Universities Must Help Communities Adapt to New Economy, Report Says

“[I]f this nation is to succeed in the new century, the covenant between our insitutions and the public they serve must be renewed and again made binding.” So begins Renewing the Covenant: Learning, Discovery, and Engagement in a New Age and Different World, the sixth and final report of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. Released last week, the 30-page report outlines several significant challenges facing higher education in the New Economy: 

• increasing diversity in the student population 
• growing financial inequality in society affecting access to higher education 
• blurring of lines distinguishing disciplines of study 
• blending of secondary and undergraduate education, and 
• “privatizing” public instutions of higher education, particularly in the area of research, reduces education to another commodity. 

In what may be viewed as an indictment of the efforts of many state and federal science and technology programs, the report states “Research, if thought of at all, is prized far more for its commercial promise than for its capacity to push back the boundaries of knowledge. States once provided the lion’s share of institutional financing, while federal funds supported research and financial aid -- and tuition, fees and gifts rounded out the picture. Today, state support is uneven; federal support for basic research is often narrowly circumscribed; and institutions are encouraged to plan for growth through a variety of public/private partnerships.” 

The report defines seven elements for the Covenant to which each of the commission’s members commit, including working more closely with local communities and states. The report also identifies responsibilities for the public, including passage of a Millennial Partnership Act, “the Information Age equivalent of the original land-grant enactment.” The Act would provide seed funding to create partnerships between public universities and public schools to improve K-12 education and would fund the development of a telecommunications infrastructure within higher education “to create a genuine national learning society.” 

Federal tax policy, the report recommends, should encourage more private-sector partnerships with universities for joint research and educational activities in university-based research parks. 

The Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities was comprised of 24 presidents and chancellors from state university systems across the country.  Staff support was provided by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. The report can be downloaded from the NASULGC website: http://www.nasulgc.org