Shifting demography, rising operating expenses, plummeting state and federal support, intensified competition, broken financial models … these are just a few of the complex challenges facing New England higher education institutions. Given these tensions, who would be surprised if college presidents in the region weren’t occasionally plagued by sleepless nights, hounded by anxious trustees, or passing a few furtive moments hiding beneath their desks?

The reality, though, seems to be moving in a different direction altogether—at least as reported by area presidents themselves. We recently conducted an admittedly non-scientific “pulse” survey¹ of presidents at smaller institutions in the New England region. A high percentage of these presidents feel much more confident in the face of these challenges than some might reasonably expect.

Respondents to our survey appear to agree that new models are needed to ensure the sustainability of smaller New England colleges. But they also possess confidence in the capacity, agility, and talent of their people to successfully create new models, with few worries that the needed changes will put them at odds with their institutions’ missions or values. That’s the good news. Indeed, there seems to be widespread agreement on what to do to become more sustainable—change the financial model, lower discount rates, reach new audiences through online learning and strengthen the institution’s competitive differentiation.

The bad news is that while a universally applied strategy like this could perhaps work in an ever-growing market, in New England, the opposite is likely to be true. Our region will be characterized by intensified competition for a shrinking pool of prospective students. Even in the realm of online learning, growth rates are declining as competition heats up, with no infinite market to tap for new students. So while strategies such as these may work for some of our colleges, they cannot logically work for all at the same time, especially those smaller schools without resources to extend their reach.

Time will be a crucial factor in determining how these strategies play out for individual institutions. While presidents might feel bullish about the capability of their faculty and staff to innovate, some institutions will execute changes more quickly and effectively than others. For those that move more slowly, the result could look something like a game of musical chairs: When the music stops, a few may find that they are no longer in the game at all.

Taking the stress test

Our concise survey of presidents of smaller colleges throughout New England took the form of a 10-question “stress test” that gauged how apprehensive institutional leaders feel about the fate of their schools and New England’s overall academic hegemony.

We invited them to reflect on their pressures from trustees for a strategy for online education, whether they felt their faculty could demonstrate the flexibility and creativity for the institution to thrive in the future, whether ideas about alternative revenue streams might be at odds with their institution’s mission and values, and whether the small New England college was fundamentally at risk.

Two-thirds of the presidents surveyed said their trustees expected them “to rapidly develop a more advanced strategy for online education.” Trustees read newspapers and magazines, and see the barrage of articles forecasting the demise of higher learning as we know it.² They read the simplistic and often alarmist op-ed pieces that conflate online learning and all the challenges colleges and universities face. They then take these concerns back to board meetings and conversations with their president, and ask what it is being done to steer their school on a path to survival.³

The presidents do not necessarily take exception to these concerns. Only 6% disagreed with the statement that “it is necessary for schools like mine to consider significantly different models of education in order to compete successfully in the future.” They are open to change and new modes of operating. “The world’s strongest colleges and universities are in New England,” wrote one president. “I expect that fact to remain salient for many years to come. Yes, we all must adapt as conditions around us change. A few institutions will not adjust and will close, but not many. Colleges have proven to have incredible staying power, backed by the emotional attachment of their many alumni and supporters.”

The presidents themselves often have a broad perspective of what academic tremors are occurring nationally across the array of America’s institutions. They know how precious and fragile the smaller college is They fear these small colleges might be endangered by forces beyond their control and by their vulnerability to academic behemoths.⁴ One president with extensive experience across different types of universities noted: “I am particularly concerned about the long-term viability of smaller, not-for-profit institutions. Many are without name recognition or endowment to allow them to weather the impending storm easily. Many are at risk because their financial model, organizational structure and physical plant requirements will make it difficult for them to easily change. More will need … to partner with other institutions so they don’t … provide all curriculum in-house. In addition, they will need to look at the tenure model versus long- or short-term faculty contracts.”

This adaptation may not be as rapid as trustees want, but New England presidents are hopeful for their own institutions. Two-thirds said it will take time to build a thoughtful strategy that incorporates educational technology. Only 40%, though, were critical of other schools for jumping recklessly into expensive educational technology. While presidents commonly turn to faculty-bashing when asked why colleges cannot be more dynamic, New England’s small college presidents praised their own faculty. Only 9% did not agree that their faculty demonstrated “the flexibility and creativity that will help us thrive in the future.” Rather than caricature their professors as resistant and self-serving, they view them as willing and able partners in the process of institutional evolution.

Finding the path to sustainability

The changes these institutions appear prepared to make will be significant. The very preservation of smaller schools is at stake. As one president wrote to us: “There are students who need the structure of a small college in order to discover their talents and strengths. As an industry, we need to be more aggressive at finding ways to tell the story of the value of a college education and the importance of education for the future of the American workforce.” The public needs to better appreciate that the small institutions are treasures worth preserving–that these schools offer unique benefits that would be lost if we dramatically consolidated our academic institutions.

