Michael D. Smith and The Abundant University: Remaking Higher Education for a Digital World.

The University Design Institute and Arizona State University welcomed Dr. Michael D. Smith on September 13 for the latest lecture in the Frank Rhodes Lecture Series to discuss higher education in the digital world and its implications on learners, institutions, and communities around the globe.

Dr. Smith is the J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Information Technology and Policy, at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College for Business. He is also the author of a newly published book, The Abundant University: Remaking Higher Education for a Digital World, where he discusses the ongoing shift of higher education as it continues to adapt to a 21st Century environment driven by innovative technologies, new business models and learning experiences, and artificial intelligence. The lecture was moderated by UDI’s Vice Chair and Managing Director, Dr. Minu Ipe, and ASU President Dr. Michael Crow.

“This is what attracted us to (Dr. Smith) on this notion of the abundant university,” said President Crow. “We still have institutions that are overly Middle Ages, that is not middle-aged, but from the Middle Ages, in their design. They are creators of significant new knowledge from which innovations occur but are in general not particularly innovative themselves. They are built in ways in which they don't operate on a theory of human abundance. They often operate on a theory of human deficit.”

Dr. Smith argued that universities have dominated the education market for decades because they control the scarcity of three key resources necessary for students to access the job market: seats in classrooms, faculty experts, and credentials that signal their knowledge to the marketplace.

“The reason I think the business hasn't changed that much is because we haven't eliminated the scarcity and the credentials,” said Smith.  “You can take as many courses from Coursera as you want. You still need that four-year degree.”

This scarcity creates various hindrances to higher education and socioeconomic movement. As you limit access to higher education, which is often required to be hired in a high-paying job, institutions are more likely to raise barriers from individuals who come from disparate backgrounds. This can perpetuate a cycle and limit movement among learners who wish to attain the skills to work in 21st-century jobs but cannot access the market.

However, there are signals of a major shift. In 2020, Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., announced they were launching a new digital certificate initiative called Grow with Google to allow learners to achieve Google-backed certifications in high-demand careers. They’ve also signaled in many cases that a college degree is not a requirement to work for one of the world’s largest tech companies, Smith said.

“Google is taking a different path. What Google said is we've looked at our data and what we've discovered is that where you went to school, what your GPA was, and what your major was, isn't all that predictive of how well you're going to do at Google relative to how well you do on our entrance test, right,” said Smith. “If you can code up a complicated algorithmic problem in a language of your choice in 30 minutes, I'm pretty sure you're a good coder and I don't care where you got that knowledge comes from.”

Smith did add, however, that alternative credentialing and hiring in this new marketplace will remain a challenge for a while.

“As a society, I think the credentials are going to be the hardest part for us to do,” he said. “And the reason is if you're a hiring manager and you've got 100 applications, how are you going to limit that down to the five you're going to interview?”

You can watch the entire Frank Rhodes Lecture Series Fall 2024 Lecture below.