New responsibilities for post-secondary education in the 21st century – Nancy Zimpher Chancellor of New York University

Setting the scene of the importance of HE through the ages including the great depression, WW2, the space race and now the new opportunities afforded by the information age. Climate change, smart energy, the knowledge economy. The cost of HE and whether its is worth participating. You are not Mark Zuckerburg – stay in school. Educating more people and better is the best bet any society can make. A higher education is the single best investment you can make in your life. Affordability, Access (and completion), Accountability. In New York State alone there are 11 million people in need for Higher education; flexible and on learners own terms, opening career opportunities. Technology has a key role to play. The role of ‘applied learning’ as a feature of success is made as a successful bridge between HE success and entry into the workforce. A call to design curriculum to embrace hands on learning in real world settings. Collective impact as a step beyond collaboration – work together to enhance outcomes.

KEY LEARNING; The completion agenda is clearly a big issue in America. The UK HE model is aping that of America and yet here at Educause there’s a sense of the system being far from perfect. Make college practical, but not excessively so, lower the price, without lowering standards, look to technologies to help. I’m excited about educational analytics and have blogged in detail here about its potential. Jisc, HESA and HESPA are working together to help the UK HE sector move this important area forward through provision of tools and services and today we came to an agreement on a joint 2 year project to provide such to the 164 publicly funded providers of Higher Educaiton in the UK. Educause are very active in developing advice and guidance, while EUNIS have a task force. Looking across these and trying to achieve economies in effort and expertise to achieve mutual benefits seem prime. I hope to engage further with the EUNIS BI taskforce and have taken a position on the Educause program committee for 2015. I hope to play a role in taking the BI and analytics in education agendas forward and look forward to the challenges and benefits ahead.