As children, we believed the 21st century would bring flying cars and field trips to the moon. Today, there are a number of prevalent challenges facing higher education:
Success Measurements
- Graduation
- Transfer rates
- Retention rates
- Accountability
Access
- Student readiness and remedial courses
- Cost, affordability, student debt
- Technology, use of online resources
- Government funding, especially relating to diverse identities
- Retention and provision of resources for diverse students
Identifying Purpose
- Students picking an identifiable direction
- Universities identifying a direction and target
Availability and Technology
- Class when you want it, where you want, and how you want it
- Virtual classrooms
- Changes in how we define community
- Virtual experiential education
- Technology changes expectations for scholarship
Access
- Prevalence of homeless and foster students
- Expectation of bi-lingual education
- Access for students on the ASD spectrum
- Genetic information and admissions/hiring practices
- Changing family dynamics and definitions of "family"
Global changes affecting education
- Car-less campuses
- Future unseen impact of possible future tragic events
- Will historic processes continue to guide higher education?
- Allocating space in a hot, flat, and crowded world (Friedman, 2009).
- Learning communities disappear
A brief unsolicited note from group 1:
The language around issues may frame changes in a negative light rather than as an opportunity for growth. We hope to embrace new challenges as catalysts for growth and development, and opportunities to advocate for new populations.
Group 1: Lori, Jenella, Lisa, Katee, Beau
