Book Launch: Creating a Culture of Mindful Innovation in Higher Education

Group Submission Type: Book Launch

Description of Session

Higher education institutions have traditionally nurtured artistic and scientific development and served as catalysts for innovative ideas and products. However, contemporary discourse too often relegates the concept of innovation to the private sector, where the rhetoric of “disruption” frequently reduces innovation to economic terms. Furthermore, it is troubling that a tacit acceptance of neoliberal values and New Public Management (NPM) philosophies are shortchanging the role higher education can play in creating a more equitable society, developing innovations that can raise living standards and further scientific inquiry, and fostering democratic values. As a result, innovations that could benefit society instead exacerbate existing inequities, especially for traditionally marginalized groups, and the environmental factors that stimulate long-term innovative progress are neglected.


In Creating a Culture of Mindful Innovation in Higher Education, Michael Lanford and William G. Tierney offer a different vision for colleges and universities. First, they draw from existing multidisciplinary scholarship to identify the conditions that enable college and university administrators, as well as faculty, to promote a culture of what they define as “mindful innovation” in their institutions. Second, they mitigate irrational exuberance about innovation and instead offer a clear-headed analysis of innovation’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the challenges in creating a culture of mindful innovation. Third, they make a case for their framework of mindful innovation as a more substantive and more pertinent vision for higher education than the rhetoric surrounding disruption and the prescriptive concepts advanced by neoliberal actors in today’s higher education environment.

Mindful innovation is defined through six central tenets:

1) The societal impact, as well as the entrepreneurial potential, of any potential innovation, especially for traditionally marginalized groups.

2) An embrace of failure as a necessary part of the innovation process.

3) The promotion of creativity through diversity by bringing together groups that represent a broad and diverse spectrum of experiences, backgrounds, and content areas.

4) The safeguarding of individual autonomy and respect for expertise through venerable institutional and personal protections, such as academic freedom, shared governance, tenure, and institutional independence.

5) A careful consideration of the dimensions of time, efficiency, and trust – and their impact on the adoption, development, and implementation of any innovation.

6) Incentivization of the intrinsic motivation of individuals and organizations invested in innovative progress, rather than the promulgation of scare tactics that warn of impending disruption.

In summary, the authors offer a clearheaded analysis of the challenges and opportunities in creating a culture of mindful innovation and argue that the institutions that do so will be poised to lead entrepreneurial endeavors, scientific progress, and greater social equity in the twenty-first century.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Book Launch

Chair

• Michael Lanford, University of North Georgia

Book Launch Presenter

• Michael Lanford, University of North Georgia