Tearing down the proverbial walls around universities and connecting them with their neighborhoods is a nascent movement first heralded by CEOs for Cities in its inaugural study written by Michael Porter. But while strong examples of university-community partnerships continue to appear throughout the U.S., the movement may be threatened by two developments.

The first is exemplified by the announcement yesterday by Northwestern University that it has completed a deal to open divisions of its journalism and communications schools in Quatar.

The second is the news that the average tenure for university presidents and chancellors is now down to 3-5 years.

Universities, in other words, are beginning to sound a lot like corporations. And where once, corporations were the source of local community leadership, investment and distinctiveness, that is rarely the case today. Corporate leaders are too busy competing globally to have much time left for local affairs. And because CEO tenure is short and CEOs are increasingly mobile, there is little local loyalty at a personal level.

Just as a new relationship is being spawned between town and gown, will the movement stall as universities begin experiencing corporate-type pressures?

There are no comments for this entry.

Post a Comment

*Name:

E-mail Address:

URL:

*Comment:

Please type this word:

*required fields. your email address will not be published

Please leave the following field blank: