michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Friday, September 15, 2017
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
It has now been mere months over
200 years since the University of
Michigan’s inception.
Two hundred years worth of
innovation, academic renown and
multidisciplinary
excellence,
as
a
nationwide example and world leader,
and of student activists, up-and-
coming politicians, surgeons, CEOs,
intellectuals
and
altruists.
Two
hundred years of those who have
studied history and those who have
helped make it.
So
as
administrators,
faculty,
staff, alumni and students celebrate
the University’s Bicentennial, they
also reflect on what will come in
the next 200, particularly in terms
of
the
University’s
educational
advances,
outside-of-the-classroom
opportunities and the community that
makes up the University.
As an academic innovator:
University President Mark Schlissel
has
stressed
the
importance
of
academic
innovation
throughout
his
tenure.
Schlissel’s
Academic
Innovation Initiative from fall 2016 has
expanded from simpler massive online
open courses in the Office of Digital
Education to ultimately include more
educational resources and a teach-out
series on significant contemporary
topics, just a few ways in which
academics at the University are moving
forward.
“The initiative will formally help us
consider how U of M will lead the way
through the information age,” Schlissel
said last September.
James Hilton, vice provost for
academic innovation, said there are
several schools of thought regarding
where the University will go with
its
educational
programs
next,
particularly with an ever-changing
technological landscape allowing for a
number of possibilities.
“One of the things we’ve been talking
a lot about in academic innovation is
using this third century as a moment
to stop and think about — particularly
at the great public research university
— where do we see education going
forward?” Hilton said. “There is an
opportunity to imagine again what an
education at a great public research
university should be for this century,
this economy, this technology, this set
of societal issues.”
Tools
like
eCoach,
Gradecraft
and hybrid-learning environments,
Hilton stressed, are being improved
to personalize learning; there are now
also 112 massive open online courses
that are in production and 6 million
global learners engaged with those
courses, numbers that grow on a daily
basis.
“To the extent that we’re successful
in diversifying the pool of students that
come here, we also want to diversify
the paths that they get to pursue when
they get here,” Hilton said.
Hilton’s
ideal
version
of
the
University is one where students are
on campus more often throughout
their lives, for shorter periods of time.
“I actually foresee a future of
Michigan that is a future where we
think about education really as a global
and lifelong relationship,” Hilton said.
“You’re never going to stop being
in a relationship with educational
institutions, you’re constantly going to
be retraining, reimagining.”
Improving
the
richness
and
diversity of experiences students have
and demonstrate later on in life has to
be improved, Hilton said.
“We have to look at different ways
of delivering learning experiences,”
Hilton said. “We have to look at
new ways of certifying those kind of
experiences. We have to embrace in
a critical and informed way the role
that data and evidence can play in
shaping how we design learning
experiences.”
Campus
Planner
Sue
Gott too believes there
is a necessity to adjust
learning and teaching
environments as learning
styles, technology and
social norms change in
order to remain globally
competitive.
“Helping
to
expose life styles to
students
who
may
not
have
had
certain opportunities or experiences
so that we can help them go out in the
world and be great leaders tomorrow,
I think, makes this a revolving door
for excellence in strengthening the
incredibly
brilliant
students
that
arrive here to add greater dimensions
to who they are and what they want
to accomplish when they leave,” Gott
said.
Gott foresees the campus remaining
central to the future
of the University,
albeit a campus
which is ever-
evolving.
“I
think
campuses are certainly going to
continue to need to exist and we
may ebb and flow a bit to continue to
respond to world changes,” Gott said.
“But I see it as being critical to the
transformation of young people into
responsible citizens by enriching and
diversifying their experiences and
creating those growth opportunities.”
Diversifying academic experiences
is something LSA senior Anushka
Sarkar, Central Student Government
president,
said
should
be
more
of a priority
moving
forward.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Managing News Editor
As Bicentennial comes and goes, ‘U’ considers future of campus, academics
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