Transforming Higher Education: Who Will Create the Future? - Paperback

by Graham Leicester (Author), Bill Sharpe (Author)

Don't adapt to the future of higher education. TRANSFORM IT.
The rise of online courses, growing costs, declining completion rates, increasingly diverse student populations, disruptions from outside innovators--as the leader of a higher education institution, you're facing unprecedented upheaval.
Rather than simply managing this change, you can harness it to dramatically improve the future--for your students, for your institution, for society at large. It's about bringing together the complex array of stakeholders in higher education--including administrators, faculty, boards, regents, and directors--to engage in honest and creative conversations about where the system is and where it ought to be.
Transforming Higher Education provides what you need to face the future head on. Through its proven "Three Horizons" framework, you will:
* View today's disruption not with fear, but with curiosity and courage* Initiate and manage difficult strategic discussions among all stakeholders * Build the future into your planning, while respecting current governance* Create and implement a new strategy that makes the future part of the present
Transforming Higher Education provides three plausible scenarios for the future of higher education. By exploring what the future might bring, you can better prepare for your role in creating it.
Right now, you're looking at unparalleled opportunity. We all are. Whoever seizes it with courage, wisdom, and an effective, inclusive strategy will be at the forefront of education innovation--and will shape the lives of generations to come.

Back Jacket

During this unprecedented moment in higher education, this book engages the idea of transformative innovation, applying it to higher education through a series of key insights, each designed to equip educators as they seek to design an education that prepares our young people for the future. It is a deeply relevant and eminently practical resource.--John J. DeGioia, President of Georgetown University "Transforming Higher Education is a call to action for educators to rethink their futures. Bill Sharpe and Graham Leicester have given us a tool box filled with proven methods for institutional change. I, like many others in education who lead transformative innovation initiatives, have long felt the need for a book that dealt in a straightforward way with the specialized problems and challenges facing schools, colleges, and universities. The authors' compelling descriptions of future scenarios and their careful depiction of the three horizons that seem to rush at all planners with increasing speed are filled with practical advice about how to engage educators and rise above the common pitfalls of transforming academic enterprises. Their methods ring true. These tools will be welcomed by leaders and will quickly become part of a new design vocabulary for this important sector."--Professor Richard DeMillo, Executive Director of the 21st Century Universities at the Georgia Institute of Technology
"Transforming Higher Education provides a roadmap for innovative change in our educational systems that is both compelling and pragmatic. It not only will help readers to envision an educational future that is not simply reactive to current pressures and challenges, but it will allow them to identify new paths for radical change and improvement that address their own specific educational needs, as well as those of society."--Robert S. Feldman, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
"The Three Horizons framework is an incredibly useful approach to strategy development in the university environment. It requires both 'visionaries' and 'managers' to engage in open dialogue about the magnitude and pace of change so that they can invest in the appropriate innovations for the institution."The Three Horizons framework is something that is very suitable for the academy. The notion of multiple horizons existing simultaneously creates an opportunity for accommodation of multiple perspectives and constructive dialogue regarding critical decisions a campus must make. Getting people out of entrenched positions--by forcing them to consider multiple realities-- will be essential to making real progress."Transforming Higher Education provides a provocative view on how higher education could shift over the next decade, not by looking in a crystal ball, but by evaluating changes that are already in place. Colleges and Universities should review these scenarios and ask themselves if they are really prepared for what the future may hold."--Jeff Denneen, Partner, Bain & Company "Graham and Bill provide a thought-provoking examination of how technology and other disruptive factors are transforming higher education. But more importantly, they show how leaders can get in front of this change with their Three Horizons methodology and ultimately create a new model where educators and students can all succeed." --Peter Cohen, President, University of Phoenix

Author Biography

Graham Leicester is a founder and Director of International Futures Forum (IFF). He previously ran Scotland's leading think tank, the Scottish Council Foundation, founded in 1997. Bill Sharpe is an independent researcher in science, technology and society, and a member of the International Futures Forum.