The presidents praised their own academic communities for having the wherewithal to succeed in the years ahead. Complacency, they know, is simply not an option. Several presidents highlighted demographic changes. Only a tiny minority of the presidents (less than 10%) lacked confidence in their own institution’s “talent, agility, and quality.” One lamented that many institutions “are not prepared to provide a truly inclusive culture for the majority of college-going students in future years (namely, students of color).” Another argued that “New England has excess capacity in institutions of higher education and our demographics (declining population of high school graduates) are the worst in the country. Tuition-dependent institutions must either diversify their revenue streams and/or expand their markets—at a time when everyone is trying to do the same thing. I do not believe all will be successful, and while the very wealthy colleges will continue to survive more or less as they are, the others must change their business model or die.”

Only 9% of respondents agreed that “many of the new ideas about alternative revenue streams … would be contrary to our mission and values.” One president stressed how “my campus relies heavily on profits from nontraditional students in online and campus-based degree and professional programs. I don’t see how small tuition-driven campuses can survive without alternative revenue streams.” The risks of obliterating the more intimate college experience have not been as well-articulated as their runaway costs. “For small colleges to survive into the future,” one said, “they must clearly articulate and prove the value of an on-campus experience.” The hoopla about MOOCs presents a golden opportunity to counter with a defense of the holistic benefits of a traditional campus.⁵

But defending the virtues of campus life cannot be coupled with resistance to change. One president argued, “Smaller private colleges, many of them surviving with unsustainable tuition discounts [internally funded scholarships], not only need to leverage digital technology to reach new audiences, they need to use that technology in a different financial model that is less costly to students, more customized to the students and more efficient for the college.”

Those that hit a financial wall will, according to 60% of the presidents, “be absorbed by other institutions or shuttered.” The stakes are high. Many New England presidents believe there will be a shakeout in the years ahead. Their confidence for their own school doesn’t extend to their neighboring institutions nor to New England generally. Only 57% of these presidents agreed that, “The small New England college will remain an important fixture within the academic landscape for many years to come.” Put bluntly by one respondent: “If your institution does not have a well-defined market niche … that is robust, be that market in or out of New England, it is toast.”⁶

Anticipating a new model

Is New England’s historic academic leadership at risk? Is its diversity of institutions an essential feature in the strength of that leadership worth preserving? What value do these institutions have in defining the unique character of this region? How can they fundamentally restructure themselves to ensure their survival?

New England is characterized not only by its major brand-name schools, but also by its mosaic of different types of institutions serving multiple populations and purposes. These smaller schools play a significant role in creating and sustaining the academic identity of this region. But we cannot preserve them as museum pieces. Every institution needs a sustainable financial model that addresses contemporary challenges. Perhaps we need an environmental impact analysis not only of the economic benefits of our numerous schools, but also of their even less tangible social and cultural importance, which will be a tough sell for those skeptics impatient with escalating costs in higher education. We also need to better understand the interplay of large and small institutions within New England—and the few degrees of separation among them. And we need to better explore potential interdependence among small schools and practical opportunities for collaboration, alliances, resource-sharing and outsourcing. A persistent theme we heard was the need for “new models”—and it will be telling to see whether the leadership of smaller institutions has the agility and clout within academe to generate new ways of doing business, and whether there is enough time to demonstrate what they can do in the realm of innovation.

With a pragmatic idealism about the value of their schools, and a faith in the caliber of their faculty, New England’s college presidents face an unsettling future where they will need to articulate their case to a concerned public, and find new ways of balancing costs with income, as they lead in the process of changing often tradition-bound, resource-constrained, but immensely vital institutions.

Jay A. Halfond is former dean of Boston University’s Metropolitan College, currently on sabbatical (serving as the Wiley Deltak Faculty Fellow) before returning as a full-time faculty member at BU. Peter Stokes was recently appointed as vice president for Global Strategy and Business Development at Northeastern University after many years at Eduventures.

Universities typically emerge as gatekeepers of the professions, by wresting control over the training and certification that is required. The process generally begins outside academe—with apprenticeships and voluntary associations—and evolves toward a new norm of academic credit and degrees. Faculty then become the experts who determine the body of knowledge budding professionals need to know in a field—as they develop scholarship that supports that profession. Research-oriented faculty trained in doctoral programs emerge to lead in this process. These academics then determine admissions standards and curricular hurdles so that the profession’s leadership is confident that individuals have been sorted and screened for the best to surface as future representatives of that profession.

An academic discipline and a profession eventually converge through the relationship, division of labor and trust between universities and professional associations—and their mutual respect for the authority and the respective roles of one another. Sometimes, professional associations evaluate academic programs or even provide an examination at the end of the education process. But the growing portfolio of academic programs over the past century is the direct result of more and more professions coming under the purview of the academy.

