Post contributed by Dr. Bryan Boulanger When I was little my father used to tell me, “If you want to know what you look like, look in the mirror. If you want to know who you are, look at your friends.” As I’ve grown older and my wife and I have had our own children, I’ve added “If you want…
Ep. 21 - Transformation in Higher Education 2015 in Review Higher education continues to face many challenges. Protests have increased on campus. Costs continue to rise. Enrollments continue to decline, and substantive change continues to elude much of the academy. In this show, host Dave Goldberg is joined by Mark Somerville of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Big…
Post contributed by Chuck Pezeshki Introduction Folks in the academic community may be following the Halloween costume conflict at Yale, involving the issue of cultural appropriation. You’re probably wondering how this could be relevant to engineering education? It matters for one big reason – Big Beacon, through advancing models of education like Olin College’s, counts on the idea of students…
Ep. 14 - Organizations, Culture and Higher Education: An Interview with Edgar Schein Bringing change to higher education is often framed as a problem of creating new content, curriculum, and pedagogy, but higher education has a history that goes back to the 11th century and a culture that has evolved over centuries to its current state. And “culture” is a word…
Ep. 13 - Loving Your Job in the Changing World of Work The democratization of information, quality practices, and entrepreneurship has brought disruptive upheaval to many of the institutions of modern life. For increasing numbers of workers, a lifetime of work with a small number of stable employers has given way to a succession of relatively short employment, freelance, or…
Ep. 12 - How to Innovate and Collaborate Like Thomas Edison Many writers say we live in singular times calling for unusually great creativity, invention, and innovation and the rapid pace of change in the 21st century is dizzying at times, but the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries was also a time of miraculous invention and fast-paced innovation.…
Ep. 11 - Celebrating John H. Holland: An Interdisciplinary Life On August 9th of this year, complexity science pioneer John H. Holland of the University of Michigan and the Santa Fe Institute passed away. John’s work as a researcher and educator changed how we think about complex adaptive systems through his creative and radically interdisciplinary research, his role in establishing an…
Ep. 10 - Transforming Professional Registration, Professional Societies, and Professional Education The same economic, technological, and organization forces that are working to disrupt higher education are at work to disrupt professional institutions, including professional registration and licensure, professional societies, and the education of professionals. In this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews Frank Mruk, Associate Dean of Architecture and Design at the…
Ep. 9 -The Making of a Documentary to Transform Higher Education: LET ME DO IT Transforming higher education from a culture of expertise and obedience to one that balances expertise and support is critical to unleashing courageous learners to the possibilities in the world and their lives. But the shift required is large, and transforming the master narrative of education…
Ep. 8 - The Leadership Coaching Revolution in Higher Education The use of leadership coaches has exploded in corporations and other organizations. Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates say “everyone needs a coach,” and increasingly in the C-suite, almost everyone has one. And the reasons for this growth are becoming clearer. When individuals are coached, they become more effective with improvements…