VC ’ s corner
It ’ s a 75-year-old institution with tens of thousands of alums around the world . It was designed to produce a new kind of global thinker and global manager . We asked , what can that school do to facilitate the acceleration of conscious capitalism , the acceleration of entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurial energy on the planet ?
We put together five or six courses , in dozens of languages , and made them freely available on a planetary scale , pushing them into countries like Iran and others that might not have access to these kinds of courses .
We decided to make those courses available to everyone . They are learning experiences at college or university grade , but not for credit . In that sense , they ’ re empowering , enabling learning outcomes and they move you on the right path .
It ’ s fair to say that within five years we ’ ll have , at ASU alone , 200,000 degreeseeking students also pursuing degrees designed by our on-campus faculty and at least low millions of additional learners in addition to this .
The notion about technology is that if you do it right , you ’ re no longer constrained by anything . You can have many more people pursuing degrees at different points in their life .
We think that there is room for many of these universities around the planet : any scale , any language , any culture , any location , any time , any pathway . Technology now allows that .
It creates an accelerated economic development opportunity , on a large scale , and a competitiveness opportunity for a country like the US or Australia .
Are there barriers to continuous growth and what are the benefits of growth at this scale , at this pace to a university like yours ? We ’ re not saying this is what everyone needs to do . We are saying that there ’ s a new kind of university that we ’ re a prototype of . We call this a national service university capable of building technologies , serving as a national learning and teaching and R & D laboratory , capable of scaling .
Is there an infinite scale that can be approached by a single institution ? No . But there is a scale where we end up with four times as many people as we could normally manage pursuing degrees . This is an unbelievable , additional output , and an almost unlimited number of learners , which are different than the people now in degree programs .
Could several universities take that on and serve some sort of a national purpose , even helping other schools with technology and so forth and so on ? We think , yes . And we are a prototype .
Is it too much of a simplification to say that you and ASU are on a mission to radically democratise higher education for the benefit of the world ? It ’ s definitely about egalitarianism and democratisation without a doubt . The original British system of higher education is unbelievably class empowered and driven by selectivity . It has been mimicked in the United States to our own detriment .
Now , it doesn ’ t mean that we haven ’ t gotten positive things from the British model , but the more people that apply and the fewer that you admit to university is no longer a good thing . It doesn ’ t really work across the scale of an entire society .
What we ’ ve tried to do is have a faculty , as good as anywhere , empowered by unbelievable technological tools , and by a mission to be not driven by exclusion , but inclusion .
We believe that what we ’ re trying to evolve is the next version of a truly democratic university , the next version of a truly egalitarian university .
We set our admission standards to the university to be those that we feel are the necessary requirements to do the work . Everyone that meets those admission requirements is admitted . Those that can ’ t meet the admission requirements are given an alternative pathway to meet them .
I ’ m not suggesting this is the rallying cry for the end of Oxbridge . I ’ m suggesting that Oxbridge is insufficient . Cambridge and Oxford , using them as an example , are honours colleges for certain kinds of learners coming out of high school in the United States . They are honours colleges and elite research institutions .
We are an elite research institution . We have an honours college of over 8,000 students . On campus we also have another 60,000 undergraduates in addition to those and another 100 thousand-plus students online .
We are performing the Oxford Cambridge honours college function . We ’ re performing the research function . And then beyond that we ’ ve decided
What we ’ re trying to evolve is the next version of a truly democratic university .
to take every tool and every asset we have and be as egalitarian as we possibly can be .
You ’ ve been quoted as saying that we need more differentiation , creativity , innovation , and enterprise behaviour to give presidents and chancellors meaning behind their title and value behind their elevated salaries . Presidents in the US and VCs in the UK and Australia make very high compensation packages . But you don ’ t get paid money as a prize . You get paid money to do the work , to take chances and make things happen .
You don ’ t really need a president of an institution that is a replication of an institution down the street . Every university should have its common core . And then around that its unique mission . Every university should be differentiated , otherwise , we ’ re seriously limiting the totality of the human potential .
We did away with geology , astronomy , astrophysics , and astrobiology , as a division . And we created new schools of earth and space exploration , and of social transformation , and all these things are new intellectual designs . I just think there should be wild differentiation among and between universities .
Why aren ’ t more universities differentiated and more university presidents taking that same bold approach of creativity and enterprise ? I think there ’ s a lot of explanations for that . University presidents are generally kept from being leaders by faculty structures , fundraising environments and political environments . If you ’ re going to make these higher salaries , you better take some risks .
It ’ s just easier to say , we ’ re going to build another college . It ’ s going to teach political science , chemistry , and physics . It ’ s going to do the same thing that all the universities do , and it ’ s just the next version of another public university .
It is unfortunate that we are not getting enough faculties who want to be different because it would be better for everyone . ■
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