揭穿高等教育的神话:转变的作用

Gerry Bayne:我们要谈谈你写的一篇文章EDUCAUSE,被称为运动中的高等教育，未来的数字化和文化转型．在那篇文章中，你谈到了揭穿神话，其中一个神话，或者你谈到的一个可能的事情，就揭穿神话而言，是高等教育改变的速度，我知道大流行在其中发挥了作用。你能谈谈高等教育在这方面的变化吗?我们真的改变了吗?为什么?

John O ' brien:我曾经是一名英语老师，所以我认为高等教育的变化就像语言的变化一样，你知道，这需要很长时间。我的意思是，在一九八几年教英语的时候，我有一段生动而又令人羞愧的记忆，我向一个质疑我的学生解释，为什么我们要用he代词，而它可以是一群男人和女人。然后现在想想现在，你知道。但我们花了15年左右的时间，才开始重新思考代词。就在最近几年，我们使用语言和代词的方式发生了爆炸。所以，我的意思是，我认为我们已经经历了，首先，高等教育的发展非常缓慢，我认为现在我们正在进入一个阶段，事情可能会发生更快的变化。但在某种程度上，我们告诉自己的故事是最有害的，从我记事起，高等教育就一直在告诉自己，我们不能敏捷地行动，我们不能在任何情况下迅速行动。事实上，这可能是高等教育值得骄傲的一点，你认为这些机构可以追溯到11世纪，你知道，这些机构教授的东西是永恒的，它们本身也是永恒的，它们经得起政府的更迭，但大学已经存在了数百年，在某些情况下更久。所以我认为，很长一段时间以来，我们一直在告诉自己，然后COVID出现了，我们突然向自己证明，我们可以在需要的时候迅速行动。我不认为我们可以忽视这一点，我不认为我们可以坐在会议桌旁，愉快地点头说，哦，我们不能那样做，或者，我们永远不能那么快地行动，因为我们知道我们可以。 And so, probably the most important myth to go is this higher ed can only move at one speed and that speed is glacial. But there's more myths that I think can and have been debunked, and one of them is, you know, again, silos, and again, goes back to the history of higher ed, you know has been shaped by silos, we call them disciplines, and then, to a broader degree, colleges within larger universities. And we love our silos. In fact, I gave a talk at, I don't even remember where it was, but gave a talk and was talking about silo busting, and someone came up to me afterwards and says, "John, we don't call them silos we call them cylinders of excellence." So we love our silos, but again, I think the last few years have just made it totally clear that the way we move forward is not going, that what we need to infuse into our work is working across divisions, across disciplines, across silos, and that that's the future. So I'm less convinced that that myth is totally debunked, but I think we're giving it a run for its money. And then there's a trickier myth, and I want to, I'm not sure, I could say this badly, but I think there's a myth in higher ed that we will prevail no matter what. So I've been working for decades, and we've been talking about the demise of higher education for so long. Actually, that's where the title comes from, of the article, is "Higher Ed in Motion." So there was a period of time when a whole series of books came out, all saying that higher ed is doomed, and it was this chorus of doom. But Janet Napolitano said, "Higher education isn't in crisis," she said, "Higher education is in motion, and it always has been." And I love that rethinking in a more positive way, not so much deficit thinking, but thinking that we're in motion. And I just think that, you know, we've been in, I can think of how many recessions I've experienced, and yet, we always prevail. And enrollments, you know, we have a recession and enrollments go up, except for now. And so, I think this idea that somehow we're going to survive without making really substantive changes, and that's why we start talking, you know, we're not Rocky, you know, we're not going to just run up the stairs every time, we may have to actually make some structural changes, some transformational changes, if we're really going to prevail. So I think myths are great, myths teach us who we are and give us confidence in the world around us, but I think everything has been shaken to its core in the last few years, and the one good thing to come out of it would be to open up the universe a little bit. So I think that's happening.

Gerry Bayne:什么是CX，你认为当今高等教育中发生的与DX和CX相关的事情是什么?

John O ' brien:我们有点，我不知道是不是我们创造了DX，但我们肯定把它当作数字转型的简称。

Gerry Bayne:对,是的。

John O ' brien:我认为发生的是，伴随着这种数字化转型，我开玩笑地称之为CX，这是一种文化转型。在校园里，这不是新闻，这都是关于学生的，你知道，在过去的两年里，这些差距已经变成了鸿沟，你知道，学生在哪里，你知道，数字鸿沟，你知道，是一百倍的基本需求，你知道，住房不安全，心理健康和健康需求。我是说，一切都不正常。在校园里，有一种令人难以置信的转变，把学生放在中心位置，也关注心理健康和健康，这是以前从未经历过的。而且，你知道，我们可以通过给它起个名字，把它叫出来，谈论它，来给它增加能量，速度和放大效果。这就是我在这篇文章中所要做的，就是说，是的，我们知道这个变换但是还有另一个变换也很重要，我要阐明它。当然，我并不是说校园以前不关心这个问题，就像我要说，直到有人提出“数字化转型”这个词，我们才开始研究数字化一样。转型的整个理念，无论是数字化的还是文化的，都是从一些优秀的和特别的创新到更广泛、更全面的东西，你知道，有来自高层的支持和来自大众的能量，这跨越了藩篱，对吧?动作敏捷。所以你可以看到我是如何将它与，我认为，希望消除或减少这些神话为转型变化创造空间。 Continuing what we've seen, really, with DX, but now really starting to look at this cultural change that's certainly bigger than technology, but really, really important.