1. Stephen Murgatroyd, PhD FBPsS FRSA
Chief Innovation Officer Contact North | Contact Nord
Our Higher
Education System,
Our Future
Equity, Innovation,
Change
Beyond Diversity: Learning and Working in
an Inclusive World
2. Not Here to Promote the
Book..
❖ But it is available on Kindle and
from lulu.com
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3. Do We Really Understand Our Challenges?
Top Ten
Challenges
4. Challenges from Outside
❖ Austerity as the new reality of
Governments
❖ The demand for relevance and
tangible outcomes
❖ The focus on STEM as a
response to the future
❖ A demand for more access
rather than better quality - and
the assumption that you can
have both
❖ Private capital and
globalization
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5. Challenges from Inside
❖ “Procedural fetishism” of the modern college and
university (Peter McKinnon, 2007) - paralysis by
analysis and process.
❖ The trade off’s between quality and innovation - settled
largely in favour of gradualism and mimicry.
❖ The pursuit of brand and status (a.k.a funding security)
❖ Resistance to technology and open educational
resources.
❖ Fear of unbundling
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6. Five Big Distractions
❖ Rankings and league tables – "PISA for grown up’s"
❖ MOOC’s which are not strategic
❖ The hunt for the holy grail of becoming an
international hub and centre of excellence
❖ Claiming that university research is the engine of
diversification and innovation
❖ Technology is “the answer”
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8. What Are We Really Supposed to Be
Doing?
1. The development of highly
qualified people who have
social impact
2. Being agents of community
resilience and development
3. Making a difference through
evidence, capacity building
and knowing how to learn -
being the critical-reflective
knowledge hub
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10. Why This is Important
❖ Society needs more knowledge “smart” but also “street”
smart, nimble minded self-managing learners who can make a
difference and engage in effective change management
❖ Society needs more First Nations, single parents, recent
arrivals, at risk youth and, in some fields, males to engage in
advanced learning to advance them and those they represent
❖ Communities need leadership and engaged citizens who are
knowledgeable, effective communicators and can actively
promote non-formal and formal learning
❖ Education needs to be more about engendering commitment
to change through knowledge and understanding and less
about mastering a body of “content”
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11. What We Need to Do
❖ More co-operative programs, more internships and a requirement
for social contribution for more students in more programs
❖ More focus on the idea of the “communiversity” and less on
rankings and brand-status
❖ More focus on the D&D in R&D&D
❖ More investment in social and environmental capital
❖ More focus on the individual as learner than on “batch” learning
and large class size - requiring pedagogic innovation and high
levels of student engagement
❖ More varied forms of assessment to focus more on outcomes and
impact
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12. Challenge 2: How do We Develop
Community
Resilience Through
Community
Development
13. Why This is Important
❖ Universities and colleges are community hubs for innovation,
change and development - they are also knowledge hubs and
they belong to their communities
❖ Universities and colleges are sustained by their local
communities - we need to feel an obligation to sustain our
communities
❖ Universities are anchors in the business and social innovation
“clusters”in their communities and regions - they should do this
work consciously and with commitment
❖ Universities and colleges know how to process knowledge and
evaluate choices - we should build the capacity of communities to
develop these (and other related) competencies
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14. What We Need to Do
❖ Stop thinking of our work in knowledge silos, or just in terms of
programs and courses - start thinking of it in terms of building social
capital and capabilities.
❖ Require every student to engage in a community focused research
study / project that seeks to have social impact and transfers skills /
competencies to others
❖ Engage in more cross-boundary learning.
❖ Promote strategic foresight around social, environmental and health
issues.
❖ Let more community members teach and open access to learning for
more members of our communities - systematically make a difference
for under-represented groups.
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15. Challenge 3: How do we Develop..
As a Critical
Reflective Hub for
our Communities
16. Why This is Important
❖ Universities and colleges are powerful hubs in local, regional and
international knowledge and performance clusters - yet we create
barriers to accessing knowledge, skills and learning.
❖ Life-long learning is the real role of our work - courses and programs
are “teasers” and “competency building” for this real work.
❖ Economic diversification, building powerful and effective health,
education and social networks, reducing crime and building vibrant
communities requires design work, execution and evaluation - we
know how to do this.
❖ When we put our minds to it, we are actually good at this work - look at
the work we have done building Canada’s oil and gas sector, our
effective work on building world-class K-12 education…we have played
key roles.
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17. What we Need to Do
❖ Build strong strategic foresight capabilities linked to regional
challenges / opportunities.
❖ Develop the skills and competencies of designing social networks
and effective social enterprises.
❖ Harness the power of philanthropy, social enterprise and business
/ government to focus on a narrow range of opportunities to build
jurisdictional advantage and community resilience.
❖ Align significant resources around these possibilities.
❖ Commit to medium and long-term knowledge, learning and
innovation investments to build self-directing clusters and build
their capacities for impact and sustainability.
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18. What Should be Our Ambitions?
If We Do This,
What Will
Happen?
19. The Impact We Can Have
❖ Less social and income inequality in society and
more social mobility.
❖ More social and community engagement.
❖ More learning more of the time by more people.
❖ More engagement between our institutions and a
broader range of people, groups and communities.
❖ Less demands for accountability and relevance and a
stronger focus on outcomes and impacts.