ED-MEDIA 1999 Proceedings Book - Association for the ...

Higher Education: Infected with a Millenarian Bug
Dr Yoni Ryan
Teaching and Learning Support Services Department
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
y.ryan@qut.edu.au
Suellen Tapsall
School of Media Communication and Culture
Murdoch University
Perth, Western Australia
stapsall@central.murdoch.edu.au
Abstract: This paper reports on an extensive survey of the opinions and intentions of major media and
telecommunications CEOs and higher education administrators regarding the potential for ‘a global university’. It
argues that a crisis of confidence engulfs public sector education systems, which may only be resolved through a
thorough knowledge of the private companies involved in education delivery, and a renewed focus on the core
business of higher education.
Five years ago a millenarian virus hit the academic world. Not the Y2K bug, but an
apocalyptic vision of a global university dominated by media companies and telecommunications
entities. The virus was orally and aurally transmitted and spread quickly through the Vice Chancellors
and Directors of well-established and prestigious universities, fuelled by respected academic leaders
such as Barry Munitz of California State University, who foresaw a conglomerate of Microsoft, AT&T
and IBM offering the Governor of California a cheaper, more efficient public education system. In
Australia, the virus was spread by Alan Gilbert, University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, an
academic not noted for alarmist statements. Subsequently, the Australian federal education department
tendered for a reality check of the global university. Queensland University of Technology won the
contract in its Media and Journalism department.
This paper reports on the potential scenarios our team devised on the basis of investigations
and interviews with many of the key players in the corporate and academic world. They represent our
analysis, within the context of the investigation’s focus on convergence with global media networks, of
the potential for new types of worldwide universities either in existence or likely to emerge within the
next ten years. We conclude the paper with an update in terms of the likelihood of the scenarios a year
later, and a few suggestions for inoculating our present universities from the effects of the virus, which
we believe is more a crisis of confidence within public education than a threat from the corporate
world. The scenarios are not mutually exclusive: several may develop concurrently, and combinations
may appear.
Scenario 1: Harvard-Murdoch U
A globally branded university partners a global media network such as News Corporation and
offers a high-quality prestigious degree. The alliance brings together partners of equal strengths in their
core areas. It provides access to a pre-existing and substantial marketplace, an understanding of the
strengths and weaknesses of the medium of delivery and a means of carriage that is highly developed
and robust. The means of delivery is presumably broadcast (satellite or cable) or the Internet. Programs
are globally available in the home and workplace.
This is one scenario ‘often presented to faculty at institutions other than Harvard as the
frightening future’ (Reeves, UGA). It is also a scenario that seems to be strongly identified with
American institutions and media networks.
Any offerings by a globally branded institution should be highly attractive. The global
recognition of the institutional name would overcome some of the inherent difficulties of local