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Talking
with Brian L. Hawkins
In
this interview with Educom Review, Brian L. Hawkins, the first
president and CEO of EDUCAUSE, discusses the challenges ahead for higher
education. EDUCAUSE, which seeks to "transform education through information
technologies," was formed this year by the consolidation of Educom and
CAUSE.
Educom
Review:
What is your assessment of the current state of higher
education in this country?
HAWKINS:
Colleges and universities have probably been under
greater pressure since the beginning of this decade than they have at
any time in the history of higher education--the pressures for accountability,
the pressures on budgets, the need for meaningful assessment of our programs
and offerings. Taken together, these pressures put higher education under
a microscope that it frankly has never had on it before. And I think there
is an incumbent responsibility of our colleges and universities to address
these concerns for public constituencies or private ones, depending on
the nature of the institutions.
ER:
Have you felt a change in mood at colleges and universities?
HAWKINS:
I think there's a change in mood toward colleges and
universities. The extent of concern on our college campuses is not commensurate
with the amount of pressure that is building on the outside. I think there
is less sense of alarm within many institutions of higher education than
might well be called for. And while it's not a Doomsday-type of concern
that's necessarily appropriate, it is a time for really taking stock of
where we are, what we're doing, and how we are doing it.
ER:
What are the most important concerns?
HAWKINS:
There is certainly a lot of concern about the cost of
higher education. There is concern about the output. There is concern
about the adequacy of preparation in an increasingly complex world. At
the same time these pressures are building on the outside, many faculties
and administrators and staffs within the universities would like to turn
the clock back and pretend that those pressures don't exist. That's not
a viable alternative.
ER:
How do you think faculty are responding to technological
changes?
HAWKINS:
The explosion of microcomputers and networks in the
middle '80s continues unto this day. More and more faculty have become
highly dependent upon the technology. On some campuses there is an indication
of this high dependency approaching 100 percent saturation--you can interpret
that as daily logons for mail, use of text processing, or use of a variety
of productivity tools. There has been a much slower introduction of technology
into the classroom when one observes the number of faculty who are meaningfully
integrating technology into the overall pedagogic experience. For many
faculty, the use of technology in research and scholarship has outstripped
the level in which they are using it in instructional methods. And so
when one asks the question, one has to define the aspect of usage, not
just talk about are they embracing the technology.
ER:
Have you experienced a certain amount of neo-Luddism
in the last year or so?
HAWKINS:
No.
I've seen an increase in articles, etc. that are making this contention.
I think there were holdouts all along, and there are always going to be.
Some folks think that's just a generational issue, but I don't. It might
be exacerbated slightly by the age of the administrator, faculty member,
or staff member in the university, but I think there are some people who
just don't see this as the right way for them to do their work. I think
that it's probably been safer for some people to express those views.
Now that some of this has been written about, there is a lower level of
political correctness in that regard, but I don't see any fundamental
reversion by a significant number of faculty. I think instead there have
been expressions of concern and they've taken this chance to express their
own concerns that this may be a direction run amok to some greater or
lesser degree.
ER:
And your thoughts on these expressions of concern?
HAWKINS:
I think this kind of dialogue is healthy. It's not
a question of all or nothing, black or white. When we talk about the neo-Luddism,
my point is that trying to pretend these people do not exist or to declare
them as lunatic fringe is quite inappropriate. It is not good for the
dialogue that we all need.
ER:
You don't feel that resistance to technology is
generational-something that's going away in 10 or 15 years?
HAWKINS:
Maybe it will. But I could argue that it is more disciplinary
than it is generational, in the sense that some of the resistance is greater
in the humanities. Not all see this as necessarily the best technology
for the work that they do. Now is that a legitimate technological approach--or
does it just mean that those disciplines didn't train in that regard?
Maybe both. Perhaps some of this will die out in 10 or 15 years as those
faculty retire, but I don't think the debate will all go away at that
point in time, because I think there are legitimate disciplinary differences.
I think there are some people who just don't think technology is the appropriate
tool for them to do what they want to do.
ER:
Whatever resistance to technology might exist within
academia, there does seem to be a tendency nowadays for colleges and universities
to be highly sensitive about the state of their "wiredness." Colleges
and universities are frequently ranked based on how wired they are. What
do you think of wiredness as a measure for the excellence of an institution?
HAWKINS:
I don't think it is a wonderful indicator of quality,
though I concede that increasingly it has become a market necessity. I
did some consulting for a small liberal arts school not long ago that
was very concerned about this "wiredness" issue. They told me that the
most often asked question by parents and students on their college tours
was, "Are your dorms wired?" Their answer was no, and they believed that
they needed to move to remedy that in order to deal with enrollment management
issues. Those kinds of pressures are becoming more and more real for many
schools, whether it makes any academic or technological sense at all.
