Washington, D.C.
October 16-18, 1996

Redefining Higher Education

The Future of Public Universities

Peter Magrath, President
National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges

I will talk about trends in higher education and where the public research universities are headed. I am not convinced that it is different from the direction the great private research universities are headed, at least regarding their dialogue and discourse. The issues are remarkably similar. Public versus private is, to some extent, an organizational issue, as opposed to a funding and support issue.

Three points:

1) Everything is not okay in higher education today.

2) Mae West once said, “It is better to be looked over than overlooked,” and, ladies and gentlemen, we are being looked over.

3) Roland Schmidt, the former Senior Executive with GE, the former President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a man very active with the National Science Foundation once said, “Business corporations are institutions designed by geniuses to be run by idiots; universities are enterprises designed by idiots to be run by geniuses.”

We need geniuses to help design and restructure, as well as to run, these complex universities that are such an important part of not only our heritage but our future.

I will sketch out what I think is the environment that impinges on American higher education today. In the interest of time, I am not going to explain these points. In any event, they will prove familiar to all of you because you are so actively engaged with these issues.

First, we currently have an environment that is radically different from that of the Cold War era, which is not far behind us in historical terms. The Cold War had its pluses as well as its minuses. One of its pluses was that it provided enormous fuel and resource support to American higher education. This is evident when you look at how we were perceived in our enterprise as being part of the National Defense Security Establishment. The Cold War and the rationale that upheld a good deal of our support, in terms of student aid, research support, and in other ways, is gone.

Next we have the financial crunch. I do not think that I need to explain it, except to say that I do not think that the calculations that we make are as disastrous if we assume that, financially, we are on a kind of pendulum and we will have an upswing and go back to a relatively stable, constant growth of resources in the future. I do not believe that this holds true for the foreseeable future. At best, we can look forward to incremental increases in certain areas, but finances, resources, and money will continue to be extraordinarily tough for us in all sectors of higher education for a long time to come, and we had better adapt and be adaptable, because this is the reality we face.

Third, we have inflicted wounds on ourselves that have to do with all kinds of issues where the criticisms may be exaggerated. They are often political. However, at times, we, as faculty, appear to be rather selfish, whether as educational or academic administrators. If we were to talk about the unhappy topic of intercollegiate athletics, we could all make our own list.

In higher education, we make a serious mistake if we overlook the fact that at times we have appeared to be somewhat selfish and self-serving. And, like it or not, there is a push for accountability, in part because we are so important to the nation and its economy and its society. This push will not go away, and we need to address this issue ourselves.

Related to all of this as part of the environment is the issue centering on costs, quality, and the rise of tuition. This has occurred dramatically both in the public and private sector. I have participated in it. I am not proud of it, but we have raised tuition dramatically and often for compelling reasons. However, when you raise tuition, you raise questions about the quality of education and about what the consumer gets for the additional costs that the individual is contributing to his or her education. The cost and tuition issue will not go away in 1997 or 1998.

We are in a technological society, as well as in an education and information explosion with which we have not yet fully come to grips. You all deal with this everyday in your professional work, but the impact that this is having on education and the ways in which it is delivered is enormous. Many of the brightest men and women to whom I listen are confused as to what the outcomes will be.

Here I will make a plug because I think it fits. This has a lot to do with the interests of all of us who care about research universities, private and public, and I hope that my association, along with ARL, the AAU, and others that are deeply concerned, can continue to work very closely together on the issues of fair use. After all, we are both the producers and the users of this important intellectual information, and this is part of that new environment with which we are all grappling.

Finally, we are dealing with a whole new category of students. I do not know what a traditional student is; there are students of all ages, all circumstances. We must recognize that one of the major things we do is to educate men and women of all ages. The environment of students today was not the environment of 20 years ago, and certainly not of 40 years ago.

I believe, as I suspect you do, that there is much that is right about U.S. higher education. We are one of the success stories in our society, and when people talk about what is wrong in education in the United States, they are usually thinking of elementary and secondary education in the public schools. We are far better than our narrow ideological and political critics assert. Our educational standards and outcomes are quite good. Our graduate and research accomplishments are the envy of the world. However, I suspect that they are not as good as we would like for them to be for undergraduate students.

