The University in transformation, edited by Australian futurists Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley, presents some 20 highly varied outlooks on tomorrow's universities by writers representing both Western and non-Western perspectives. Their essays raise a broad range of issues, questioning nearly every key assumption we have about higher education today.
The most widely discussed alternative to the traditional campus is the Internet University— a voluntary community to scholars/teachers physically scattered throughout a country or around the world but all linked in cyberspace. A computerized university could have many advantages, such as easy scheduling, efficient delivery of lectures to thousands or even millions of students at once, and ready access for students everywhere to the resources of all the world's great libraries.
Yet the Internet University poses dangers, too. For example, a line of franchised courseware, produced by a few superstar teachers, marketed under the brand name of a famous institution, and heavily advertised, might eventually come to dominate the global education market, warns sociology professor Peter Manicas of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Besides enforcing a rigidly standardized curriculum, such a "college education in a box" could undersell the offerings of many traditional brick and mortar institutions, effectively driving them out of business and throwing thousands of career academics out of work, note Australian communications professors David Rooney and Greg Hearn.
On the other hand, while global connectivity seems highly likely to play some significant role in future higher education, that does not mean greater uniformity in course content—or other dangers—will necessarily follow. Counter-movements are also at work.
Many in academia, including scholars contributing to this volume, are questioning the fundamental mission of university education. What if, for instance, instead of receiving primarily technical training and building theft individual careers, university students and professors could focus their learning and research efforts on existing problems in their local communities and the world? Feminist scholar Ivana Milojevic dares to dream what a university might become "if we believed that child-care workers and teachers in early childhood education should be one of the highest (rather than lowest) paid professionals?"
Co-editor Jennifer Gidley shows how tomorrow's university faculty, instead of giving lectures and conducting independent research, may take on three new roles. Some would act as brokers, assembling customized degree-credit programmes for individual students by mixing and matching the best course offerings available from institutions all around the world. A second group, mentors, would function much like today's faculty advisers, but are likely to be working with many more students outside their own academic specialty. This would require them to constantly be learning from their students as well as instructing them.
A third new role for faculty, and in Gidley's view the most challenging and rewarding of all, would be as meaning-makers: charismatic sages and practitioners leading groups of students/colleagues in collaborative efforts to find spiritual as well as rational and technological solutions to specific real-world problems.
Moreover, there seems little reason to suppose that any one form. of university must necessarily drive out all other options. Students may be "enrolled" in courses offered at virtual campuses on the Internet, between—or even during—sessions at a real-world problem-focused institution.
As co-editor Sohail Inayatullah points out in his introduction, no future is inevitable, and the very act of imagining and thinking through alternative possibilities can directly affect how thoughtfully, creatively and urgently even a dominant technology is adapted and applied. E
A. he is in favour of it
B. his view is balanced
C. he is slightly critical of it
D. he is strongly critical of it
Dr Myers and other researchers hold that ______.
A. people should look for a baseline that can't work for a longer time
B. fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass
C. the ocean biomass should be restored to its original level
D. people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation
A.A cruise to faraway exotic places.B.A week alone at a hot springs resort.C.Comfortab
A cruise to faraway exotic places.
B. A week alone at a hot springs resort.
Comfortable days at high-class accommodations.
D. A trip to Chicago.
Generations of Americans have been brought【C1】______to believe that a good breakfast is important for health. Eating breakfast at the【C2】______of the day, we have all been【C3】______,is as necessary as putting gasoline in the family car【C4】______starting a trip.
But for many people the thought of food first in the morning is by【C5】______pleasures. So【C6】______all the efforts, they still take no【C7】______. Between 1978 and 1983, the latest years for which figures are【C8】______, the number of people who didn't have breakfast increased【C9】______33 percent—from 8.8 million to 11.7 million【C10】______the Chinese-based Market Research Corporation of America.
For those who feel pain of【C11】______about not having breakfast,【C12】______, there is some good news. Several studies in the last few years【C13】______that, for adults especially, there may be nothing【C14】______with omitting breakfast. "Going【C15】______breakfast does not affect【C16】______"Said Arnold E. Bendoer, former professor of nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College in London,【C17】______does giving people breakfast improve performance.
【C18】______evidence relating breakfast to better health or【C19】______performances is surprisingly inadequate, and most of the recent work involves children, not【C20】______"The literature," says one researcher, Dr. Ernesto Pollitt at the University of Texas, "is poor."
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