Event Moment: Chapman University’s Marshall Toplansky Defines the Need for Change at the Governance Level in Higher Ed

How can universities become more nimble to be able to move at the speed and the requirements of the marketplace? In this moment, excerpted from the Fireside Chat session “AI Will Change How People Learn and the Business of Education,” Marshall Toplansky, Innovation Professor, Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, highlights the need for change at the governance level to accept new innovations.

Key Takeaways

• Governance change: For universities to keep up with the rapid pace of the marketplace, there is a competitive factor forced into this. “In order to pull it off, the governance structure at universities is something that’s an impediment to change,” Toplansky says.
• Re-evaluating for change: Universities are largely governed by the faculty and function on the tenure system. Once given tenure, a faculty member’s incentive to change is not there. He suggests, “This needs to be looked at really at an atomic level.”