Description
The language of crisis is nothing new in higher education-for years critics have raised
alarms about rising tuition, compromised access, out of control costs, and a host of other
issues. Yet, though those issues are still part of the current crisis, it is not the same as
past ones. For the first time, disruptive technologies are at work in higher education. For
most of their histories, traditional universities and colleges have had no serious competition
except from institutions with similar operating models. Now, though, there are disruptive
competitors offering online degrees. Many of these institutions operate as for-profit entities,
emphasizing marketable degrees for working adults. Traditional colleges and universities
have valuable qualities and capacities that can offset those disruptors'' advantages-but
not for everyone who aspires to higher education, and not without real innovation. How can
institutions of higher education think constructively and creatively about their response to
impending disruption?
Written by Clayton Christensen, the father of the theory of disruptive innovation, and his
colleague,
Henry J. Eyring, The Innovative University offers a nuanced and hopeful analysis of
the traditional university and its DNA. It explores how and why universities must change to
ensure future success.
Throughout the book Christensen and Eyring show what it takes to apply Christensen''s
acclaimed model of disruptive innovation to a higher education environment. Through a
penetrating examination of the histories and current transformations of two very different
universities-Harvard and BYU-Idaho-and using other illustrative examples of innovation
in higher education, The Innovative University explores how universities can find innovative,
less costly ways of performing their uniquely valuable functions and thereby save themselves
from decline. The book explores the strategic choices and alternative ways in which traditional
universities can change to ensure their ongoing economic vitality. To avoid the pitfalls
of disruption and turn the scenario into a positive and productive one, universities must
re-
engineer their institutional DNA from the inside out.
The Innovative University reveals how the traditional university survives by breaking with
tradition, but thrives by building upon what it''s done best.