Thank you for the kind
introduction. It is my pleasure to be
with you today and take part in this symposium, as we explore opportunities for
using universities as catalysts for urban revitalization.
Let me begin by
congratulating our host Wayne
State University
for creating mutually beneficial partnerships with the community as a catalyst for the
region's social, cultural, economic and educational enrichment.
Let me also recognize the
work of the School of Architecture at University
of Detroit Mercy, under the leadership
of Dean Steve Vogel, for its work in urban revitalization to better serve
metropolitan Detroit.
Indeed, as urban
universities, we have much that we need to learn from each other, because I
think you will agree that we live in interesting times, though that is an
understatement of our modern age.
To
use a phrase coined by MIT's Chuck Vest, ‘seismic rumbles of change' are
transforming traditional paradigms - to say nothing about the
interrelationships among academia, industry and government. 1
And that is because the
primacy that America has
long enjoyed around the world is increasingly being challenged by the very same
forces of technological innovation that America itself unleashed.
For example, like our
industry counterparts, universities are themselves facing increasing challenges
of global competition in an environment where flexibility, adaptability and
just-in-time delivery of our "products" are imperative.
"Thirty years ago, the United States
could lay claim to having 30% of the world's population of college
students. Today, that proportion has
fallen to 14% and is continuing to fall." 2
"Other countries are
building world-class research and educational institutions and are graduating
increasingly qualified science and engineering students at a faster pace than
ever before." 3
We know, for example, that
only 10% of U.S. students
are pursuing degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM),
whereas comparable numbers in other countries are much higher: 60% of students
in China and India are
pursuing STEM degrees.
Thus, universities are being challenged like
never before and will need to explore opportunities that will create innovative
new educational processes and campus cultures that are congruent with the new
realities.
Yet, as early as 1995,
Raymond Gilmartin, the former chairman, president and CEO of Merck &
Company, Inc., wrote about "the Challenge of Change" in higher education, when
he cautioned colleagues at his alma mater that he saw higher education making
many of the same mistakes that healthcare had made in the decade before - in
the hope that we could learn from their experience! 4
Moreover, you no doubt are
aware of various reports such as that of the Spellings Commission on the Future
of Higher Education, or of the National Council of State Legislatures'
"Transforming Higher Education," among others.
In short, new realities are
forcing us to the inevitable conclusion that higher education is an industry
(and I use this word advisedly)...an industry in transition.
The story is familiar. A
long-established industry leader loses ground to overseas competitors or to a
few home-grown upstarts who innovate while it continues to stubbornly and
senselessly follow its traditional approach deep into the depths of diminishing
returns.
And so, what I want to do today
is to explore with you some issues we should
entertain and approaches we might take to ensure the future success of our
universities.
All of us in
higher education are really venture capitalists - academic venture capitalists.
Our decisions are the basis for whether or not our universities earn a return
on investment and thereby succeed.
Think about it!
To get us
started, let me offer four basic concerns that I think are worth raising,
especially in light of the new realities facing higher education.
I then will
focus on the special role of urban universities and on an exciting national
urban agenda that is emerging for us.
Concern number
one: Since universities presently capture only 13% of the U.S. R&D economy,
can they afford to ignore the other 87% of the U.S. R&D marketplace? Can they
afford to ignore the even larger global marketplace for research, of which the
total U.S.
share is but 44%? In short, universities
have significant opportunity to gain market share, and not just in research -
remember, they have but a small fraction of the post baccalaureate marketplace;
not only are there for-profit providers, industry itself spends significant
monies in pursuit of an improved workforce.
Second, if
medicine is increasingly focused on evidence-based approaches, shouldn't universities
seek to have evidence-based educational approaches? If you consider the fact
that educational R&D is an infinitesimally small fraction of educational
expenditures, you will know that they have not advanced the science of
education nearly enough. Clearly, with P-12 education still under attack and in
need of reform, you can well imagine the power of any knowledge that can demonstrate what actually works in education! You can bet
that this will be a huge opportunity. 5
Third, since
focus and differentiation are respected elements of competitive strategy, and
since no university can afford to be truly comprehensive in today's
environment, what opportunities are there for universities to create greater
differentiation among themselves, either as individual institutions or through
creative alliances that shape new dimensions of competitive and comparative
advantages?
And fourth, with
so many colleges and universities - over, 3,600 by one recent count - they should
not be afraid to ask what will be the academic equivalent of mergers and
acquisitions, of managed health care plans, and of the emerging private-practice
corporations? What new and innovative forms of outsourcing will be considered?
What alliances and coalitions will emerge to consolidate and expand market
share? And what comparative and competitive advantages will be expressed as a
new generation of research universities emerges in the years ahead, as indeed
it surely will?
