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Six design imperatives capture what universities must rethink to remain relevant: clarifying mission, building agile cultures and leadership, transformative learning experiences, embracing robust digital solutions, advancing civic-minded research, and diversifying financial models through innovative partnerships. Ipe explains how these imperatives emerged and offers guidance for leaders on where to begin — focusing outward on community needs, prioritizing bold high-impact ideas, and drawing on the untapped talent within their own institutions.
So the design imperatives originated in conversations we had with hundreds of higher education leaders. As the University Design Institute was getting off the ground, we were in dialogue with people trying to understand what is most necessary for universities to meet the needs of our time. If we are talking about “reimagine” higher education, then what aspects of higher education needs to be reimagined?
So the six design imperatives are expected to be ultimately, things that we can look at together, but not with the sense that all universities have to take all of them on and work on all of them at the same time. They can be quite overwhelming. But here is how we are framing it. So one of the areas that we start with is the university mission.
Does the mission as articulated by universities today, truly meet the needs of their societies, truly meet the needs of the learners? So that is a place to start to say if we were to reimagine institutions, let's look at the mission and see if the mission [is] aligned with what they are trying to do? The second piece is agile and inclusive cultures and leaders.
We recognize that redesign and reimagine learning are not going to happen in places where the culture is really deeply resistant to change, and where leaders across the institution don't feel empowered to, to come up with the ideas that are necessary for the changes that we're kind of talking about. So focusing on a culture that moves towards being more open and really investing in leaders who can stand up and drive the change that we need.
That's the second important design imperative. The third piece is transformative learner experiences, and this really speaks to the fact that our models of teaching and learning in a lot of places have not changed for hundreds of years. It is still one instructor talking to students who are fundamentally different from anybody that's up in the classroom. Yet if you walk into some classrooms today, you couldn't tell which century they were in.
So there is a need for really fundamentally rethinking around how we teach, what we teach, and maybe even flipping it to how people learn. And what is it that we can do to help them learn? And then who is a learner? Not just thinking of a small slice of students, but really thinking of the gamut of learners that we can address.
So the transformational learner experience piece is important, and we would certainly look at technology and all of the other tools that are available to us. The fourth design imperative is robust digital solutions. COVID was a big wake up call that allowed universities to see that they were so far behind the rest of society in the way they were adopting and using technology, and even if we never had a COVID, it would still be an important thing.
But now, with the advent of AI, we are in a very different space. And so it's not just technology in the classroom, but its technology at every level of the institution is technology for student services, preparing students to come into the institution through their career and life journeys. Is technology for the working of the university, for the operations of the university?
So how do we become technologically powered, resilient institutions? And that's the piece that we're driving at with that fourth imperative. Then we get into collaborative and civic minded knowledge generation and discovery. And this is really speaking to those institutions that are research focused or aspire to be research focused. And what we are saying here is that research is good, but if you are going to produce research that is going to advance as outcomes for society, they have to be collaborative in some way.
It could be collaborative within the institution and into disciplinary approaches to research. It is collaboration with partners outside in society who can inform the research and then take it and use it, and then civic minded is the language we put in there, because we really believe universities have such an important role to play as knowledge generators for society.
And so how can even a subset of folks doing research really pay attention to what does my community need? Or what is my region or my country, or even what does the globe need? And then really focus on that piece. And then the final design imperative really looks at partnerships and diversified financial models. Universities have always partnered, but we are in an era where partnership is not just a luxury.
We have to work with new and unusual kinds of partners to advance all of the key elements of what a university is doing: teaching, research, community engagement. So how can we reach and what partnership looks like? And then the diversified financial model is really speaking to the fact that in most places, government funding for higher education has come down dramatically or in whatever ways it is coming down.
The trend is not the other way. And so universities have to get really creative about acquiring resources to fulfill their mission and to do all of these wonderful things that we hope that they will. So the design imperatives, all six of them are meant to work together for universities and university leaders to say, where can we now do something innovative?
The way we have conversations around design is not to suggest to anybody that they blow up their whole system and build from scratch, right? That is unnecessary. That is, you know, would be a terrible outcome. But where would you want to start? And the conversations that have been most successful for us have started with who are you trying to serve and not the inward looking?
What problems do I have that I need to fix? But who are we trying to solve? Or who are you trying to serve and what problems do they have? So it's really having leaders lift their heads up and look outside, not look in and get bogged down by issues of, I can't get my faculty to change and I don't have the resources.
And so sort of a purely inward looking approach to transformation doesn't actually result in transformation. It burdens people with all the barriers and all the problems that go into making a change. But if you lifted your head up and looked out at the communities as the people around you, at the learners, then there's space for inspiration. But there's also some spaces for really important ideas to emerge and say, who can we help and how?
So a starting point is not looking inside, but a starting point that usually works well is to look outside and find both ideas and inspiration for change. Then it's about getting really practical. I think it's helpful for leaders to not try and take on multiple things at the same time. Perhaps in early spaces, seek an idea that's bold.
Pick an idea that has the potential for really high impact and then focus on that. And then how are you approaching the process of design? It feels overwhelming and burdensome when leaders carry these, carry this mission of change on their own. How would you invite the incredible talent that exists within universities to help advance those ideas? Faculty, staff, and students in our experiences have tremendous ideas.
Very often they are not asked for what they think. They are not asked to contribute to solving these problems. Why wouldn't we leverage the talent we have within our institutions? Because the people that are closest to the problem often have some really deep insights about the problem as well. So how would you energize the talent within the institution with a clear sense of what it is that you are trying to accomplish?
Then there is another piece. But involving stakeholders from outside the US, we are trying to move or create transformational change. We may not have within institutions the fullest idea of how to do that. And so it is not that hard to assemble people from outside stakeholders, people who have an interest in that particular area to be in conversation because the universities are good at doing.
The universities know how to convene people and know how to facilitate conversations. Why wouldn't we do that? So you are not just soliciting ideas and insights, but you are potentially recruiting partners for this change effort. And so then the piece, the final piece I would say, is recalling the projects and the experiences that we've had is… pick these areas, involve people from within and outside, and then stay with it, because true transformational change does not manifest itself in fantastic outcomes in the short term.
And sometimes leaders or funders. So loose patience, and you've got to stay with it until you can actually see the outcomes. And that takes a little bit of time. But what we've learned is that change is possible. Transformation is possible. And it is absolutely possible in higher education.