One exception has been the actuarial field. Few of us know much about this occupation, nor appreciate the pivotal role that actuaries play in our lives. An actuary analyzes the financial consequence of insurable risk, and then, for example, sets premiums for insurance companies or evaluates whether pension plans are adequately funded. An actuary determines if a young driver of a powerful sports car should pay more for auto insurance than an aging professor who drives a 20-year old jalopy. An actuary determines our health insurance costs. No one gets out of this world alive—the actuary handles the hard part of forecasting the when and the how. These are the quants in the back office, invisible yet indispensable to the public. They play moneyball with matters far more important than professional sports.

The actuary applies sophisticated mathematics and statistics to the dilemma of risk: how best to quantify the unknowable and assess probabilities so that an uncertain outcome can be somehow anticipated. Their work might be hidden to the public, but their impact on everyday life is nonetheless significant. They have been called the bookies of the insurance industry. The trust that consumers have in their insurance companies when they hand over large premium payments today for benefits that might need to be paid out decades later results from the integrity and intelligence of actuarial professionals. Even with a mega-catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina, the insurance companies were prepared to honor all legitimate claims.

Actuaries calibrate what becomes the necessary equilibrium between the self-interest of the individual and that of a corporation—so each can have the security necessary to transact a long-term relationship for an otherwise unknowable future.

Remarkably, only a minority of the 28,000 actuaries studied the discipline of Actuarial Science in college. The true gatekeepers for this profession are the Society of Actuaries (SOA), founded in 1949 (but with roots more than a century old) and the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), established in 1914. Collectively, they determine and test the knowledge and skills of those seeking to enter this highly selective field. Although open to all, this lengthy series of rigorous exams serves as a sieve that limits the number of candidates who successfully complete the gauntlet.  Standards have been established with about a 50-50 chance of success on just the first two of the several examinations. The content of these exams is written by committed volunteers in the SOA/CAS. This sequence of examinations is much more than comparable to the rigor of most university master’s degree programs both in the hours of study required and in the difficulty of the material. There are few independent professional associations with this much authority and autonomy over the credentialing of their members.

This is now one of the best-compensated fields for entry-level jobs, paying an average of $50-$60,000 to start. Some schools have undergraduate majors in Actuarial Science, for those who choose this seemingly dry field as teenagers. Given how invisible this is to most young people, the more prevalent path is a solid undergraduate mathematics or statistics major, followed by self-study toward the initial SOA exams. A shadow industry of test prep tools—study guides, videos, classes and online programs—has emerged to aid those on this path.

Yet another, now more common pathway into the profession is through a master’s degree programs in Actuarial Science. These programs are very appealing to talented students in their 20s and beyond who did not consider the profession initially as undergraduates, but would now like to seek a professional direction for themselves or perhaps change careers. For someone holding a full-time job, or otherwise away from the classroom for a couple of years, fearful of self-study, looking for a practical degree that builds on their more abstract undergraduate major, the draw of the Actuarial Science as a post-baccalaureate endeavor is powerful.

Typically, these programs are taught by a blend of academic faculty from mathematics and statistics departments and practitioners—generally current or retired Fellows of the Societies—who teach courses in their unique area of specialization. Given SOA’s and CAS’s selectivity, those with this credential often have the capability to teach complex material such as pension mathematics or survival models. The curriculum is typically aligned with the SOA and CAS examinations—and when the exam content changes, course content follows. The best programs go further, introducing students to the various corporate sectors that employ actuaries—life insurance, health care, predictive modeling, property insurance, or pension practice—so their graduates will have a more complete understanding of the profession they are about to enter.

These academic programs are seeing burgeoning enrollments—even though an academic degree is not necessary to become an actuary. The national focus on health care insurance, publicity on how the profession ranks in starting salaries and job satisfaction, and the growing need for actuaries in the fast-growing economies in China and India—have made advanced degrees in Actuarial Science more appealing.

Rarely does an established profession in a field as sophisticated, intricate and quantitative as actuarial science thrive outside the realm of academe, depend so much on a voluntary association of professionals, and yet not even require a college degree for entry. Even when higher education offers a degree in Actuarial Science, this field might be the major example of where academe humbly defers to the wisdom and hegemony of a profession.

Jay A. Halfond is dean of Metropolitan College at Boston University. Lois K. Horwitz is associate professor of the Practice and Chair of Actuarial Science at Metropolitan College.

Sometimes when passing through a classroom building, I glance in at a class in session and try to gauge by students’ faces whether the instructor has them engaged or not. Through their facial expressions, you can see whether they are caught up in the class or struggling not to drift away in their thoughts or electronic devices. Faculty often think of their job as transmitting knowledge, from their brains into those of the students, as if content were just concrete matter being passed along. Filling a bucket, to paraphrase W. B. Yeats, rather than lighting a fire. The relationship between the teacher and student is a subtle one–won or lost at the onset of the semester. Too often, faculty waste their precious first encounter by filling that time with administrivia.

