It is this new vision that can sustain the tremendous power and success of American higher education in the twenty-first century. One can anticipate that all of the new visions for higher education will involve a less hierarchical, more collaborative, and more participatory community, where team efforts are recognized, rewarded, valued, and encouraged by new models of status, organization, and governance. Two decades of participatory management theory and practice in American businesses have demonstrated the power and success achieved by participatory learning organizations. College and university communities must now conceive new roles and relationships, new organizational structures and forms of governance, new bodies of knowledge and ways of knowing. Breaking down the cultural, political, and organizational barriers that hinder broad and local re-imagining will not be easy, nor will it be instantaneous.
Shared beliefs can constrain and block vital new visions at crucial junctures.
One need merely look at the failures of collective imagination in the Middle East today to grasp at once the power of imagined communities and the challenges inherent in re-imagining. No single university vision will be sufficient to meet the diverse needs and aspirations now served by American higher education. There will be many potentially successful new conceptions. What is crucial is that American colleges and universities begin the process of re-imagining their communities. We must transcend our historic boundaries and limitations through the power of collective imagination and striving.