Innovation Isn’t Enough

BY MICHAEL M. CROW
THE MODERN UNIVERSITY is the ideal environment for the creation and transfer of knowledge that drives national competitiveness in an increasingly global era. Its most effective from is the American adaptation of the European model, in which teaching, learning and research are integrated into a single institution. Indeed, the American university has proved capable of almost anything, from developing advanced economic theories to creating new life forms. And that’s in addition to providing, basic liberal-arts training to millions of people who drive the arts around the world.
From the European Union to China, India to Mexico, many national leaders understand that the university is the critical catalyst for America’s adaptability, economic robustness and emergence as a great power. And they are moving aggressively to catch up. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy is outlining a total overhaul of the country’s underperforming university system. In India, a private citizen is building a university for 1000,000 students, while China is building or revamping hundreds of institutions. And the universities created by emerging economies beginning in the 1990s and through 2020 will likely play a decisive role in re-shaping the global balance of economic power.
That is bad news for the United States. The past two decades of American university development have been characterized largely by self-satisfaction arising from steady progress by the top 20 or so research universities. And America as a nation has been coasting. Since 2000, the United States has lost its edge in the graduation of engineers and technologists. The country no longer dominates scientific discovery, innovation or exploration. Most important, the United States has not launched any effort to build new institutions to accommodate its increasingly diverse population of more than 300 million.
The result is that America’s university system, despite its historical pre-eminence, has ceased to grow. Few new universities are being built, and only a handful of those in existence are undergoing meaningful expansion. Fur-thermore, America’s university system has failed to adapt to the dramatic demographic and immigration.
America needs to realize that its universities face real competition from the rest of the world to attract the best and the brightest, to secure resources and to provide environments that educate and inspire. This is not to say that the best American universities are no longer the leaders in discovery and innovation. They are. Rather, it is to say that the success of the higher-education system must be measured by more than just innovations. Its long-term performance depends on its ability to provide learning to a broad cross sections of citizens, to advance national proficiency in math and science and to create an adaptable work force, as well as well as to develop a national appreciation for discovery, entrepreneurship and the creative process.
In China and elsewhere, these are the goals of the new universities being built. In the United States, we need to move from a national self-confidence based on past success to one built on the knowledge that we are advancing a system of higher education that will meet our future needs. This will require that policymakers, business leaders and universities rededicate themselves to creating comprehensive learning and discovery environments; design entirely new models and methods for teaching, and then take action to implement them. It is imperative that we get started now.