Research universities are under attack in virtually every jurisdiction in advanced industrial democracies. The issues in this crisis are many, diverse and often contradictory: cutbacks in already antiquated financing models; tuition fees that are too high, or too low; infrastructure and equipment that consume operating funds, and are too expensive to replace; employers and a public interested in practical skills training, rather than broad and adaptable education that hones critical thinking; professors who must publish or perish on the road to tenure, and so cannot focus sufficient attention on teaching; and disruptive uses of emerging information technologies.
A treatise could be written, and many have been, on every one of these issues. In this essay, however, I want to concentrate on the technological disruption of education. Universities today face three major challenges from digitally driven shifts in learning, information and space requirements—shifts that...
Anthony C. Masi is a professor of sociology at McGill University, where he also serves as provost. He would like to thank Nancy Diamond, Laura Winer, Royal Govain, Manuel Salamanca Cardona and Lauren Soluk for assistance in researching, discussing and editing this article. The essay was written with the generous support of Max Bell Foundation, as part of The 40th Anniversary Max Bell Essays and Lectures.
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