Many positive teaching and curricula reforms are underway; I think that there is a fair argument to make that there is a need for such changes. We are at times arrogant and insensitive to public accountability needs. Undergraduate students in particular need more attention. We have missed enormous opportunities in primary and secondary education. I do not mean opportunities to solve the problems within K-12 education, because we cannot. But, with a few exceptions, we have not really engaged ourselves with the issue of the public schools, which are extraordinarily vital to our society, as well as to our colleges and universities.

We have not yet come together regarding how we can accommodate and use the new information technologies, and we need to link with our potential and real allies: communities and business enterprises. In every respect we need to serve the public as much as possible.

One of the critical issues that we face is the university. It is not just the faculty culture, but also the academic culture. This is one of the most difficult challenges that we face.

Denial is very normal and human. However, it will not work with regard to the issues that are out there and that are impinging upon us, and whether we like it or not, at least the fiscal stresses ought to tell us that denial and “business or education as usual” will not work. This is a general premise of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities. For more information, please see the Commission brochure entitled Taking Charge of Change.

The Commission is premised on the assumption that leadership counts, and that university chief executive officers are men and women who are leaders. It assumes that, as leaders, they have the responsibility to try to bring about change at their own institutions and in collaboration with each other; that people working together from similar institutions can accomplish an agenda for change and can promote it so that we can make that jump together. That is what leadership is about.

That belief is part of the Commission’s general agenda. The Commission is made up of 25 chancellors and presidents of state and land grant universities. We have an Advisory Council chaired not by presidents but by real people — trustees or former trustees, business leaders, and others who do not speak “academese.” They are critics, but they are really friendly critics who care about the enterprise and are deeply committed to it.

The Kellogg Commission leaders’ statement points out that there are certain issues with which we need to deal first. This Commission will not lead to a report or document that will go in our libraries; there will be a series of calls for action and change. They will be short, direct, and to the point: letters to presidents, letters to each other, and guidelines as to what kind of changes are already being made. However, we need to go further with regard to what we do with undergraduate education, how we deal with the learning society, and how we deal with our engagement with the public.

Our first call for action will deal with student experience. This includes, not surprisingly, access issues, a critical area for all universities and colleges. We plan not only to deal with the issues of outreach and extension, but also with how public institutions are involved with students. We will also deal with the continuous learning society. In all of these topics, and especially at the end, we are going to try to address the campus and the academic culture.

I would like to conclude by quoting something from Bill Richardson, very recently president of Johns Hopkins University, and who is now the president of the Kellogg Foundation. He was talking about Harvard and Johns Hopkins in terms of myth and reality.

He said, “There is a Harvard of myth and a Harvard of reality. I realize that Harvard or Johns Hopkins or any excellent university still does a huge amount of very important research. But, in fact, there has been a transformation at Harvard, Hopkins, and elsewhere. It is a transformation driven by a new or renewed commitment to part-time learners, adult education, and undergraduates; a transformation that includes hands on research that is readily useful and transferable to communities. In fact, these universities are at their best when their faculties engage in such a range of activities. It is ironic. While many land grant and regional universities are trying to become more like Harvard, Harvard is trying to become more like them.”

A research-as-king mindset has shaped the academic culture and hierarchy of most American universities. Our ability to change this status quo will pose yet another major challenge for higher education during the post-Cold War era.

I do not want us to be like Edsels: scattered, valuable antiques. If we do not make certain changes and adaptations, we will lose the research function, which is the one thing that we do superbly well. However, it is contingent upon our credibility and our public support.

The whole premise of this Commission, as well as similar efforts and inquiries that are underway, is that there must be change. All of us within universities in leadership positions have obligations to come together, move beyond denial, and recognize our accomplishments without being afraid to admit that there are changes that need to be made and that we can make those changes.

This is the agenda of the Kellogg Commission. I hope that our universities will not become wonderful, valuable, antiques, the Edsels of the future.

Copyright � 1998 by Peter Magrath

Question and Answer Session

MR. KOBULNICKY: We are going to take a few minutes for some questions for Dr. Magrath.

