While there have been a lot of calls in recent decades for radical transformation in higher education, most of these efforts have been around the margins of the enterprise and/or still within the parameters of current academic structures, calendars, business models, and accrediting guidelines. There has not been a lot of reflection on what the radically transformed university would look like starting from scratch. A Theory of Public Higher Education seeks to do exactly this—to start from square one—taking everything we have learned about student success, our projections about the future of knowledge and work, and envisioning higher education in radically new ways. The fundamental questions are: What could higher education look like if unencumbered by its own history? How would the ideal public university look if the only concern was educating students for the 21st century? What would the curricula and co-curricula look like? How would student learning be prioritized and measured? How would the university be structured? How might it best serve the public good? What would be the guiding principles?
In many ways, the project mirrors at the narrower level of higher education what the philosopher John Rawls attempted at the socio-political level. In 1971, Rawls published A Theory of Justice. He famously imagined a group of individuals in an “original position” where they were under a “veil of ignorance.” The “veil” prevented them from knowing any of the most important characteristics about themselves—their particular skills or gifts, their family backgrounds (including religion, language, traditions, etc.), their sex, race, or any other distinguishing characteristics. In such a situation, how might they reason together about the fundamental principles of justice that should be used to form their social and political order? While Rawls knew that real human beings could never fully pull such a “veil” over themselves, he believed that reason gave us the ability to go a long way towards thinking through such a hypothetical situation. The result of the thought experiment, Rawls knew, might not lead to the creation of a new society, but the principles that emerge from the original position might serve as regulative ideals against which we could measure or assess the everyday social and political decisions and behaviors that structure our lives.
A Theory of Public Higher Education is offered in this Rawlsian spirit. But instead of the product being the work of a single individual, this project brings together a diverse team to work through an “original position” from which a public university might be thought. The team consists of representatives from the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts, as well as scholars and change agents in higher education. It will have access to a broad range of experts in education and higher education (see consultant list below) and will be expected to integrate student voices into its work. The team begins its work in late summer 2019, will expand its conversation through 2019 and 2020, and its work will culminate in the publication of its results in 2021. Higher education is at a crossroads, and there are many ways forward. A Theory of Public Higher Education provides a necessary—if idealized—approach to ascertaining the future of public higher education in America.