Journal of Higher Education Management - Vol 35(2)

education’ (p. 162) What the authors don’t explore is how the higher education community should develop the next generation of leaders on campus to address the issues they have identified.

Brown (2012) suggests that this century has ushered in the “Big Shift,” a period of “digital innovation” where skills evolve with technology changes that occur every year and a half. He contends in this model that old skills and knowledge must be unlearned to make way for new skills.

As it stands, the academy has functioned in an “S-Curve society” where education’s main concern had been to pass along “expert-generated knowledge to the next generation. However, this model no longer works in this digital world. Instead, we need to move from what Brown (2012) calls “skill efficiency and scalable efficiency to scalable learning.” This is the concept of incorporating thinking within depth participation in the continuous stream of understanding, where failing and retrying is expectable and understood as part of the learning environment. This is no different than what is considered common practice in any current video game. Video game players can be observed repeatedly trying, failing and trying again to learn how to make it to the next level of the game.

According to Thomas and Brown (2011), “In the new culture of learning, the classroom as a model is replaced by learning environments in which digital media provide access to a rich source of information and play, and the processes that occur within those environments are integral to the results.” The authors suggest that within this “new culture” of learning, focus is placed on the students’ engagement “within the world.”

If this is true about the type of learning that must take place in the academy, and we have moved from an “S-Curve” learning environment to a “Big Shift” environment, then both teaching and learning must find a way to adapt to this new model as does leadership in its support of such a dynamic learning environment. The way in which we view, develop and foster the next generation of leaders must shift to keep up with the realities of the 21st century academy.

It could be argued that some of the issues/struggles faced by current academic leaders could very well be linked to an “S-Curve” mentality in every evolving “Big Shift” world. One in which current leadership, having been indoctrinated in an “S-Curve,” world struggle with even the routine issues such as enrollment, budget, faculty recruitment, only to be confounded by the digital world encroaching on the academy. This may provide some understanding of the negative trend of years served by presidents of institutions, as noted in the American College President Study (ACE, 2018).

Kerr (2001) describes our current model of higher education as the “Multiversity,” which is a combination of the German educational model whose focus is research, a British model which seeks knowledge for knowledge sake and the American model whose concern is on serving the common citizen. These views of contrasting higher education have long endured. However, since Kerr first wrote about the “Multiversity”, a shift towards the “American model”, with its focus on the common citizen has occurred. And while this can be seen in some cases as a good thing, it may have also created a more unstable, unfocused institution, now dealing with the rapid explosion of technology and information and therefore more unable to navigate all of the issues and obstacles facing today’s higher education.

“The Multiversity is an inconsistent institution. It is not one Community but several” (Kerr, 2001, p. 14). And while Kerr goes on to name the various communities that he considered on and off campus, he had not foreseen either the global or digital communities that we now reside in. He does suggest, rightfully so, that the institution “looks far into the past and far into the future, as often at odds with the present (Kerr 2001, p. 14).”

In addition, presidents of these institutions have an expectation of being everything to everyone with an eye towards being guardian of education in general. This would require that a successful president loves the arts, academics, as well as, sports (Kerr, 2001). The expectations of those in this position have become crushing, leading to a decline of years serves. This may have also led to fewer 13