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Leadership for Challenging Times

Report of the Commission on Presidential Leadership and Global Competitiveness


Foreword

My colleagues and I on the Commission are pleased to provide the thoughts that follow for your consideration. We viewed our role as colleague presidents taking time out from the too-busy schedules we all share in order to think through subjects of importance to us all. Every institution’s situation is unique, and you will find only some of what follows to be relevant to your particular circumstances. What we strongly hope, though, is that you will find that our thoughts stimulate further and better ideas relevant to your campus, and that those ideas and experiences become part of ongoing discussion and sharing through our future meetings, communications, and publications.

The AASCU Board first raised the need for the Commission during times that, economically, were quite different than those we face in mid-2009. As most of us wrestle with cuts, program eliminations, furloughs, underwater investments, and increasing student needs for access, there may be an inclination to stay focused inward. We on the Commission, though, find in the economic meltdown dramatic evidence of the globalization and international connectedness that, a decade ago, were much more theory than demonstrable fact. What more obvious evidence could there be than in the connection between decisions on funding sub-prime mortgages in Southern California and the subsequent availability of micro-loans in Bangladesh? And, we would argue, the states, the nations, the universities and colleges that use this period of hardship to make necessary changes that better position them for a globally competitive future will be most successful.

Finally, on behalf of my presidential colleagues, I wish to express appreciation to Dr. Gregory R. Wegner, consultant to the commission, for his superb assistance in distilling our recommendations into this final report and giving coherence to the many lines of thought we pursued.

Bruce Shepard
President
Western Washington University


AALIAASCU thanks the American Academic Leadership Institute (AALI) for the funding that has supported the work of the Commission on Presidential Leadership and Global Competitiveness.


Executive Summary

This essay focuses on the responsibility of AASCU universities and colleges to take deliberate, concerted actions to help sustain the nation’s vitality and competitiveness in a global, multicultural and rapidly changing society. Guiding our work is the premise that presidential leadership is key to the success of any effort to make the nation’s state colleges and universities more effective in educating graduates who understand international and intercultural dimensions of the challenges confronting the nation and the world. The Commission on Presidential Leadership and Global Competitiveness was created by the AASCU board of directors to help inform the thinking and understanding of university and college presidents concerning the growing, evolving challenge to the nation’s competitiveness in a global environment. The Commission’s purpose is to bring the collective thinking of several AASCU presidents to address the question, “What should our institutions do to ensure that our students remain globally competitive?” Equally important is the challenge of ensuring that AASCU institutions educate graduates who are able to think critically, make informed choices, and contribute as citizens to the vitality of a nation founded on democratic principles.

A Changing External Context

Our report begins by surveying a changing external context as dramatic and pervasive difficulties confront both the United States and other nations of the world. Even as the U.S. faces a common set of challenges with other nations—including a global economic crisis, urgent concerns about future energy usage, environmental sustainability, and an aging population—this country also finds itself in an environment of growing competition with both developing and developed nations throughout the world. AASCU Commission on Presidential Leadership and Global Competitiveness / 7 Leadership for Challenging Times As a nation, the U.S. has encountered a paradigmatic shift, brought about in part by the rise of global markets, shifting venues of production, a decrease in the traditional manufacturing base, and a need to produce a more highly educated and skilled workforce and citizenry. Restoration of economic vitality and productiveness will require that more people of this nation attain a higher education. While the U.S. ranks second among all nations in the proportion of its population aged 35–64 with a college degree, it ranks tenth in the percentage of its population aged 25–34 who have earned an associate or baccalaureate degree. Other nations are overtaking the U.S. in educating younger members of their populations to meet global challenges and remain vitally engaged in the competitive terrain of the twenty-first century. While the U.S. continues to attract students from throughout the world to its universities and colleges, many nations, including China and India, are now investing heavily in their own systems of higher education, seeking to educate more of their best and brightest students, rather than exporting their future human capital to universities in the U.S. In Europe, the Bologna Process is working to establish common educational standards across all European universities. The collective impact of this will strengthen higher education in those countries, making both their higher education system and their national economies more consistently stable and competitive with the U.S. Undoubtedly, the changing global dimensions of higher education are redefining universities and colleges in the U.S., including AASCU institutions.

Our report maps the changing external context for the work of AASCU institutions from a number of perspectives, including: the continuing crises in finance, manufacturing and employment; the shifting demographic mix in this nation and throughout the world; environmental concerns; the opportunities and challenges of technology; and the changing skill requirements for employment.

In surveying the state of affairs in the nation’s education and research institutions, we describe the diminished rate of investment in basic research in the U.S. in comparison to the aggressive expansion of such research in certain other nations. We note the declining performance of U.S. tenth-graders in math and problem-solving abilities relative to their peers of other nations. There is a diminished interest in science among undergraduates in the U.S., and the U.S. is losing ground to other nations in the proportion of young people earning a college degree. While U.S. universities and colleges have for many years been the destination of choice for promising international students to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees, several nations are now heavily investing in their own higher education institutions and seeking to educate more of their own best and brightest at home. Finally, we note that the price of higher education continues to increase at rates that make a college degree financially challenging to many students across the United States.

AASCU Institutions: Positioned to Make a Difference

The public universities and colleges that constitute the membership of AASCU can make critically important contributions to the challenge of preparing students for participation in the multi-cultural, global environment of the twenty-first century. These higher education institutions have shown themselves to be agile and capable of responding quickly to changes in demands for knowledge and skills in the workforce. Collectively, AASCU institutions enroll some 3.5 million students—over half of the nation’s enrollment in four-year public universities. A significant proportion of students who attend these state institutions are the first generation of their families to seek a college education.

