Exploding the Ivory Tower: Systemic Change of Higher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 103
  In Roundtable Session: Systems Thinking Perspectives for New Paradigms and Structures in 21st-Century Schooling

Abstract

With increasing rates of global populations enrolling in higher education, falling public funding, growing diversity, the explosion of information computer technology, changing demands from knowledge-economies, and a number of other pressures and problems, higher education is feeling the push for rapid change. Systemic change applies systems theory and design theory to the problem of managing the change of complex systems by designing new systems better suited to current challenges. This paper promotes systemic change as necessary to manage the transformation of institutes of higher education to new paradigms and adapts Duffy and Reigeluth’s (2010) School System Transformation Protocol (SSTP) as a systemic change framework to guide the change process in higher education.

Authors

• William R. Watson, Purdue University

• Sunnie Lee Watson, Purdue University