Faculty can help to guide technology investment appropriately, and to ensure that technology investments are fully integrated into the curriculum. As self-reviews and efficiency audits go forward, faculty will contribute a balance of perspective. The task of education includes helping people cope with new ways of thinking, as technology marches us inexorably toward more complex ways of living. Education helps to open minds to the many cultures we encounter as the size of the world continues to shrink. Education helps people sort and evaluate information in this input-laden era, and it helps our society to discern what is good to do among the plethora of things that are possible to do.
Education prepares people to respond creatively to the world's challenges.
Treasuring education as our enterprise, faculty members have observed, with some wariness, that the language of manufacturing is seeping into the debate. These words fog the picture of higher education, and leave us in danger of mistaking a grade, a credit, or a paper degree for the solid reality of education, or confusing job training with the critical and evaluative experience of learning how to learn. Now the challenge is to improve access and affordability, and to give increased attention to teaching. As always, faculty will find ways to respond to changing needs, while preserving the essential purposes and high quality of the American higher education system.