How to navigate a rocketship through an asteroid field
02 November 2024
Andrew Crisp writes about views of the future from the recent HEDx conference at the University of Queensland.
Sometimes you need to travel further to see things clearly. Dialling in from New York at the recent HEDx conference at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Professor Ann Kirschner, former President, Hunter College, The City University of New York, described the experience of leading in HE as like navigating a rocketship through an asteroid field. Perhaps you don’t have to travel that far, but as a UK-based consultant it was great to spend a day at UQ looking at how Australia is finding its way in the current HE landscape.
Inevitably, AI took up a large part of the conversation and there is clear uncertainty among both students and educators about how to proceed. Professor George Williams AO, VC at Western Sydney University perhaps best set the tone, recognising that students will need AI in their work and future careers, so universities need to find a way to make it part of the study experience. What that means in practice for AI in the classroom, during study and assessment, and beyond could be many different things.
Students are also uncertain. New research suggested many students have hesitated to embrace AI with 91% worried that using AI may break their university rules, as well as worries that using AI today may compromise their future success. In the research, one student commented ‘I have to think I’m a little better that the AI, you have to have some ego in it’, recognising the value of the AI tools, but also the importance of their own input.
Although AI was a central issue during the conference, there were lots of other themes, many of which seemed to focus on the question of whether the HE system is fit for purpose. The AI research suggested that 86% of students study on a bus or train, they are mobile but not on a laptop, but are universities able to meet students where they are at when it comes to delivering a positive experience.
Few students want help between 9 and 5, more likely it will be 11pm, can AI support interventions when students need them? The idea that HE understands today’s students because many of those in HE were students previously, was rejected on several occasions.
Launching a new university strategy at WSU, Professor Williams invited all 50,000 students to a Zoom webinar – 25 turned up. Moving the engagement to TikTok, 1300 joined. Sam Jacob, CEO of Collarts set out the importance of language in the student relationship – irrespective of the name of the institution, most students ‘just talk about going to uni’, so it doesn’t matter what you call it; parents are even less clear and employers engage because the college (or should that be uni?) is easy to work with.
Professor Kirschner also talked about a future that was omni-channel or as Professor Chris Moran, VC at the University of New England described it ‘learn anywhere’. However it is described, an approach that allows students to learn across devices and platforms, and thinking about how, what and when providers teach is clearly part of the future, delivering a positive customer experience and engagement that grows value for students.
Part of the answer to what the future of HE looks like was provided by Professor Simon Biggs, VC at James Cook University. Rather than tweaking the current model, the future involves designing all education for the most difficult to reach students. It also means playing to strengths – as an example, the JCU TNE offer in Singapore provides a platform for those students who want to focus on finance in a way that would not be possible in Cairns or Townsville; it also offers the opportunity to build an advisory board of senior leaders in global businesses that would not be possible in northern Queensland.
That view of the future was extended by Professor Moran, summing it up in one word, ‘Adults’. Demand for lifelong learning, among those who may never have been to university, means building an offer that is not about vast bureaucracies, but again meeting learners where they are and helping them get to where they want to be.
The future of higher education looks different. Yes there will still be degrees, there will still be students on campus, there will still be ground-breaking research, but there will also be different ways of delivering, innovating in a way that may not even have been considered as little as five years ago.
Professor Guy Littlefair from Auckland University of Technology talked about the need to partner or perish, Professor Williams said it was better to consider collaboration than cuts, and Professor Kirschner talked about a SkunkWorks approach to the future, recognising that HE is notoriously poor at stopping things that aren’t working. Perhaps, the conclusion came at the beginning of the day when Professor Deborah Terry AC, VC at UQ, talked about the need to build trust, to focus on the social licence to operate that is key to the future of all universities. Without clarity about the purpose of universities, their potential for the future and who they will deliver for, navigating through those asteroids will become much more difficult.