Hiemstra: Education to evolve with society

Education will have to change with the rest of society, Glen Hiemstra told a gathering of UW staff during the futurist’s March 13 visit to campus.

“If you step back with a fresh pair of eyes and look at the future, you’ll begin to notice that some of the ways we do things around here are becoming obsolete or are likely to become obsolete in the next few years,” he said. “The challenge is to identify what we’re going to move from and what we’re going to move to.”

Hiemstra said he expects education to be a lifelong process with more fluidity between school and work. And, he said the number of college-aged students will increase to 15-20 million by 2010. That combination could flood college campuses with students.

To adapt, universities will rely more and more often on the technology used today for distance learning. Traditional classrooms, bound by space and time, will diminish. At the same time, cyberlearning will increase. Classes will be conducted via the Internet with students downloading, at their convenience, everything from lecture notes to assignments.

But planning for this change won’t be easy, according to Hiemstra.

“I’ve discovered that, with the possible exception of health care, universities are probably the most complex environment in which to have a good conversation about the future,” he said. “There are so many possibilities, such rich tradition, so many alternatives for the future. It’s complex.” ¶