These are basic issues, yet many
in higher education ignore them all too easily, only at our peril.
Having served for several
years on both the Council on Competitiveness and PCAST, the President's Council
of Advisors on Science and Technology, let me now take a moment to share a few
comments on what many of us are beginning to call "a national innovation
ecosystem" . . .
. . . that system of loosely
interrelating elements, of which universities are a part, that has enabled us
to make new discoveries, capture their value in the marketplace, enhance
productivity and thereby increase our standard of living.
The themes of American
competitiveness should now be familiar to us. They have been articulated by the
Council on Competitiveness in its "Innovate America" report, by the National
Academies in the "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report, and by the
President's American Competitiveness Initiative, among many others which you
can readily find at the Innovate America.org website.
If for some reason you have
missed any of these, I urge you to make them a part of your consciousness
because they make a compelling case for the changes we must make as a nation
and as universities to better address the challenges that America now
faces.
Indeed, the principal
finding from the "Innovate America"
report of the Council on Competitiveness is this: "Where we once optimized our
organizations around efficiency and quality, today we must optimize our entire
society around innovation." 6
Think about it: "Where we
once optimized our organizations around efficiency and quality, today we must
optimize our entire society around innovation."
Since universities arguably
are barely getting on the efficiency and quality bandwagons now, how can we
leapfrog into the innovation agenda? Of course, confronting the four basic
issues I raised earlier is a good starting point, but university innovation
will not occur in a vacuum. It requires
a close and deep collaboration between universities and industry and it
requires a willingness to experiment with new models and new alliances.
The economic clout of this collaboration
provides an exciting agenda that has been emerging for many years and more
formally in the last three years. It relates to the cities that we live in and
the neighborhoods that surround us. What we already do and can yet do with our
cities and their larger metropolitan regions can be powerful.
Consider these statistics:
- Of the more than 3,600 colleges
and universities across the nation, "...just over 1,900 - more than
half of the national total - are located in the urban core;" 7
- 83% of students nationwide are attending
colleges and universities in urban core and fringe areas; and 8
- 85% of all jobs are in urban core and fringe
areas. 9
And these urban
institutions account for 68% of the economic activity generated by colleges and
universities; and if we include those located in the urban fringe of our
cities, the total rises to more than 87%. 10
In other words,
nearly 90% of the economic power of our colleges and universities is expressed
in our cities and their immediately surrounding areas.
There are
thousands of universities employing hundreds of thousands of people, educating
millions of students, and spending billions of dollars, all in the urban core
and fringe.
So it is easy to understand
why Neal Peirce said, ". . . universities could and should be a resource, a
secret asset, for the health and growth of great cities...there is an appetite
out there for attuned universities, truly engaged with their communities." 11
Indeed, urban universities
generate the innovations that give cities and regions a competitive advantage,
and they do this in several ways:
Urban
universities create new knowledge and economic value through research and tech
transfer.
Urban
universities develop highly skilled talent, and
Urban
universities create environments on and near campus that help attract and
retain highly skilled talent.
Quite simply,
urban universities are a major economic force in, of and for our cities.
They are key
anchors for urban revitalization and regional economic development.
According to a paper
published by CEO's for Cities, "...these so-called ‘anchor institutions'
represent ‘sticky capital' in cities.
They cannot easily pick up and leave the community. So they have special importance to the
re-making of the city and its future, and they have special reason to want to
be instrumental in shaping their city's future..." 12
Also serving as anchors in
this revitalization are the state and federal governments, which are becoming
better partners.
In my home state, the
Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings Institution and Greater Ohio have
undertaken an initiative of revitalizing the state's core communities and
reinvigorating their economic competitiveness.
Entitled "Restoring
Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing Ohio's Core Communities," the
initiative's "...principal finding is that Ohio's political, corporate, and civic
leaders must take stock of the state's core communities, their assets, their
challenges and their role in the economy and life of their regions, the state
and the nation." 13
Indeed, Ohio's challenges are critical. The percentage of losses in manufacturing
jobs is greater there than in the nation as a whole. Median household income trails national
levels and Ohio's
growth in population has stagnated at one percent, while the nation experienced
7% growth. 14
The report concludes that "Ohio's best chance to
alter its trajectory is to leverage its assets where they are found - in
metropolitan regions. It is metropolitan
areas - networks of urban, suburban, and rural areas inextricably linked by
social and economic ties - that concentrate the assets that drive prosperity:
Innovation, Human Capital, Infrastructure and the Quality of Place." 15
At the same time, through
the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges
Commission on the Urban Agenda, which I presently chair, and in partnership
with my colleague, Nancy Zimpher, president of the University of Cincinnati and
chair of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, we are working to attract
substantial federal investments, and states are reviewing changes to allow more
innovative approaches by universities.