On the same point, having the campus wired but providing an inadequate
set of services-not having adequate user backup or user support; not having
a coherent view of the campus and/or the educational arena; not having
academic resources available online-merely encourages what someone else
has characterized as "recreational computing." Recreational computing
doesn't indicate anything at all about the quality of the academic enterprise
or about how well the total college preparation for this new information
age world is working. Now, of course, there are many places that are both
wired and also offering wonderful and strong academic programs using that
technology, but the two are not necessarily correlated.
ER:
In the old days, when people talked about major university
resources they would usually be thinking of the library rather than of
computers. How has the library fared in recent years?
HAWKINS:
The library is one of my great concerns. Many of the
dreams that we talk about for this new world of the information age presuppose
that content is available in this environment-and yet by and large it
is not. The acquisitions budgets of our greatest libraries have diminished
significantly in actual buying power in the last 15 years. These are times
where libraries are cutting subscriptions dramatically because of the
rising costs in the acquisitions area. They are trying to bring up electronic
resources, but a recent study by the Association of Research Libraries
indicated that about nine percent of resource expenditures are for electronic
content. My concern here is that if either residential learning or distance
learning in a wired environment is to really mean something, then we need
to be concerning ourselves simultaneously with content in an online environment.
Right now, I would argue that that is one, if not the major blockage on
the critical path.
ER:
Are good people working on this?
HAWKINS:
There are people who are aware of and concerned about
the issues, but there is still no encompassing project or comprehensive
business plan in this regard. There are a number of important pilot projects
wrestling with some of these issues, but what is needed is a realization
by our presidents and provosts that transformational change is necessary.
Patricia Battin and I have just completed a book that tries to address
some of these concerns and the need for transformational change in higher
education related to information resources, much of it focused on the
library.
ER:
And the title?
HAWKINS:
The
Mirage of Continuity: Reconfiguring Academic Information Resources for
the 21st Century. It was published by the Council for Library and
Information Resources (CLIR) and the Association of American Universities
(AAU). The book is a collection of essays regarding the challenges and
hurdles which we are facing in this arena.
ER:
What
are your views on resource-sharing among academic institutions and among
nonprofit associations and consortia?
HAWKINS:
Colleges and universities are increasingly going to
have to find ways to share and not compete. Working through the neutral
arrangement of an association may facilitate that. In addition, our associations
need to cooperate more and not worry about their historical stovepipes;
they need to talk about areas that fall in the cusp, in the interstitial
area. It is clearly not anybody's space that is owned. To deal with higher
education we've got to give up some territorialism if change is to occur.
This is what Pat Battin and I spent a fair amount of time trying to address
in the book. I strongly believe that we need to reconceptualize a lot
of how we think about information resources in the broad sense and use
the academic missions of our institutions to drive the needed transformation.
I think that EDUCAUSE was founded partly in the belief that information
technology has the potential to transform how higher education delivers
that mission. A powerful transformation is underway but it is raising
perhaps more questions than it is delivering answers.
ER:
So what is the challenge for EDUCAUSE?
HAWKINS:
The challenge is one that is educational
in nature: its mission has to be to inform, shape and participate in that
dialogue about information technology and the transformation. At the same
time, we must help higher ed leadership-the presidents and provosts, presidential
associations, etc.--learn how to think about their institutions' traditional
strengths and how those are enabled or inhibited by information technology.
We have to get broader participation among the associations in the area
of national policies related to intellectual property, networking, privacy
issues, electronic commerce and a whole set of other issues. One of the
things we can do is start talking about the way these investments are
taking place and some of the challenges--whether it be network infrastructure,
digital libraries or distance learning technologies--and discussing the
practices that lead to success and that potentially promote stewardship
of these changing and complex technologies. This may be done through special
initiatives of EDUCAUSE such as the National
Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) or through other efforts
within the association's programs. EDUCAUSE must continue its leadership
in professional development and other member services of relevance to
the IT community and the association's members.
ER:
Do you see EDUCAUSE aspiring to hammering out a
single vision, a single position, or do you see it more as a forum to
facilitate an exchange of ideas from a lot of different viewpoints?
HAWKINS:
We need to do both of these, and we can't let them
become polar extremes. There has to be leadership, and leadership is often
made possible because of the investments and risk-taking of a small leadership
group of research universities. That is critical to providing the experimental
environment and shaping of what might be possible in terms of innovation.
But EDUCAUSE is also a membership organization that supports approximately
1,600 colleges and universities throughout the world. It needs to be a
forum as well. So viewing these two missions as polar opposites will not
lead the association forward. It's got to be both of those things.
ER:
And you are saying that not only both things have
to be done but that a single organization can do it?
HAWKINS:
Absolutely. It has been done in the two parent organizations
before. Okay? So now the challenge is to make it happen in a single organization.
The issue is a balancing act and clarifying that a variety of action items
on the agenda have to be worked on simultaneously. Member services are
critical, but so is advancement, so is policy, so is somebody taking the
leading edge position as well.