When I welcome new faculty teaching in my college, I suggest that were we to administer the course evaluation after the first few weeks, the results wouldn’t differ much from the end of the semester. It turns out I was wrong: Research shows it only takes a few minutes in the first class to determine students’ opinion of a course. Perhaps unconsciously, students determine whether to like or dislike a class, whether to participate actively, whether the instructor is worthy of respect, and perhaps even whether to commit to learning or just to endure the experience. The first part of the first class is the equivalent of speed dating. These initial few minutes (in a course that will meet for about 3,000 minutes over 14 weeks) can be decisive.

First impressions matter. They signal the beginning or aborting of a relationship. This relationship should not simply be transactional—where the instructor sets the conditions for the semester-long interchange, the student complies, and, in exchange, receives academic credit banked and eventually cashed in for a degree. Instead, the relationship should be lasting—from a positive first meeting to a powerful educational experience—and then to a memorable course that sticks with the student years later. I tell new faculty that they should strive to be that one outstanding professor whom a student years later stops on the street or sends a note to say that they are still applying or even perplexed by what they encountered in their class. The material hadn’t quickly evaporated out of short-term memory after the final exam, but moved into the long-term memory of what has mattered in their lives. This is a high bar for instructors to reach—but without the effort, their class will inevitably fall short.

I once heard the president of an Ivy League university address a conference, where he warned that studies show that most audiences can only be attentive for a few minutes before drifting into daydreaming, and that the speaker has to work hard to draw the non-listener back in. (He suggested to these hundreds of educators that most of these daydreams were sexual in nature, but my guess was he was just trying to jolt us into paying attention.) We are always battling our students’ propensity to drift off—and we’d likely do the same in their position. Today’s students, whether full-time or part-time, are battling conflicting commitments and a sensory onslaught—and today’s faculty must compete vigorously for their attention. A class run like a spectator sport inevitably fails to engage its students.

How should an instructor conduct the first class? Certainly not by reciting what is in the syllabus. The syllabus is a critical contractual document, but it can’t capture the essence of what the learning experience will be like, nor the larger idealistic goals of the professor. My advice to faculty is to send the syllabus in advance to let students digest details on their own and start the reading so that the class can start in earnest in its first session. Then the in-class challenge is to incite students’ enthusiasm, momentum, curiosity and participation. Those students who speak up early will do so often; those who do not will become the wallflowers—passively and sporadically observing the class take place around them and without them.

Teaching does require behavioral techniques. Assessment tools should mirror what the instructor wants the students to gain from the course, not just what is readily measurable. Standards and rules for what is expected of students—particularly the quality and honesty of their individual work—need to be crystal clear. Faculty should emphasize the importance of clarity and care in students’ written work. Research has found that students perform better with clear deadlines, requirements and milestones. But the course structure is only the broad framework that does not define or elevate the course experience itself.

I encourage faculty to set high expectations for themselves and their students. While requirements can always be reduced or modified, you shouldn’t assume too little of your students a priori. Get to know them. Learn their names and backgrounds, encourage their active participation, and demonstrate your respect for their points of view by returning to comments they previously made. Empirical research has shown that most of us are uncomfortable with silences and tend to exaggerate the length of an awkward moment. My advice to faculty is to be patient, accept silences (even a few seconds can be painful), and give students a chance to collect their thoughts and take responsibility for contributing to the class discussion.

A successful class requires that students take some ownership for its success. As famed mime Marcel Marceau once said: It is good to shut up sometimes. Those for whom English is not their mother tongue have to translate your question in their heads, consider a response in English, and then muster the courage to speak up in class. This takes more time than we often provide before we jump in and answer our own question, or call on that same tried-and-true student who always has a hand up. Try to draw students in with humor: Ask, for example, how many are too shy to raise their hands in class (and then see who does).

Teaching is daunting even for stellar, experienced faculty. A colleague (whose evaluations were among the best in the college) once confided how apprehensive he was at the start of each semester. He knew that, no matter how strong his reputation, he was starting over again each term. The Sisyphus-like challenge is to tackle each term as a fresh experience. One never teaches the same course twice. Judge your success in the first session by what percentage of the students participated—and by the nonverbal cues they show in their engagement. Then work to sustain that.

Jay A. Halfond is dean of Metropolitan College and Extended Education at Boston University.

U.S. universities have had century-long success in absorbing existing professions into their curricula—by making academe their gatekeeper. These professions often started with apprenticeships and short training courses leading to a certification examination—and were then elevated and “academized” into a comprehensive body of knowledge, fueled by evidence-based scholarship, led by university faculty, and offered to students as advanced academic degrees. The nation’s best research universities often paved the way—and once an academic pathway was established, there would be no retreat back to on-the-job shortcuts.

