Dear Stephen and Chuck,

Stephen wrote,

“The common thread I am seeing in your replies centers around the fact that the 'university' as it is in 2017 appears to be a decentralized digitized entity.  Digital technology has freed knowledge to now exist dynamically outside of the university...has it not?  Ken and Eduardo A. has suggested references to this kind of knowledge that anyone can access if they participate in the right discussion group online. (I am currently reading their offerings...thank you)”

This does not represent my view. I do not see universities as a decentralized digital entity. I see the research university as a special kind of institution or organization that exists in time and (possibly) in spaces to pursue certain kinds of inquiry, research, and education. 

If you have not read my article on the nature of the university, please do so. It will indicate my position on these issues. I’ve uploaded a copy of WeTransfer to make it easy to download:

https://we.tl/yhk0pn8bSx

Current digital technology affects what universities can do, and it extends their range and reach. What digital technology does not do is to provide the scale and scope of responsible interaction between masters and scholars, the depth of inquiry within disciplines, or the disciplined nature of interaction that takes place when mature scholars within disciplines work across disciplinary boundaries. I disagree with the notion that a discussion group can replace the research university — it cannot come close to doing so. 

What discussion groups can do is to extend the conversation and to permit people to learn more about what other people know. 

Chuck wrote, 

"The real question is how should the University serve in the digital age. Eduardo clearly understands that the University is the institute for preserving knowledge but the discussion hasn’t really centered on a vision of how knowledge is created and how best to support its dissemination through the education of individual minds. Until its vision and values are formulated no institution can provide coherent and progressive leadership for those seeking to gain or add effective knowledge. That leadership in research in the US seems to be shifting from major universities to private foundation funded institutions such as the Allen Institute for Neuroscience, and similar initiatives funded by very wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates, and James Simon. (See last week's New York Times Magazine for Simon).”

These kinds of foundations have long existed and they fulfill many purposes. The Institute for Advanced Studies is one such organization — it exists in Princeton, but it is not part of Princeton University. The physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman pointedly declined a professorship at the Institute precisely because he believed that no specific research foundation could do a better job than a university at furthering inquiry and research.

Now this is possibly not true in all cases, but it remains the fact that the best research universities continue to do what it is that universities have long done. This does not necessarily solve such problems as inclusiveness or social development, and it does not necessarily solve funding problems for research, but the research university plays a major role in the world still. This may change if societies starve their universities to death, but this has not yet changed.

The LIGO Lab receives massive funding from the National Science Foundation, but it would not exist without the work of scientists from California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the research universities where working professors dreamed the idea up and pushed to realize it long before it was built. 

The specialized research organizations are important new institutions. But they cannot replace universities, either in their scope, or in their ability to attract and train young researchers from undergraduate work through doctoral training and on to research careers. These new organizations mostly hire established researchers — that, in part, is what makes them so good at what they do in solving problems. Universities do more than solve problems — they provide a framework for many activities.

I must apologize for the fact that I have not had time to address these issues in full. I’m working on something. Your two posts caught my eye, so I thought I would answer.

If anyone wishes to look at some serious books that look deeply into the history and nature of the university, please write to me off-list. 

Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 


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