MR. CAMPBELL (University of Southern California): There is one element on which I would like to hear you comment that seems to be affecting research libraries these days. Many of us are beginning, because of the pressures on us, to think of our universities, our libraries, and their resources as money-making opportunities. This seems to change some fundamental values. Do you have any comments about that?

DR. MAGRATH: As a matter of fact, at my annual meeting we will have a session chaired by one of our presidents, as well as a number of others dealing with the privatization issue, which has various connotations. I believe that we have to scramble and fight to attract resources. If we do not have resources, we cannot do the job.

There are ways that we can avoid selling our souls and doing things that are improper. Let me turn it around this way: I do not have a problem with universities having relationships with the Department of Defense, as long as those relationships are understood.

We know what we do, we know what we cannot do. The ground rules are open and understood and yet, there are those who have argued, and we have all heard those arguments, there are those who believe that entanglements with the Department of Defense are inherently corrupting and we should not take that kind of money.

I do not know about profits, but we need to attract resources, and I am on the side of alliances with business, as long as it is serving our fundamental purposes as much as meeting some other needs.

MS. BAKER (Washington State University): I want to deal with the public perception issue, which I think is going to be one of the most difficult issues. In some areas we are beginning to get past denial and are beginning to make some changes, trying to be responsive. However, we find that it is very difficult to change public perceptions once they are formed. Do you have any observations on this?

DR. MAGRATH: I agree with you. I want to answer this in two ways.

One: I remember when I was a faculty member at Brown in the 1960s, and I felt that students really trusted me and my colleagues, and then we got into the Vietnam War. We know all the things that happened.

I remember going to Nebraska, which was a reasonably stable part of the United States, although that changed there, too. I remember dealing with students and feeling that, although they kind of wanted to like me personally, I was a symbol of authority, and I could feel their distrust.

We have the same problem with regard to the perception issue here. The Public Affairs Director at Pennsylvania State University wrote to Graham Spanier, the President of Penn State and also a member of the Kellogg Commission. In the letter he described a Philadelphia Inquirer story regarding college costs and tuition. In a meeting with public affairs people, the journalists and other Newsweek and Inquirer representatives were saying that the universities have real problems and that the media is not going to back away from the issues of cost, tuition, and efficiency.

We have an enormous perception problem, and, in part, we have it because we come across as being too arrogant. I believe that we have heard ourselves, and we are supposed to be good and special. The gentleman asked a question about profits. We are supposed to be above that. However, we are human beings, and we cannot be totally perfect. We do appear to be arrogant and insensitive, and I think that hubris got to us. We were so important. We were needed. I remember as a graduate student saying, thank God, I am really in the right enterprise, we are so important and what we do provides the intellectual capital that we all need. This is probably true, but we overdid it.

MR. KOBULNICKY: The heyday of the land grant university made the relevance of the universities -- teaching, research, and service programs -- obvious to the community. The community saw the benefit. What can we do now in today's environment to recapture that degree of obvious relevance on the part of the community?

DR. MAGRATH: I have used the trilogy: research, teaching, and service. Research is service. If you are teaching students -- graduate, professional, undergraduate -- that is service to society. I do not care whether it is Pennsylvania State University or the University of Pennsylvania, Yale or the University of Connecticut; anything we do is service, in certain respects, to the communities and people that we serve.

That is a land grant philosophy. Yes, it had something to do with agriculture, but it goes beyond that. I am prepared to make the argument that Johns Hopkins and Harvard are in public service, just as much as esteemed state universities are. That is what we have to keep saying: We are here to serve. And, ultimately, it does not matter whether Penn or Penn State, for example, are enhanced or great; what matters is whether they provide great service with their educational resources.

MR. KOBULNICKY: I would like to push this just one second. We say it, but what do we do to demonstrate it? How do we build the relevancy back up in the eyes of the community?

DR. MAGRATH: One thing we do is we listen to other people, and not just when a legislative committee in Texas starts wanting to get into the tenure issue. We bring in the informed citizenry to be advisors and consultants. Maybe you have them sit in on meetings about library operations, and, particularly, academic programs. You can bring in people who tell you things that may be off the wall, but it is possible that some of the ideas may be very helpful.

Currently, we do that very well, and I think we ought to be able to do it. We are much too cloistered.

Thank you.