Project Management is currently on the cusp of this transformation from professional designation to academic credential. But unlike emerging disciplines in the past, Project Management is at risk of deviating from this traditional path. Project Management is testing the agility and openness of mainstream academe, which may be leaving a gaping hole to be filled by the ever-present competitive threat to 21^st century academics: the for-profit institutions that fill the voids research universities and others relinquish to them.

The growth of Project Management is truly one of the major phenomena in professional development in recent years. In little more than a generation, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has grown worldwide to a half-million members who subscribe to its principles of how to organize and execute major projects, lead teams, monitor and control costs. PMI has successfully promulgated the idea that its certification examination qualifies test-takers to receive its much-coveted designation to manage major projects in every sector—construction, research and development, information systems and elsewhere. Many job postings (especially for federal, state and local government projects) now require this certification in this burgeoning field.

If, however, you possess a master’s or even a doctoral degree in Project Management, there is a good chance you obtained this online and perhaps via a for-profit school. A disturbing trend is the likelihood that you were not taught by full-time faculty, with research-based doctorates, actively engaged in scholarship. Perhaps your corporation automatically paid your tuition bills, regardless of the credibility of the program or institution, simply based on your employee benefits.

The Project Management Institute estimates 1.2 million new positions annually on a global scale over the next decade. Given these vast job opportunities, it is far easier to explain the exploding demand side of this phenomenon than the more lethargic supply side: Why has traditional academe stayed on the sidelines and ceded this growing need to proprietary programs? I would argue the very insularity, entrenchment and rigidity of mainstream universities render them oblivious to this important opportunity.

The growth of general management education over less than a half-century has been astronomical, initially in the U.S. (in the ‘70s and ‘80s) and now worldwide at more than 13,000 institutions. Within the U.S., first-generation college goers, women, minorities, and international students fueled this growth. The accrediting bodies and national and transnational efforts like Europe’s Bologna Accord standardized management education across the globe so that prospective students can better understand their options and opportunities. Professional associations like the AACSB have been victorious in bringing management education into the Western academic mainstream by ensuring the critical mass of full-time, doctorally qualified, research active faculty. Emerging countries are encouraging the growth of very entrepreneurial academic enterprises based largely on teaching business skills to a new generation. (On the outskirts of Bangalore, I drove past the “Adam Smith School of Business” where the first letter in “Smith” was replaced with a dollar sign.)

But this is still mainly a one-MBA-fits-all approach to learning general management and organizational leadership—that ignores the quietly emerging undercurrent of other possibilities. There is growing interest both from students and corporations for alternatives to the conventional MBA pathway. The corporate call is now for greater focus and more immediately relevant and practical skills. With the MBA at risk of becoming a commodity, alternative graduate management programs and credentials become appealing differentiators. The question is how elite institutions will respond to this disruptive influence—and where Project Management, in particular, will reside within higher education. This is an opportunity for these highly regarded schools to assert their historic leadership in professional education.

First the barriers: Conventional academe often gets stuck within its own structure, focusing inward on what faculty wish to teach rather than outward on what the world around them needs. Project Management is an excellent example, which, despite tremendous corporate demand, finds itself homeless—without an obvious department or cluster of faculty champions. Project Management crosses many conventional colleges—business and engineering schools, computer science departments and even biomedical fields. Unless there is someone to lead the charge to argue that Project Management is more than a passing fad and has deep, lasting and legitimate academic value, or unless a university has a designated locus for innovative and interdisciplinary initiatives, this field simply cannot surface to compete with more agile for-profits.

Now the opportunity: Project Management should emerge as a bona fide academic discipline, but needs to be captured by the historic caretakers of academic quality and integrity. A corps of faculty is essential to run a quality academic program, especially at the graduate level. They bring credibility and commitment—and can create the gravitas that will legitimize and sustain Project Management. True academic faculty serve on editorial boards, connect academic research and industry needs, and generate and disseminate knowledge. Their success distinguishes a world-class program from a merely competent one, a passing training fad from an enduring academic field of study.

The prevalence of online degrees adds a unique dimension and criticality to the need for academic commitment to Project Management. Quality distance learning demands far more faculty time and institutional resources. But we have a chicken-and-egg challenge where faculty talent does not pre-exist and must be cultivated, in parallel to growing graduate enrollments. This requires a strategic vision for building a quality academic program and generating research-trained doctorates in the field, well beyond an ad hoc collection of courses taught by adjunct faculty.

What began as test preparation toward certification is growing into a more robust body of knowledge. But only truly academic faculty can generate the empirical research and conceptual frameworks, academic standards and program integrity to allow Project Management to establish its rightful place among the professions. Until then, the content of Project Management will belong to professional societies and more responsive for-profits.

