By Georgia Nugent. Small private colleges need to be responsive to today’s changing environment. But thoughtful and steady renewal provides a better answer than wholesale calls for “disruption.”
Disruption, for most of us, in most aspects of our lives, has not been a good thing. Consider the 1971 report from the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, entitled, Dissent and Disruption, which confidently asserts, “Disruption … is utterly contradictory to the values and purposes of a campus…. [It] is contrary to … the rational assessment of problems and the constructive consideration of alternative solutions.” How quaint those sentiments from the ‘70s sound today. More...