovery, development,
  application and integration of knowledge in
  society is a function of synergies between the
  three - these are no longer parallel processes
• Sticking to this metaphor puts focus on faculty
  rewards, on service learning, and can create an
  artificial tension between theory and practice.
  Need ways to marry the academic and the civic
  value of knowledge

3
The Problem with Taking for GrantedExisting
Institutions and Established Professions and
Credentials

• Fields represent ideologies and socialization
  practices not just skills and competencies
• Marketplace makes obsolete many professions/skill
  areas such as subspecialties of
  law/engineering/medicine/telecom
• Education/social work/urban planning lacking
  marketplace checks often change not at all,
  becoming social service and civic pleaders rather
  than adapters and change agents
• Failure to anticipate and capture emerging
  knowledge and competency needs

4
The Context

• A World in Perpetual Motion
• The technological and demographic imperatives
  shaping the new forms of engagement
• All Knowledge is Not the Same
• The substance, shape, form, communicability
  and rate of change varies in different knowledge
  spheres
• The Disconnect Between the Ways of the World
  and Life in the Academy

5
Strategic Issues

• Revisiting Core Cultural Assumptions
• Knowledge/expertise resides in many places,
  not just the faculty
• The facultys commitment to truth, testing ideas
  and standards is as important as specific
  expertise
• Universities are knowledge hubs, not exclusive
  providers

6
Strategic Issues

• What Business Are We In?
• Research and instruction versus knowledge
  discovery, development and integration into
  practice and job creation
• Innovation and job creation
• Skills and competencies for the workplace,
  the professions and leadership
• Civic and cultural competencies

7
Strategic Issues

• Whats Wrong with How Were Organized?
• The structure and organization of today versus
  what wed need to support a broader agenda
• Interactive/dialogue/shared agenda vs. one-way
  outreach
• Collaboratively developed research and teaching
  agendas across communities and across
  disciplines
• Enabling structure and infrastructure of support
  and innovative/ multiple revenue streams vs.
  systems which only support on campus
  instructional and faculty driven research
• Teams of competency, webs of talent, new kinds of
  knowledge workers, incentives and rewards vs.
  only tenured faculty

8
Principles of Practice

• The First Step to Engagement Becoming a Learning
  as Well as a Teaching Institution
• Expanding Capacity Building Enabling
  Institutional Mechanisms
• Expanding the Cadre of Academic Professionals
  (Knowledge Workers) Doing the Work of the Engaged
  University

9
The Opportunity of the Moment is to
Find Ways to Marry the Universitys Civic and
Intellectual Missions

• Building problem focused/interactive/dialogue
  systems rather than teaching/learning systems
• Regionalism the community as a knowledge
  resource as well as a laboratory for learning,
  mapping diversity, tracking economic clusters,
  assessing needs and capabilities
• Building internally and externally collaborative
  planning, funding and delivery mechanisms

10
Seeing Economy/Community/Organizations/
Professions In New Ways

• Fluid and transforming
• Cycles of rising and declining value in fields
  such as social work, philanthropy, education as
  well as technical and science based fields
• Facilitating transitions as well as educating for
  competencies - broader agenda
• New problems needing new solutions and old
  problems needing new solutions
• Bronx Home Healthcare Cooperative
• Impermanence of technology/institutions/leadershi
  p
• New intermediary strategies and mediating
  institutions
• New forms of leadership and civic entrepreneurs

11
Re-Imagining Models for Developing Internal and
External Stakeholders and Revenue Sources

• Renewed focus on the power of ideas
• Convening, collaborating and participating,
  not just teaching
• De-standardizing our own activities - getting
  beyond instruction, i.e. units, credit,
  requirements, virtual or actual classrooms
• Imagining more broadly what it means to be part
  of a learning community
• New kinds of knowledge professionals

12
The Power of Local Civic Institutions and
Professionals

• Building community mechanisms that cross
  professional and disciplinary boundaries, i.e.
  UCSD CONNECT
• Enhancing knowledge flows through research
  briefings, newsletters, etc.
• Linking entrepreneurial know-how and capital to
  promising innovations and start-up companies
  through events and activities that build
  knowledge and capacity
• Showcasing regional capacity to potential
  national and global investors and partners
  through specific business opportunity events
• Utilizing a privatized volunteer driven model of
  regional and global networking to achieve all of
  the above

13
Outcomes Worth Tracking

• Level of regional and external investment in
  local companies
• New company formation, growth and sustainability
• Employment growth in high wage technology and
  business service clusters
• Global alliances and partnerships formed around
  emerging companies in the region
• Retention and attraction of knowledge workers
• Increases in gross revenues of local companies
• Increases in tax dollars/philanthropic
  investments in the region

14

• This presentation was made at a forum held at
  the University of Wisconsin-Madison on September
  22, 2004.
• The event was sponsored by the Wisconsin Center
  for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education
  (WISCAPE).