Book Review: "Past and Future of University"
Author: Dr. Joon Heo, Yeonsei University (http://scsi.yonsei.ac.kr/)
ISBN: 9788968504013
Ever since the 1960s, a revolutionary challenge has been posed against empiricism, which spread globally from the United States, based on scientific rationalism. An educational administrator wielding an 'interpretative paradigm' boldly dared to counter this prevailing ethos. In 1979, Thomas Greenfield described an organization as a "talk, chance, action, and experience." Much like Greenfield's defiance against the existing paradigm of empiricism, future societies raise fundamental questions about the paradigm upon which today's universities are based. What discourse does the university of our era conduct, what opportunities does it provide, what actions does it take, and what experiences does it offer? Moreover, what should its future look like? 'The Past and Future of the University' provides an engaging introduction and a useful guide to exploring the meaning and value of universities as social entities amidst the destructive changes in higher education and the rampant critical perspectives on the social value of universities in 2022.
Universities, the cradles of intellectualism symbolizing the zeitgeist, and as ivory towers, have been going through a Copernican revolution over the past two decades. The pure ideals of universities seeking noble truth have come to be seen as anachronistic ideologies in the currents of social change dominated by pragmatism and commercialism. The aim here is not to argue whether this phenomenon is right or wrong. However, as the international competitiveness of universities has emerged not only in academia but also as a national agenda, the perspective and standards for viewing universities have become increasingly diversified, something we must acknowledge. It's also hard to say that such trends have occurred in isolation within South Korea. All the phenomena we witness and experience are sprouted from some point in the distant history that we cannot intuitively know diachronically, and synchronically, they are living and breathing parts of the socio-political-economic-cultural ecosystems of our time. Therefore, to fully understand the current university, we need to discuss the past university, and to understand the university in South Korea from multiple perspectives, we need to discuss the universities of the world.
In this context, this book is significant as it comprehensively presents the origins, evolution, and future roles and challenges of universities from an international perspective. Without overly borrowing the same academic or technical force commonly seen in history, education, administration, and organizational theories, the book guides readers to make sense of the trends of 'university social change', allowing them to gain insights that match their positions and provide suggestions for the future. Particularly, the early part of the book outlines the 'European-style university' and 'American-style university', which can be considered the twin pillars of modern higher education, offering a comprehensive understanding of the macroscopic historical trajectory of universities since the 11th century and the origins of how the global higher education system has come to its current form. In pinpointing where universities intersect with advancements like EdTech, the book also reveals the author's expertise as one of the few MOOC specialists in Korea. Moreover, the latter part of the book handles topics that should be the subject of future discourse in university society, thereby offering insights into how to define and enact the roles of 'future-oriented universities, and indeed intellectuals'.
The author lucidly presents factors that exert substantial influence on various aspects of society such as changes in population structure, technological innovation, and the activation of online content. Moreover, it is quite timely that he propounds the changing role of universities from the perspective of 'platforms' and 'networks'. The author posits that a university should be a networking space where members, or 'players', of the vast ecosystem surrounding the university interact creatively and innovatively to connect values. This coincides with the author’s longstanding view on higher education, given his years of experience in the field, where he defined higher education as a platform industry and university administration as a 'platform' function.
For these reasons, it is imperative that universities hasten their transition from being insular 'towers' to becoming open systems. Their transformation should coincide with a forward-looking discourse, vision, and specific execution plans working in unison to lay the groundwork for future possibilities. This indeed is the blueprint for the future university envisioned by the author, a professor of Construction Environmental Engineering who studies spatial science.
The author's interest in educational innovation through online platforms, his discernment of the historical trajectory of university development, and his fearless unfolding of deep suggestions for the restoration of social trust in universities, value creation, and the discovery of innovation drivers in Korean universities are all impressive. The dynamics among stakeholders surrounding universities – students, professors, staff, alumni, local communities, businesses, collaborative institutions, and governments (local) – are immensely intricate. Penetrating the mechanisms entrenched deep within these complexities presents a challenging task. As someone specializing in educational administration, I've contemplated that the impetus to bridge the recurring gap between 'theory' and 'practice', and 'words' and 'actions' over the past several decades in this field may perhaps be found in such "research from the outside".
In that regard, this book serves as high-level consulting for individuals who are navigating the currents of change in higher education to find executable strategies; people who, while being the agents of university innovation, are still struggling to find a direction; and those seeking answers to what kind of 'dialogues', 'opportunities', 'actions', and 'experiences' the future university should offer.
----------------
*Disclaimer
This content is a translation of a book review originally written in Korean, which was submitted to the book review contest organized by the College of Liberal Arts at Korea University as part of its University Innovation Project, sponsored by the Korean Government.
Comments
Post a Comment