That prompted Justice to ask, “How do we make advanced, post-baccalaureate education available in an appropriate way to people whose life course doesn’t follow” the historic graduate school model?
As Carol Shanklin suggested, students were more inclined to follow the traditional path in the past because there was very little offered in the way of alternate course delivery and alternate scheduling. Nor was there an online option.
In designing the Olathe Innovation Campus, K-State listened carefully to students to determine not just course content and delivery, but the kind of physical environment conducive to learning in a cyber era. “We couldn’t do it with just classic face to face and we couldn’t do it with a classic set of times,” said Dan Richardson. “It’s not just evenings, it’s daytimes, weekends, it’s hybrid, but in the long run, society drives the kind of things we can do.”
Venkat Allada agreed that universities will have to resist the urge to allow education to become commoditized. “Each institution,” he argued, “will have to find a way to customize content.”
Finding ways to do that and still produce the graduates capable of meeting workforce needs is a particular challenge, said Dan Falvey, who chairs the business and management program for Baker University’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies.
“I seem to be focusing more and more, particularly in my administrative roles, on how we keep our program offerings, particularly our MBA program—which is the largest by fall enrollment in the Kansas City area—relevant to the ever-changing needs of businesses and industry,” Falvey said.
Competitors or Collaborators
“To what extent are we competitors in this room?” George Justice asked provocatively. He wondered whether universities would be inclined to heed the capitalist model and serve the market or, through cooperation, address the funding challenges in a future with too many fields of study for any one institution to provide.
As to the question of whether in a fluid, highly competitive environment institutions can hire superstars to lure students, Tom Heilke offered a dissent. The superstar-instructor model, which has been out there for 10-15 years, does not yet provide accreditation, critical feedback, or the grading of papers, Heilke noted.
“They are certainly going to transform some aspects of the way we deliver education,” Heilke insisted, “but at the end of day, there are certain competencies that we have as institutions that they can’t provide with a CD.”
One way around this, as Maria Di Stefano observed, is the use of peer grading as some institutions now do, but which no one in the room was inclined to support.
Pawan Kahol, noting that Pittsburg State now has a satellite center in Kansas City, recently reviewed the entire list of institutions that also have a presence in Kansas City. It was daunting. “We are not going to create programs that other universities are offering in Kansas City,” said Kahol. “We have to be innovative. I think that spirit of competition exists, and the small fish are going to have serious time.”
In the way of cooperation, Tom Tomasi argued that at least at the state level, public universities could be mandated to figure out what its expertise is and not duplicate programs. It would not be easy, however, to extend that proposition across a state line.
“In a state in which there are scant resources to do all the things that our campuses need to do,” said Justice, “it makes sense to cooperate where we have pools of expertise.” If we transcend state lines, Justice believes we could serve more people in more effective ways, because all share the same goals: “educate people to have good careers, build the economies and to create knowledge.”
Carol Shanklin agreed. “We really need to partner with each other in identifying needed skill sets,” she said in the way of summary, “to determine how can we best develop those within our institutions now and in the future.” 
Return to Ingram's September 2012