A couple of years ago I wrote a magazine article about community colleges that scored unusually well on the Community College Survey of Student Engagement. I also wrote a separate profile of one of them, Cascadia Community College, after spending several days visiting the campus. There was a lot to write about, but for me the single most fascinating part was that Cascadia is essentially brand new, having opened its doors in 2001. We tend to think of the time necessary to achieve higher education greatness in practically geologic terms, but I think this is a mistake. The problem is that new institutions competing in the mainstream public / private nonprofit sector open up once in a blue moon, and when they do they’re forged in the existing mold. Thus, our collective sense of possibility regarding how different higher-education institutions could be or how fast they could change is diminished below the point of reason.
It was with those ideas in mind that I wrote my new column in this week’s issue of The Chronicle. The idea is that Bill Gates should follow in the footsteps of 19th-century extremely rich guys and found a new university named after himself. His foundation (which, full disclosure, has given money to the nonprofit where I work) recently announced plans to focus new resources on higher education, which is a great idea. But there’s nothing like leading by example, and a new university built from scratch could pioneer new ways of working in a variety of areas, from admissions policies to faculty credentials, credit granting, and the possible scale of online education.
