Mark C. Taylor writes in the New York Times for 27 April 2009 about a sharply different organizational and procedural structure for the Academy in the present period of challenge and change. His op-ed piece is entitled End the University as We Know It.
After describing the current crisis, Taylor offers an alternative.
If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured. The long process to make higher learning more agile, adaptive and imaginative can begin with six major steps: 1. Restructure the curriculum … 2. Abolish permanent departments … 3. Increase collaboration among institutions … 4. Transform the traditional dissertation … 5. Expand the range of professional options for graduate students … 6. Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure ….
For many years, I have told students, “Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.” My hope is that colleges and universities will be shaken out of their complacency and will open academia to a future we cannot conceive.
