Rethinking Higher Education: A Case Study of Institutional Transformation

Abstract

U.S. public higher education faces increasing challenges, including changing models of educational delivery, declining state funding, alternative credentialing, demographic shifts in student populations, questions concerning the relevancy of the curriculum, increased cost, and increasing competition. This paper presents a case study of one of the most comprehensive higher education redesign efforts at an urban research university. reTHINK PSU, a presidential initiative at Portland State University (PSU), is a campus-wide effort to deliver an education that serves more students with better outcomes, while containing costs through curricular innovation, community engagement, and effective use of technology. reTHINK PSU projects follow a well-designed roadmap for developing solutions for challenges facing PSU. The initiative used the principles of open innovation, design thinking, project management, and the creation of innovation platforms to launch a series of successful projects. This paper will summarize these efforts and will outline an organizational transformation strategy that may be replicated by other institutions wanting to innovate and redesign their operations.

Keywords: Innovation, Higher Education, Design Thinking, Crowdsourcing