Postings
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Richard Chait’s Reactions to Daedalus piece, “Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: What’s the Mission?”
Richard Chait, Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, shares thoughts via email on Daedalus’ concluding essay. Read below:
I enjoyed the Daedalus article and the continued emphasis on mission, usefully defined as a concept with four distinct components. Somewhere, I think, there lurks a fifth element: non-profit status. No publicly traded company would exclude profitability from its mission—it is, in fact, a determinative component. Perhaps it's presumed for non-profit higher education, but the absence of a profit motive (or the presence of a non-profit motive) enormously influences mission. Just ask, "What would we do differently if a principal aim were profitability?"
As for a consistent and coherent institutional mission, I continue to be skeptical as applied to universities. Secular mega-versities like UCLA, Harvard, Ohio State, and NYU, to name a few, are simply too vast and internally too varied to adhere to a single mission. A school of Agriculture or Veterinary Medicine will have a mission quite different—not totally different but distinctively different-- from, say, a College of Arts & Science. At Harvard, it's difficult to imagine that the Divinity School and Business School could have the same mission.
I think of mega-versities more like corporate conglomerates (e.g., the old GE or the current 3M). At one level, there's a common bond, i.e., profitability, but at another level the "missions" of the component parts vary greatly. I am not uncomfortable with a university united by shared values but characterized by somewhat different missions. A mission that applies to all segments of a mega-university will necessarily be too broad to have operational or strategic impact. On the other hand, I recognize that disparate missions pose problems too but, in my view, not as great as a singular, universal mission.
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While a university wide mission would be too vague to be a useful guide, is it possible for all the elements of a university to share a “motive?” I select that word because, of course, ALL publicly traded companies are animated by a profit motive whatever the product or service. Could Harvard, for example, have a “motive” of world-class distinction for every school? Could a college, like Wesleyan say, be motivated by public service or “good work?” I just wonder if motive has any galvanizing potential?
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I was prompted by your Daedalus article to contemplate some rubric or concept not quite as elastic and abstract as mission. The operative questions were (1) "What motivates institutional choices and priorities?" and (2) "What is an institution trying to optimize?" For the elites, prestige may be the analog to profit. Other schools will have different answers. Babson, for example, may be trying to optimize human capital as a means to optimize capitalism. Haverford might be motivated by the cultivation of civic leaders to create a better society. Who knows?
At any rate, I'm tempted to flip conventional thinking. I'm more of a mind that what an institution does reveals more than what it proclaims. I might even argue that missions adapt to motives not vice versa.
Innovations in the News…
Read about new offerings at the Singapore Management University, which allow students to design their own major: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/new-smu-degree-that-allows-students-to-define-their-own-major-welcomes-its-pioneer-batch
Higher Education in Africa
We very much regret that our issue of Daedalus did not include articles that centered on the African continent.
Here are two publications that describe past work in African higher education.
Moock, J. L. (2011). Network Innovations: Building the Next Generation of Agricultural Scientists in Africa.
Lynam, J., Beintema, N., Roseboom, J., & Badiane, O. (2016). Agricultural Research in Africa: Investing in Future Harvest. International Food Policy Research Institute.
We also recommend two recent publications, which feature the African Leadership University, and its many innovative programs and approaches:
Penprase, B., & Pickus, N. (2024). The New Global Universities : Reinventing Education in the 21st Century (First edition.). Princeton University Press.
Rosenberg, B. (2023). "Whatever it is, I'm against it" : resistance to change in higher education. Harvard Education Press.
If you have additional resources on higher education in Africa, please send them to our team at hgasst@gse.harvard.edu.
A Question for Daedalus author Gokhan Depo: Will large language models (LLMs) impact university rankings?
Read Depo’s response:
Concerning university rankings and the impact of large language models (LLMs), I do not believe we will see a significant impact of LLMs on university rankings within the next few years. Rankings often consider a wide range of factors beyond assessment methods, such as research output, faculty quality, and international collaborations. Although I agree that LLMs pose challenges, they are unlikely to drastically alter the overall rankings landscape—at least not in the short term.
I do, however, [have] concerns about the future of evaluating student performance. The rise of ChatGPT has profoundly influenced how we assess student work. Evaluating submissions from my advisees has become increasingly challenging, and I only supervise a relatively small number of graduate students. With tools like ChatGPT, the integrity and authenticity of student submissions are in question. These technologies enable students to produce well-written, seemingly original work that can evade traditional plagiarism detection tools on which the faculty have relied so long.
