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Refiguring the Spiritual

Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living

After God

Mystic Bones

Confidence Games: Money and Markets in

a World Without Redemption

Grave Matters

The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture

About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture

The Picture in Question: Mark Tansey and the

Ends of Representation

Critical Terms for Religious Studies

Hiding

Imagologies: Media Philosophy

Nots

Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion

Double Negative

Tears

Altarity

Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy

Erring: A Postmodern A/theology

Deconstructing Theology

Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard

Unfinished: Essays in Honor of Ray L. Hart

Religion and the Human Image

Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship:

A Study of Time and the Self

For

Selma Linnea

and

Elsa Ingrid

All things are entwined, enmeshed, enamored.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Dedication

1. Reprogramming the Future

2. Beginning of the End

3. Back to the Future

4. Emerging Network Culture

5. Education Bubble

6. Networking Knowledge

7. Walls to Webs

8. New Skills for a Changing Workforce

9. Class of 2020

Acknowledgments

Notes

Permissions Acknowledgments

A Note About the Author

Copyright

1

Reprogramming the Future

American higher education has long been the envy of the world. Much of the most important research that has contributed to the advancement of knowledge and enrichment of human life historically has been conducted in our colleges and universities. In the years following World War II, increasing prosperity and enlightened government policies led to rapidly expanding undergraduate programs that created new opportunities for countless young people. But in the past four decades, this situation has gradually deteriorated. The quality of higher education is declining; colleges and universities are not adequately preparing students for life in a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive world. As emerging technologies continue to transform how we manage information and acquire knowledge, students will need to develop new skills and even learn different ways of thinking, reading and writing. The accelerating rate of globalization will make it necessary for people to learn more about other societies and cultures. These developments also pose new challenges and opportunities for the organization and delivery of higher education. Changes in how information is distributed and knowledge communicated will both create more competition in higher education and provide the occasion for new forms of cooperation at the local, national and even global level. While many regard these developments as a threat to the quality of American higher education, I believe they offer the possibility of greatly expanding and enriching educational opportunities for people not only in this country but throughout the world.

Meeting these challenges will not be easy. Entrenched interests on campuses across the country remain resistant to change and refuse to accept that fundamental transformations are not only necessary but unavoidable. The growing number of college and university faculty members focused on their research and publishing careers has led to a conflict between the preoccupations of professors and the needs of students. As the interests of those faculty members become more specialized and the subjects of their publications more esoteric, the curriculum becomes increasingly fragmented and the educational process loses its coherence as well as its relevance for the broader society. If this trend continues, a growing number of young people and their parents will begin to question the value of higher education.

These problems are compounded by mounting financial pressures that are making it considerably harder for students to afford higher education and for schools to remain on the cutting edge of research