Page 321 - Crisis in Higher Education

Creating High-Technology Learning Materials • 291

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machine—a forerunner of the modern-day computer. He and others,
working in England and the United States, faced substantial resis-
tance from government and industry. They often found it difficult to
get the funding needed to do research and make important and neces-
sary enhancements. Even among the true believers in this technology,
it would have been impossible for them to predict accurately its long-
term capabilities and applications. Hand-held devices that are a mil-
lion times more powerful and have a million times more storage than
these early devices as well as space travel, satellite communications, the
Internet, and dozens of other applications that depend on computing
technology would have been impossible to foresee.
Higher education has been slow to adopt technologies that move edu-
cation beyond traditional textbooks and lecture-discussion sessions.
Part of this resistance is caused by the success of higher education and a
hesitancy to fix something that administrators and faculty do not feel is
broken. Faculty may feel other aspects of universities need to change, but
many are comfortable with the current textbook and lecture model. When
fundamental change is needed and there is no compelling reason, such as
the looming downfall of the current system, there is strong support for
the status quo, especially by those who benefit from the current structure.
In addition, administrators and faculty are no different from the scientists
of 80 years ago, who found it difficult to foresee the long-term application
of technology. The next generation of administrators and faculty who have
been raised on computer and information technology should have a differ-
ent perspective and be more likely to embrace and develop new applications.

13.6 DRIVING FORCES FOR CHANGE

State government supported by federal and local governments should
use its leverage to encourage public universities (boards of trustee and
administrative leadership) to seek high-tech learning materials and
require universities, not students, to be financially responsible for these
costs. Students, parents, other family members, and friends should con-
tact governments, voicing approval for these reforms.
Curriculum design and execution is within the purview of tenured
and professional faculty, and it is not something that administration
should force faculty to do because, given the current acrimonious