It is possible, albeit difficult, to meet this challenge and address this opportunity. Boston University has discovered that Project Management can attract hundreds of mid-career students, that research-oriented faculty can be recruited to work together on building a curriculum of depth and quality, and that the distance learning platform is uniquely suited to the skills inherent in Project Management. In fact, the online medium is the message: Because project teams have become so dispersed, virtual learning simulates the emerging global workplace. Distance learning in first-class universities needs to be first-class in itself—indistinguishable in quality, expectations, requirements, and outcomes from the on-campus classroom—and, ideally, even better. The Socratic Method has its place online, as do group projects and active learning, which are all beneficial and integral to Project Management.

Creating an academic home for Project Management can then lead to academic depth and breadth far beyond the imagination of a professional organization—specialized tracks, new concepts, student research projects and pedagogical tools that enhance the learning experience. The path to professionalism in this century is at risk of becoming markedly different from that of the last century. Project Management is the litmus test for where academic authority and responsibility will now reside.

Jay A. Halfond is dean of Metropolitan College and Extended Education at Boston University. He thanks BU Professors Roger Warburton and Vijay Kanabar for their thoughts.

When Jacques Pépin accepted his honorary doctorate from Boston University this past May, he made note of this truly symbolic moment. While his proposed dissertation focus on food had once been rejected by Columbia University as academically unworthy, a leading university was now granting him a doctorate for his work as a celebrated author, chef and teacher. Much has changed over the past generation in the academic acceptance and even appreciation of the role food plays in our world.

Students now flock to specialized degree programs in gastronomy, pursue food-oriented tracks at the doctoral level, seek out programs and careers in the hospitality industry and elect courses on food and wine as a way of enriching their personal lives. Why has this intellectual curiosity exploded in recent years? Has food studies now moved from the kitchen closet into academic legitimacy? Are universities leaders or followers in this movement?

This phenomenon, I would argue, is neither a fad nor dilettantism. The personal appreciation of good food and wine is not sufficient motivation in itself to drive students to in-depth academic study. Food Studies appeals to students seeking a broader, more integrated perspective on what it means to be human. There are sadly too few ways to get an interdisciplinary, multicultural perspective even within the conventional liberal arts. The separate silos of study have forced a narrowing within each subject, which often inadvertently precludes intellectual exploration and discovery. The direction has been more to specialize, abstract and quantify, rather than to link the mind and the senses, the household with its social context, and the classroom with what can be touched, smelled, tasted and created.

Food has also become a means, perhaps even an excuse, to tie together the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences in a way that provides a lens on society long abandoned in mainstream academe. Students recognize this opportunity to combine the academic and the professional, personal appreciation with abstract understanding, tactile experiences with classroom instruction, and the need to specialize in a way that also builds a broad cultural foundation. Gastronomy provides perspective and meaning for those who want to better understand their world, or just their immediate community or heritage, and earn the cultural capital to better navigate their career.

At one time, cooking and eating were just home-based sustenance–too mundane to warrant serious academic interest. But we have developed a broader public discourse on the nature of food and what this says about ourselves–from the perspective of health, culture, history and even the arts. Gastronomy is both hedonic and cerebral–both pleasurable and revealing about our well-being and social systems. Complex policy issues tied to disparities in the quality of life are deeply engrained in how we produce, distribute and consume food.

Julia Child brought both passion and intellect to cuisine—in a truly American way by appreciating and borrowing from other cultures, while embracing the American melting pot: taking the best and fusing it all together in a confident, open society. She understood that the next stage beyond the televised demonstration kitchen and the authoritative cookbook was the academic classroom.

When Julia Child called for “the serious study of food” at institutions like mine, this brought many scholars together who hadn’t known they shared a common interest. Food is ubiquitous—both across nations and across academic fields. Historians, cultural anthropologists and archeologists, nutritionists and physicians realized they studied similar subject matter: each from their own vantage point.

Food Studies is provoking scholarly conversations across internal academic cultures that rarely interact. Professional associations like the Association for the Study of Food in Society have hundreds of members who regularly share syllabi, scholarship and ideas. Culinary schools have long existed for those in training to prepare food, agricultural schools were funded to promote the science of food production, and hospitality-management departments had emerged at many universities for those who wanted to oversee others in hotels, restaurants and tourism. The recent interest, though, is even broader, more inclusive and more traditionally scholarly, yet not at the expense of the experiential and professional.

When it comes to anticipating and promoting new fields or new ways to link scholars across fields, most universities fail miserably. The major university tends to force the nontraditional into traditional slots, where segmented departments often resist the outlier or interloper as threats to the status quo. As a result, academic innovation is often a complex, if not treacherous, maze of internal entrepreneurs and marginalized academic champions, encouraged on by outside pressures and opportunities. Innovation sometimes results more from conspiracies and accidents than through strategies. Most universities lack a locus or home for the misfits, integrators and innovators. Student wishes push and the university often ignores, sometimes resists, but at times ultimately acquiesces.