Face-to-face examinations could address authenticity concerns regarding students’ knowledge and work, but, they are impractical for large student bodies, even at wealthy institutions. Despite the increased time and effort required, it seems that faculty will need to innovate with oral exams, project-based assessments, and continuous evaluations involving multiple interactions rather than a single submission.
This shift in assessment methods will inevitably impact university rankings, though, I predict, not significantly. Rankings might include criteria related to student evaluations, which would attract employer interest. Employers might trust the knowledge of graduates more if they come from institutions known for stringent assessment and academic integrity. Wealthier institutions could invest in advanced technologies and methodologies to ensure assessment integrity, potentially widening the gap between them and less affluent universities. This could lead to greater disparity in rankings, with top-tier institutions pulling further ahead, as I find it hard to imagine a top institution not investing in measures to maintain academic integrity in the face of advancements like ChatGPT.
I would not be surprised if we see lesser-known institutions, which do not have the means for larger investments in technological tools to assess student work, switching to in-class written exams and face-to-face quizzes for evaluation, especially if they receive incentives like higher rankings for maintaining stringent assessment methods. These universities might capitalize on their ability to implement traditional assessment methods on a large scale, thereby boosting their reputations for academic integrity and rigor.
I think we are all waiting for global and national education bodies to develop policies and frameworks to address the challenges raised by LLMs uniformly. Collaboration between institutions to share best practices and develop common standards for assessment integrity is essential; however, this is utopian at the moment, or challenging at best. There is not a unified approach to ChatGPT even within the same department, including where I work at, so expecting a coordinated effort on a global (or at least continental) scale is overly optimistic.
It might be the millennial in me, and probably controversial as well, but I need to mention that, at this point, I do not believe there is any logic in fighting against ChatGPT. It has been less than two years since it came out, and its impact on academia and white-collar jobs is palpable. This technology is not a passing trend; it is fundamentally influencing how we approach work, learning, and information processing.
The next iteration, GPT-5, will be a significant leap forward compared to GPT-4. The rapid advancement of LLMs reminds me of the first iPhone launch in 2007. There is a significant moment when Steve Jobs slides his finger to unlock the device, and we hear audible gasps and cheers from the audience. A mobile phone with a touch screen was an incredible invention back then! Eighteen years ago, we were astounded by technology that we now take for granted. The same phenomenon is occurring with ChatGPT. Today, we are mesmerized by demo videos created by ChatGPT's video version, SORA. In a few years, we will likely see full-length movies created by AI without batting an eye. The same evolution will happen in music, art, poetry, and novels.
Although I am too young to have experienced it firsthand, I am confident that when Google was becoming popular, some faculty members resisted its use for assignments. Today, such resistance seems absurd, as Google has become an indispensable tool. We have simply accepted Google as part of our lives.
We need to adopt the same approach for LLMs. Banning or resisting these advanced tools is unsustainable. Instead, we should integrate them into our curriculum as valuable resources for students but not as personal assistants who write their assignments for them. This approach would help students to leverage LLMs to support their learning rather than replace it. Integrating LLMs into the curriculum is probably a bit too ambitious (or perhaps naïve!) at this moment. But when the time comes, we need to make sure that this integration is done thoughtfully. LLMs should complement, not replace, traditional learning methods. Over-reliance on AI tools would only lead to a decrease in critical thinking and problem-solving skills among students if not managed properly.
Universities are the cutting-edge research and innovation hubs, and LLMs are one of the most influential developments of recent era, so I find it a bit ironic that we resist ChatGPT instead of integrating it into our curricula. ChatGPT is here to stay. It is vital that we adapt and find ways to utilize them effectively to enhance education and research.
Finally, it is worth noting that everything we discussed could become obsolete with the arrival of GPT-6, GPT-7, or GPT-10 within the next decade. Technological advancements are occurring at an exponentially rapid pace, and it is hard to predict how they will reshape our future. I surely hope that universities will remain as scientific and intellectual hubs in the eyes of the public.
On a lighter note, I used to receive feedback that my writing was formal and meticulous, albeit with occasional grammar errors, and I was praised for it. Now, people assume that ChatGPT writes my emails for me, and there is no way for me to prove otherwise!