A forthcoming book from the American Enterprise Institute needs a title. The publication, which will employ various scholars and veterans of the higher education sector to chronicle innovations in Americas university system, will hit bookstores later this year. But, as authors and publishers embark on a promotional lecture tour this week, the book remains unnamed.
Despite the lack of a title, the story is sure to have a happy ending for Central Pennsylvanias Harrisburg University. The experimental university start-up, which received its charter in 2005, promised students a more open, inviting university environment without prerequisite degree structures, tenured professors or strict, classroom guidelines. Now, just three years after their first graduates threw mortarboards skyward, the little University that could is being featured in the AEI publication as a groundbreaking innovator. In a chapter entitled Old School: 400 Years of Resistance to Change, author Jon Marcus, of the UKs Times Higher Education magazine, explores the benefits to starting a university from the ground up.
Traditional universities are still stuck using methodologies that date from the early 19th century and governance structures that date from the 12th century, says Marcus. Harrisburg University is a blank piece of paper. Because it has no tenure and no official departments, it is able to do things other universities dont.
Beginning with the first university innovator, Thomas Jefferson, Old School explores schools like the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins that built from scratch and how their lessons can inform the future of the higher education sector. Marcus goes in-depth with the founders and students of Harrisburg University, concluding that the school is carrying the torch of historys university innovators.
Were looking at Harrisburg as a new model for providing higher education, says Marcus. Traditional colleges are very slow to innovate. Harrisburg is an example of what can happen if you start from scratch.
Source: Jon Marcus, Times Higher Education Magazine
Writer: John Steele