The study of food not only spans disciplines and academic programs, but generations as well. We have found that we can teach culture through cuisine to youngsters, as pre-professional training for those seeking careers in food and wine fields, to those in the midst of their careers seeking a deeper and more scholarly approach through gastronomy, and to older students who wish to enrich their lives through a greater appreciation of what food customs and techniques reveal about their culture and others over time.

I would call for more majors and master’s degrees that challenge balkanization within academe, more respect for the importance of food in serious scholarship, and far greater recognition of the need to structure the modern university itself to be more receptive to emerging fields that defy the conventional structure. In the meantime, bon appétit.

Jay A. Halfond is dean of Metropolitan College and Extended Education at Boston University. He thanks BU’s professor Rachel Black (Gastronomy) and Dean Christopher Muller (Hospitality Administration) for their valuable insights.

Related Posts: Learning to Eat in the Dining Commons by Kenneth Cardone (pdf)

While most in the academic community know about the attempt to rein in the for-profits, few are aware of its collateral damage. In October, the Department of Education issued its Program Integrity Rules, intended to protect federal funds especially from those for-profit institutions with high student loan default rates. Well-intentioned though this was, the DOE dropped an inadvertent bombshell: All online programs without state-by-state approval to operate would risk losing their Title IV funds. The DOE had assumed that distance-learning programs routinely obtain state licensure in order to enroll students in that state. In fact, few institutions pay much attention to the home states of their online students—the very ubiquity of distance learning makes location irrelevant.

This set off a barrage of national meetings and attempts to lobby the DOE to retract this ruling. But the DOE, assuming that this rule merely reinforced the status quo, had boxed itself in, and couldn’t now suggest state approval should not be required. For the first time, the federal government would be enforcing state higher education licensure—the equivalent of making jaywalking a federal offense. While the risks might be low, the stakes were high; no institution would ever want to jeopardize title IV funds. Thus, schools have begun to inquire of each state (and territory) what would be necessary to be certified so that local residents might be able to enroll online. Only a very few institutions (and these are mainly large for-profits) ever considered that they might need each state’s approval in advance should someone from that state happened to join their online program.

Likewise, few states had thought much about out-of-state distance-learning programs, and few now have the resources or capacity to take on so many applications.  Many state regulations were devised pre-Internet, and intended to protect their citizens from unscrupulous propriety schools or franchise campuses disconnected from their mother ship. The Internet can bring home campus faculty from leading institutions everywhere through online programs that are truly reflective of the academic standards of their institution.

While a small fraction of the states explicitly mandate that out-of-state distance learning must be licensed, a comparably small number explicitly exempt purely online programs. The majority are ambiguous: Their guidelines either ignore distance learning altogether or suggest that some sort of physical presence triggers state oversight. These triggers might include the presence of local student recruiting or advertising, in-state faculty teaching online that term, proctored exams, student field experiences, or even an institutional office or program completely unrelated to distance learning. Without numerical thresholds, one student or online professor moving to that state might suddenly trigger the need for licensure. A subtle change in a state’s regulations could also trigger the need for an institution to seek licensure.

To attempt to clarify the regulations, the DOE issued two “dear colleague” letters. The first reinforced the need for state approval, while the second postponed the day of reckoning for three years for institutions to pursue state-by-state approval in good faith.

How will the states now respond? The signs thus far seem to suggest that some will shift towards exempting online programs to avoid how taxing this will be on their dwindling resources. Some states might band together to arrange reciprocity or regional approval processes. Other states could see this as a revenue-generating opportunity or a protectionist means of keeping out competing, carpetbagger academic programs.

How will academic institutions respond? Those already invested in distance learning have little choice: They must pay to play. They have no recourse but to commit whatever it takes to stay in distance learning. Depending on a school’s number of online programs, this can cost perhaps a million dollars initially—with some annual expenses continuing in perpetuity—along with countless hours of staff time. Some online programs are so predominately in-state that their schools might need to restrict future enrollment only to local students. The schools hurt most will be those with small numbers of online students distributed nationally across many online programs: Their costs to participate will be high and their revenues low.

The institutional winners will be those with the largest numbers of distance learning enrollments and the deepest pockets to pay whatever it takes to stay in business. The ultimate winner? In many cases, the very for-profits that the Department of Education was targeting in the first place. Why? This ruling effectively shuts the door on new entrants into the otherwise exploding world of e-learning.

The barrier to entry has just been raised if not locked. This ruling potentially solidifies the market share of the big players and unleashes them to grow significantly – at the expense of potential competition. These state-by-state upfront costs just to launch an online program will be stifling if not prohibitive. New, innovative online programs from high-quality institutions are far less likely to emerge. The public will continue to be wary of the integrity of distance education if America’s top institutions opt not to participate. Despite presidential rhetoric for increasing college completion rates, the administration has just made student access to quality higher learning all the more difficult and constrained the overall capacity of the nation’s institutions.