ER:
Let's talk about distance learning. Do you think
that's a topic that's increasing or going to dominate the discussion in
the future of academia?
HAWKINS:
With all the kinds of great advancements that we've
already seen-such as the World Wide Web-and all the kinds we can expect
to see in the future, it is unreasonable to think that distance learning
isn't going to have a major role in terms of education in its broad sense,
and specifically in training, which is a subset, the way I would define
it. There is certainly a growth market for what we are calling broadly
distance learning. But one of the dilemmas is that to offer distance learning,
it may take a significant infrastructure in terms of both intellectual
infrastructure, as represented by the faculty, and technical infrastructure
that will deliver something.
ER:
What will happen?
HAWKINS:
You'll have a variety of courses and maybe they can
all be offered cooperatively across all the colleges and universities
in this country, though it's probably a stretch to assume that this will
happen easily. Unfortunately, a lot of schools are talking about distance
learning mainly because they see it as a big money maker. Those estimations
of substantial new revenues to make up for a shrinking budget are probably
naive. Some schools will probably do very well in distance learning, but
the idea that every school should have a distance education program--and
that such a program is going to be profitable--is unrealistic.
ER:
What should we do, then?
HAWKINS:
We need to look at models where distance education
works and where it doesn't. I think you have to look at places where it
is consistent with institutional mission. One of the greatest strengths
in American higher education-and in higher education throughout the world,
but especially in this country-is the diversity of types of schools, types
of curricula, types of programs, etc. The choice is enormous. And we should
keep it that way, and avoid trying to take a "one size fits all" approach
to distance learning. There may be a variety of types of distance learning
programs at a whole different set of schools.
ER:
And how will new technology affect residential education?
HAWKINS:
I don't think we will see the demise of residential
higher education in the next 40 or 50 years. I do think it will probably
shrink considerably, and change its nature to adapt to a changing world.
But to think all higher education is going to move on to a single machine
takes away from that huge diversity that makes higher education what it
is today. There will be a definite place for distance learning, and the
concept of essentially customized learning environments focuses on learning
across the wire for some specific need: geographic or cultural obstacles,
remediation requirements, or some other reason. I think there are lots
of market niches that technology, and in the broad sense distance education,
could provide and offer. My only concern is that we make it clear that
the future isn't going to be that everybody takes 28 courses online and
that's a college education for everybody. That may work for some, but
not for all, and it will probably not become the mainstay of higher education
as we know it in our lifetimes. Finally, it is worth noting that it is
highly probable that the advances being made in using the technology in
distant learning environments will enhance learning in residential settings.
ER:
What are your thoughts as you assume the presidency
of this new organization, EDUCAUSE, formed by the consolidation of Educom
and CAUSE?
HAWKINS:
EDUCAUSE is an organization that has grown from
two highly respected organizations, and we have a set of responsibilities
to the members of these associations. Our programs need to strive to remove
boundaries that separate our members from the knowledge that they need
to meet their institutions' objectives. There has to be thought leadership.
There has to be experimentation. The publications Educom Review
and CAUSE/EFFECT together need to balance the members' need for
information at the global and conceptual level with the practical and
campus-oriented level. We need to figure out ways to accelerate the flow
of timely and relevant information, and that means a variety of formats,
including more and more electronic. Edupage and the other electronic
announcements from EDUCAUSE have a huge effect in terms of keeping people
current when there is so much information. So the general question for
the new organization is: How do we meet those needs to keep people informed,
and get people together to talk about how those exchanges are working
both technically and in support of the curriculum, the values of our institutions,
etc.? Conferences provide some of that. Increasingly, I think, this association
has to look at ways to communicate with its members and its constituencies
in ways that practice what we preach--by providing distance education
for our own membership. Right now, a lot of our professional development
programs are dependent on the bandwidth of a Boeing 727. I think we need
to explore electronic alternatives, just as in the case of publications
we need to explore and enhance opportunities and offerings available online.
That doesn't mean at the exclusion of these traditional avenues, however,
because you are dealing with a diffusion process. It is a combination
of educating, informing, sharing and listening. I think a lot of this
job is about the communication flow.
ER:
How
do you see EDUCAUSE fitting in to the larger world?
HAWKINS:
For EDUCAUSE to be successful we need to worry about
partnerships in a variety of ways in collaboration with a wide variety
of partners that go beyond the role of technology per se. The Coalition
for Networked Information demonstrates that value. My hope is that
EDUCAUSE will become increasingly a source of information and partnership
within the broader higher education community, sharing in both educational
as well as policy perspectives. It's difficult to say where IT begins
and libraries, business offices, registrar's offices and many other functional
units within our institutions stop. We have to avoid the mindset that
suggests that if it has a digital chip then the information technology
community owns it. It's that kind of narrow perspective that is dysfunctional.
Instead, we need to start asking what problems our members are facing,
and how in collaboration with other groups in higher education we can
offer support to them in achieving their goals.
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