This past summer, we
convened workshops designed to create a higher education urban agenda that
consists of three strands of activity:
1.
Talent development;
2.
Strengthening community; and
3.
Health services.
Let me focus on just two of
these: talent development and strengthening community.
As you know, talent
development in our inner cities is one of the most pressing national problems;
and workforce development is the most often-cited priority for business and
industry. Our urban agenda would seek to address this issue through the special
roles of our urban universities.
Let me suggest an analogy
that I think can lead us to explore an almost entirely untapped area. All of us
know of the great strides that industry has made by relentlessly focusing on
and refining its materials and component supply chains. Yet, although everyone
in business will tell you that their most important challenge is that of a
skilled workforce, I know of few companies that have discovered the parallel of
the human capital supply chain, in which talent inventory is managed with a
supply-chain-like discipline. And I know
of even fewer universities that are exploring this obvious opportunity.
Think of it: it is estimated
that 95% of all technology transfer happens when people move from one place to
another - when the material of human capital arrives at a company! It is further
estimated that companies spend an average of $1,000 per year per person in
enhancing the skills of their workers.
So what would happen if
industry gave as much attention to the human capital side of their supply
chain? Companies could save substantial time
and money by converting talent acquisition to a more proactive approach: forecasting
demand for human capital and even matching up that capital with specific jobs. Quite simply, our economy could save about
$150 billion and increase its return on investment by as much an order of
magnitude.
In fact, at The University
of Akron we have a saying: that "our expertise creates the new materials for
the new economy" meant to have the double meaning of materials and human
capital - and we take both meanings most seriously.
So, I think that we should
develop a serious academic approach to the concept of talent supply chain
management by continually expanding and upgrading career opportunities through
education and job training.
As it pertains to the second
strand of our urban agenda, strengthening community, we have devised a new
version of the 3 R's to describe the activities of the new metropolitan
university - "Revitalization," "Relevance," and "Regionalism." I will address the first two - revitalization
and relevance; regionalism simply refers to the fact that economies are no
longer local; they are regional in scope and often transcend state and even
national boundaries, with problems that require state and federal
solutions. For example, key challenges
at this moment - particularly in Ohio
- are the housing market, the overall economy and the shift in eminent-domain
requirements.
When it comes to urban
revitalization, universities can and do play key roles. At The University of Akron, our own
innovative revitalization program is the University Park Alliance, which has leveraged
some $13 million in grants from the Knight Foundation and already garnered more
than $200-million from other investors to help create a place to attract and
keep innovative talent that we - and Akron
- need. In the next five years, we hope that these investments will reach upwards
of a billion dollars in the 1,000 acres surrounding our campus.
We call the University Park
Initiative our New Landscape for Living, which seemed a logical transition from
our University's own initiative, the $500-million New Landscape for Learning, with
12 new buildings, major additions or renovations to 17 other facilities, and
extensive landscaping adding nearly 30,000 trees and 34 acres of open space.
And the
transformation will continue as we complete construction on a multi-use complex
that will include an on-campus stadium and new residence halls, open-space
improvements, and parking facilities; the renovation of the recently acquired
historic Quaker Square
hotel and shopping complex; and plans for additional educational buildings in
the near future.
And in partnership with the
City of Akron, One Community, the Knight
Foundation and others involved in the alliance, we are helping to bring free
wireless Internet access to all of University
Park. We will
start by expanding access to the University's existing wireless system later
this year. We also are committed to
providing substantial programming, training and hardware resources to help
bridge the "digital divide" in University
Park.
Our vision is the create a
vibrant mixed-use environment that blurs the boundaries between the university
and the community, is pedestrian friendly and in which everything that happens
is somehow about learning and health and wellness.
In realizing this vision, having
great partners is essential. Over the
last several years, Summa Health System, one of the premier healthcare systems
in the country, along with their private development partners have invested or
made plans to invest more than a half-billion dollars in University Park.
In addition to The
University of Akron, Summa and the City of Akron other University Park Alliance members
include the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, Greater Akron Chamber, Akron
Public Schools, University Park Development Corporation and Akron Beacon
Journal.
Private developers have
recognized the market potential for university-related projects that generate
innovation and that can drive the revitalization and transformation of their
region. As universities, we need to
adjust our perspective and our business practices to get deals done.
Indeed, there is power in
focusing on a small but strategic geography like University Park, and not every project needs
to cost millions to have an impact. Our
biking initiative cost less than $50,000 but has done a lot to transform the
image and actuality of University Park. Make a Difference Day in University Park cost less than $20,000 but
built enormous goodwill; a great student experience and brought us state-wide
recognition.
