Review by: Zellweger, Franziska (2004-06-30)

The article is a concise excerpt from the 2002 published book “Higher Education in the Digital Age: Technology Issues and Strategies for American Colleges and Universities”. It was written by three highly profiled scholars in the field, James Duderstadt, former president of University of Michigan, Daniel Atkins, faculty and head of the Alliance for Community Technology and Douglas Van Houweling, former Vice President of IT and now president and CEO of the Internet 2 Consortium.

The authors foresee a temporal dilemma: “Because of the exponential evolution of technology, event horizons for dramatic change are much closer than we think they are.” As a consequence the article consists of both a description of assumptions the near term developments and six recommendations for university leaders on how to guide their institutions in the digital age. The main conclusion of the paper is that university leaders need a long term strategic context to enable near term decisions.

The authors display thought provoking assumptions on near term changes in the technological, legal, business and institutional environment but don’t mention less tangible influences such as changing student expectations or new paradigms of teaching and learning. In their compilation of recommendations the authors express their holistic understanding of the complexities of a university system by stating in recommendation two that a firm understanding of the key values of the institution is a prerequisite to engage in a technology driven strategy process. They also claim for an open dialogue on what is really the core competence of the institute. In a more transparent and competitive environment universities can’t be everything to everybody. All this requires a change in the organizational and management structures that effectively “oscillates” between centralized and decentralized approaches. At the highest centralized level a clear institutional vision driven by broadly accepted values should encourage on the operational level diversity, flexibility and innovation. In the end the students are identified as a major driving force.

The article reflects the current state of American higher education system with its specific characteristics and pressures. Regardless the recommendations are of universal importance and arouse decision makers and administrators heavily occupied by the day-to-day business to pay attention to major disruptions in the system. Due to the fundamental reflections the article doesn’t provide very concrete recommendations for action but presumably this wasn’t its primary purpose.