In a message dated 3/31/99 11:01:04 PM Pacific Standard Time, tabeles@tmn.com
writes:
>The university of today is not in the same "business" that it was in
>back in the days of von Humboldt, the 1500's. In fact the University
>pre and post WWII is in a different business. Even more interesting
>is that not all post secondary institutions are in the same "business
>" and we are not talking about market niches. How do we build a
>learning organization with no vision or realization of what is the
>business? thoughts?
Good question. I had an interesting experience recently. I visited 7
community colleges to conduct research for my dissertation. One of the
interview questions I asked concerned the participant's understanding of
their mission. To a person, whether I was talking to the chancellor of
the entire 106-college system, a college president, a faculty member, a
facilities worker, -- I got the same answer: student success. Now, each
one of them had a somewhat different idea on how that goal would be
measured, which reflected their different roles in the institution -- but
I had not anticipated the consistency of that response. So, on one level,
the goal -- as broadly stated as it is -- seems quite clear to people in
this system. Is that sufficient? Probably not. There are many different
ways to define student success and many ways to measure it -- most of them
not easy.
Would their response suffice as an answer to the question, "What is our
business?" As for what is NOT our business -- that's an excellent
question to ask because community colleges, especially, truly believe they
need to be comprehensive. They add on curricula and services and assume
more and more responsibilities but they are very bad at letting anything
go.
Thanks for making me think about this! H.
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