Such community engagement
also improves trust, and service by students and faculty in the target
geography is a key part of our work and strategy. In fact, University
of Akron students provide more than
15,000 service hours annually to University
Park organizations.
Beyond
University Park, we continue our efforts on the Innovation Corridor with Lorain
County Community College, west of Cleveland, our partnership with several
regional economic development organizations, and our efforts to attract
additional federal funding as we help lead advocacy efforts of national groups
like the Urban Serving Universities.
These collaborative efforts are
examples of how university-community partnerships provide the key to our
economic future.
As urban
universities, we must acknowledge that the competitive and comparative
advantages of our campuses are inextricably linked to the vitality of their
surrounding communities. We must move beyond the traditional land-grant focus
toward the necessary application of all disciplinary knowledge
for the public good - in other words its relevance!
In his book,
"The Rise of the Creative Class",
Richard Florida refers to colleges and universities as "...a huge potential
source of competitive advantage." And
he says that colleges and universities are today " a basic infrastructure
component...and far more important than traditional infrastructures such as...the
canals, railroads and freeway systems of past epochs..." 16
I suggest that we must
engage in relentless innovation, in education generally and higher education in
particular.
We must do so because in today's knowledge-based economy, education
is society's infrastructure. Education
unleashes the power of innovation by creating the human capital - the talent
supply chain - that shapes our industries and our society.
Innovation requires
interaction among great talent, and that interaction most frequently occurs in
quality urban locations. The need and
ability to create these locations near our universities helps to attract and
retain the talent. This is a key
competitive advantage that urban universities provide for their cities and
regions. In fact, one or more vibrant urban cores are absolutely
necessary for a competitive regional economy.
As real estate investors and
developers, you, too, can be catalysts for innovation. By taking advantage of the market
opportunities near our growing urban campuses, you help us create the quality
environments so vital to our regional economies. You help us attract, develop and retain the
talent we need to be globally competitive innovators. And given the marketplace demand for living
in quality urban places, you will take advantage of a key emerging trend in
real estate: the demand for living and doing business around urban
universities.
Yes, we do live in
interesting times. And, to meet the
challenges of global competitiveness, we must continually redefine the nature
of our universities.
Whether we like it or not,
the national call for accountability, affordability and accessibility, as well
as the national innovation agenda require that we seek new performance
standards for the excellence of our universities - standards that do not
presume that only selectivity, size and expense define excellence - something
that both Michael Crow at Arizona State University and we at The University of Akron are calling a new gold standard of
university performance, a fresh and definitive standard for a new great
American university, a university appropriate to our times.
These are its principles:
- Unlike others, we shall not be measured by how
many students we exclude, but rather by how much value we add in enabling
the success of our students.
- Unlike others, we shall not be measured by the
isolation of our disciplines, but by their integration as applied in
solving the problems of today.
- Unlike others, we will not be measured by the
barriers we erect between ourselves and our communities, but by the
collaborative impact that we create for each other and for our common
future.
In all candor, as I said
before, this will not be something that is easy to do.
But if necessity is the
mother of invention, then let us begin.
And so I say to you: be
cheerful and plunge ahead!
Thank you!
References
- Massachusetts
Institute of Technology News Office, "Vest Urges Continued Support for US
Science," February 15, 1995
- The Report of the New
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, Tough Choices or Tough Times, National Center
on Education and the Economy, Executive Summary, P.4
- Council on Competitiveness,
Innovate America,
2005
- Gilmartin, Raymond V., "The
Challenge of Change for the Liberal
Arts College
- Some Parallels from the Health Care Industry," Union College,
October 16, 1995
- Reference Nation at
Risk, 1983
- Council on Competitiveness, "Innovate
America," National
Innovation Initiative Summit
and Report, 2005
- Neal Peirce, "Wake-up Call
for Academia." The Washington Post Writers Group, 2002
- NNCES, NSOPF. 2004 Study of Postsecondary Faculty
- Cited at Council on
Competitiveness Regional Innovation Summit,
2005
- Peirce, Ibid
- Peirce, Ibid
- Maurasse, David, City Anchors:
Leveraging Anchor Institutions for Urban Success, CEOs for Cities,
September 2007
- Metropolitan Policy Program at
Brookings Institution, "Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in
Revitalizing Ohio's Core Communities," 2008
- Metropolitan Policy Program at
Brookings Institution, Ibid
- Metropolitan Policy Program at
Brookings Institution, Ibid
- Florida, Richard, The Rise of the Creative Class, 2003,
p. 292