Is this the university of the future?

A new model. Designed by consultants

Worried about the future of higher education? Concerned about the impact the new fees regime is going to have on your university? Bit nervous that everyone is talking about ‘disruptive innovation’ in HE without really knowing what it means? Then fret no more. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a proposed ‘reinvention’ of the university at UNT-Dallas. Developed by external consultants this will draw on all the very latest up to the minute thinking about higher education. Look and learn:

Now UNT-Dallas administrators are considering a new model, based on the work of Bain, that would use those disruptive, efficiency-minded ideas as tools to reshape this fledgling university, which has a full-time-equivalent enrollment of only about 1,000 and a 264-acre campus with exactly two buildings. The prospect excites local civic leaders but has left faculty members here scared—and feeling like pawns in the emerging national debate on how to make colleges more affordable and accessible.

Bain’s model calls for a narrow set of career-focused majors in fields like business, information technology, and criminal justice, as well as for a year-round trimester calendar. It would de-emphasize research by faculty members so they could teach as many as 12 courses per year, and it would rely on heavy use of so-called hybrid courses, which would replace some face-to-face teaching with online instruction.

It would focus not only on the adult students the institution serves now but also on motivated 18-to-22-year-olds, and it would pay students to take on some advising and administrative tasks normally handled by staff members. It would also reimburse students for their final two trimesters if they’re on track to graduate within four years.

Genius. Year round teaching. Very few courses. Stop research. Less class contact. Use students to replace administrators.

This really is the university of the future.