Distance learning most benefits the consumer, especially working students seeking part-time education. Online learning provides choices and educational opportunity never previously apparent to those who cannot relocate for their education. Distance learning brings e-commerce to higher education, with the adult learner as its greatest beneficiary. Distance learning had begun to make New England’s premier institutions available nationally and even globally. But, instead, we are now at risk that educational inequality based solely on where you happen to live will continue to prevail.

Jay A. Halfond is dean of Metropolitan College and Extended Education at Boston University.

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To listen as many of us incessantly complain, one would think academe is chronically resistant to change, new ideas and innovative programs. We often hear the smaller the stakes, the greater the petty battles—no opportunity is too minute to stall and impede. Before tenure, junior faculty need to be protected while they build their publications dossier; after tenure, they no longer need to care or demonstrate any institutional commitment or loyalty. Professional schools lag behind their professions rather than provide cutting-edge wisdom for their next generation, as faculty rely on their reservoir of dated materials and perspectives.

Or so we often hear.

I believe we don’t give ourselves enough credit for innovation and creative thinking within higher education. The soap operas of entrenched faculty, factions divided over trivia, professors protecting their sub-disciplines, lengthy and convoluted approval processes, and ongoing acrimony and melodrama all overshadow progress made without fanfare. The longer view of the history of the American college and university clearly demonstrates the responsiveness to changing societal needs and opportunities—with faculty often at the forefront of that change.

If a growing creative class, to use Richard Florida’s term, is the catalyst for our dynamic society, then the university is its temple. Cruise control is anathema to the academic temperament. Academics’ very psyche draws them to tinker rather than stagnate. Faculty are innately restless. Even when they devote their entire adult life to one institution, faculty often reinvent themselves several times over the course of their careers. This is one of the undervalued appeals of the academic life and the malleability of the academic enterprise. Professional lives can change even when titles do not. Faculty can move in and out of various roles. Universities, consequently, have been remarkably adaptable and even protean institutions over the centuries—and very capable of reinvention and delivering new knowledge and value to their expanding constituents. While the list of top corporations changed dramatically over the course of the past century, America’s leading universities have not: far more because of their resilience than their resistance to change.

David Riesman, sympathetic to the impediments that leaders face in higher education, coined the term “faculty veto group” to characterize the negative force faculty play in moving their institutions forward. Faculty block but rarely facilitate; micromanage and second-guess, rather than support their institution’s leadership. Though there is no denying the inherent intransigence in this stereotype, just as often faculty quietly innovate. We look for evidence of blockbuster changes when modest, incremental change is far more common, less detectable, and perhaps much more desirable. By focusing on the challenge of introducing major transformations or innovations, it is easy to overlook the march forward from ideas far more discreet, minute and local, though cumulatively perhaps even more impactful.

I would distinguish between micro- and macro-innovation—one a baby step and the other a major leap, one whispers and the other screams, the first overlooked and the latter overrated. Micro doesn’t mean mini; introducing innovations in the classroom, reinventing course content, developing interesting scholarly projects each pave the way for even larger breakthrough events. We tend to elevate and romanticize vision and self-proclaimed paradigm shifts, as if these are frequent and planned. “If you are having visions,” former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once said, “you should see a doctor.” Beware the prophet, but study the plodder. What is micro today can lead to macro tomorrow—with the foundation, reassurance and wisdom that help to ensure success. Lasting innovation benefits as much by slow cooking as stir-frying. So, let’s give a cheer or two to the academics we too often berate for their inertia.

Forecasting the future of various possible actions—or inactions—has inherent false negatives (thinking something looks safe, and it isn’t) and false positives (fearing something bad will occur, and it doesn’t). Potential risk should never paralyze an organization, but there are ways to mitigate that risk: seize concrete opportunities, take trial-and-error steps that minimize large investments or lingering commitments, select options that permit a variety of alternative paths, and avoid dependency on any set outcome. Academic innovators find ways for their institutions to be nimble rather than calcified, and avoid public megafailures. There are few institutions as unforgiving and intolerant of failure as academe.

In my experience, the most successful innovations occurred through steps that wouldn’t have been catastrophic if aborted, and worked out in ways, frankly, no one even predicted or planned. I would modify the popular business cliché “disruptive technology” to suggest that academe benefits most by its disruptive pedagogy. Trying new things causes old habits and assumptions to be revisited. While I am coining new jargon, I would also introduce the phrase “planned serendipity.” Strong academic leaders place themselves in the path of potentially good ideas and capitalize on them.

Chocolatier Willie Wonka morphed Thomas Edison’s famous edict (invention is 99% percent perspiration and 1% inspiration) into a slightly different, more mathematically-challenged formula: “Invention, my dear friends, is ninety-three percent perspiration, six percent electricity, four percent evaporation, and two percent butterscotch ripple.”

Effective academic leaders cleverly bring the butterscotch to the party.

Jay A. Halfond is dean of Metropolitan College and Extended Education at Boston University.