AASCU institutions constitute a “United Nations” in the demographics of their collective student body. The student body of these institutions collectively reflects that of the nation’s population: white, non-Hispanic students constitute 63 percent of total enrollment; African-Americans make up 13 percent, and Latino students comprise 10 percent. In addition, 1 percent of students in AASCU universities and colleges are Native American and 8 percent are of other origins. In their campus communities, AASCU institutions also reflect the growing international character of the U.S. population. AASCU institutions dominate the top 40 master’s degree institutions in terms of international students in 2008, enrolling approximately 69 percent of international students in the sector. As of 2006, AASCU institutions enrolled some 114,213 international students in their undergraduate and graduate programs. Collectively and individually, AASCU member institutions demonstrate a strong commitment to study abroad—and to making it possible for students of lesser financial means to experience a setting and culture outside the U.S.

AASCU member institutions are also national leaders in preparing future generations of educators through their K–12 teacher training programs. Collectively, AASCU universities and colleges awarded 116,984 undergraduate and graduate degrees in education in the 2006–2007 academic year. The contributions that graduates of these institutions make—first as apprentice teachers and later as educators in the nation’s K–12 schools—touch the lives of young students by positively contributing to their learning, stirring their interest in science and other disciplines, and fostering an understanding of education as a key to individual advancement and the continued vitality of a democratic society.

Presidential Leadership Responsibilities and Opportunities

Presidential leadership is essential if AASCU institutions are to realize their full potential in preparing students to make positive contributions and lead fulfilling lives in a world that has become more connected in its challenges, more international and intercultural in scope, and more competitive in both domestic and global contexts. The presidents of AASCU member colleges and universities are uniquely positioned to demonstrate leadership that helps assure that the nation itself attains its full capacity in meeting the challenges of the coming years. Presidents must exert forceful leadership in two realms: First, in advocating the need for external constituencies to understand and support public higher education as a critical factor in sustaining the nation’s competitive vitality in a global age. Second, presidents must oversee important developments in their own institutions to ensure that a university or college achieves its full potential in educating students for global citizenship and economic vitality in an age of growing competition worldwide.

Our recommendations to presidents fall into two categories pertaining to external and internal leadership.

To External Constituencies within AASCU Institutions


  1. Convey—to the general public and to state legislators—the critical importance of higher education in sustaining the nation’s global competitiveness.
  2. Form alliances with businesses to make the case for strengthening the international and global dimensions of AASCU institutions.
  3. Pursue combined strategies that provide incentives for business and industry to locate in a region.
  4. Emphasize the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics as key to the nation’s future competitiveness.

To Internal Constituencies within AASCU Institutions

There are several actions that AASCU presidents can take to advance these principles within their institutions. We group these actions into three broad categories: establish the institutional context for advancing global awareness and understanding; focus on curriculum, pedagogy, and other learning opportunities to strengthen global awareness; and align the reward system with the attainment of global education goals.

Establish the Context for Global Awareness and Intercultural Engagement

  1. Create a learning environment that fosters greater curiosity in students about international and intercultural issues.

  2. Affirm the centrality of global competence in an institutional mission and strategic plan.

  3. Cultivate an understanding and appreciation of differences in culture and religious observance as part of an undergraduate education.

  4. Emphasize and develop the relationship between international and domestic diversity.

  5. Explore strategies to make study abroad a viable and attractive option for students, including those with limited financial means.

  6. Create more opportunities for students to experience other cultures in the local community.

Focus on Curriculum, Pedagogy and Other Learning Opportunities to Strengthen Global Awareness

  1. Through curriculum, experiential education and student life, promote increased global literacy and a more pronounced sense of global identity in graduates of AASCU institutions.

  2. Identify international learning outcomes and make the achievement of these outcomes the basis of curriculum design.

  3. Help students to understand their experience of study abroad as part of a coherent program of undergraduate learning.

  4. Convey the importance of developing international understanding through a variety of means, including digital technology.

  5. Focus on developing heightened competence in language and culture.

  6. Continue to pursue the key objective of providing a quality education to graduates who teach students in the K–12 pipeline—an education that helps primary and secondary school students understand the excitement and importance of both science and of learning in general.

  7. Continue the progress made in creating opportunities for undergraduate research in AASCU member institutions.

Align the Reward System with Global Education Goals

  1. Provide avenues that help faculty members take up the challenge of educating for international engagement and global competitiveness.

  2. Develop metrics to gauge the progress of AASCU institutions in meeting their core responsibilities to develop increased global and international literacy in their graduates; hold institutions accountable to the fulfillment of their goals.

AASCU’s Roles in Fostering Consortial Approaches to Increasing Global Competitiveness

AASCU itself could come to have a key role in creating a broader consortial context for initiatives to strengthen programs of global education and research and help sustain and increase the nation’s competitiveness in the years ahead. Over the course of the Commission’s work, we have collected several statements from presidents describing promising practices at their institutions. We envision the creation of a page on the AASCU Web site that becomes a venue for such practices. This page would allow presidential leaders to refer to actions other institutions have taken in confronting a range of issues relating to the challenge of making institutions more effective in educating students for lives of increasing intercultural engagement and global competitiveness.

A Unique Moment

The events of the past year have driven home—more strongly than at any previous time—the enormity of challenges confronting the nation and the world in terms of financial, political, environmental and other developments. These developments also make clear how interrelated the challenges confronting the U.S. are with those facing other nations and regions. More than at any other time, making progress as a nation will require that citizens of the United States work effectively with people of other nations, cultures, religions and outlooks. Even if graduates remain to work in the region in which they were raised, it is important that more of them attain the experience and understanding of different cultures and modes of interaction. AASCU institutions play key roles in educating graduates not only to become effective workers in a competitive economy, but also to be contributing members of a nation founded on democratic principles—graduates who ultimately conceive of themselves as citizens of the world.

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