The Innovative University Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out

by Christensen, Clayton M.; Eyring, Henry J.

• ISBN13: 9781118063484
• ISBN10: 1118063481
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-26
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring, building on what Christensen has done for business, healthcare, and K-12 education, apply Christensen's model of disruptive innovation to higher education. Unlike the many doom and gloom books that have come out recently, they offer a nuanced and hopeful analysis of where the traditional university and its traditions have come from and how it needs to change and find new models for the future. Through an intriguing examination of the histories and current transformations of the authors' two very different university homes--Harvard and BYU-Idaho--and through other stories of innovation in higher education, Eyring and Christensen decipher how universities can find innovative, less costly ways of performing their uniquely valuable functions and save themselves from decline. They explain the strategic choices for traditional universities to consider and alternative ways in which they might be made. As higher education communities face vast operating problems like fluctuations in enrollment, overexpansion of campus capacity and non-academic activities, and battles between local boosters and governing boards, this book offers novel insights into the kind of change that is necessary to ensure the economic vitality of the traditional university. It uncovers how the traditional university survives by breaking with tradition, but thrives by building on what it's done best.

Author Biography

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the founder of Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank. He is the author of many books, including The Innovator's Dilemma, and has applied his theory to K–12 education in Disrupting Class and to medicine in The Innovator's Prescription.

Henry J. Eyring serves as an administrator at Brigham Young University-Idaho. He is a former strategy consultant at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Monitor Company.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction: Ripe for Disruption-and Innovation	p. xix
Reframing the Higher Education Crisis
The Educational Innovator's Dilemma: Threat of Danger, Reasons for Hope	p. 3
The Great American University
Puritan College	p. 33
Charles Eliot, Father of American Higher Education	p. 46
Pioneer Academy	p. 72
Revitalizing Harvard College	p. 80
Struggling College	p. 98
The Drive for Excellence	p. 110
Four-Year Aspirations in Rexburg	p. 139
Harvard's Growing Power and Profile	p. 148
Staying Rooted	p. 157
Ripe for Disruption
The Weight of the DNA	p. 171
Even at Harvard	p. 185
Vulnerable Institutions	p. 192
Disruptive Competition	p. 206
A New Kind of University
A Unique University Design	p. 223
Getting Started	p. 238
Raising Quality	p. 249
Lowering Cost	p. 276
Serving More Students	p. 301
Genetic Reengineering
New Models	p. 325
Students and Subjects	p. 347
Scholarship	p. 358
New DNA	p. 379
Change and the Indispensable University	p. 396
Notes	p. 403
The Authors	p. 445
Innosight Institute	p. 447
Index	p. 449
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