Can Slow-Moving Universities Adapt Quickly Enough To Teach In The Digital Age?

Gary Kebbel | PBS.org | August 28, 2013

The start of classes this fall will also bring renewed debate about what journalism and mass communications colleges should teach in an age of disruption. Professors are trying to figure out how we should be preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet. Or for jobs that will exist in two years, but won’t in four.

I wonder if everything we want journalism and communications students to know can be accommodated in the structure we have. Maybe curricular modifications are too small of an effort to bring about the changes we really need. Perhaps the nature of the university and the nature of journalism education in a digitally disrupted world require that we look at new ways to provide the training employers say they want in new hires.

Can universities designed to make slow, incremental, deliberative and consensual changes respond with the speed, risk-taking and adaptability demanded by today’s technological disruptions? If the nature of universities and the needs of mass communication students are at odds, how do we fix that?