Publisher Description

Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring, building on what Christensen has done for business, healthcare, and K-12 education, apply Christensen's model of disruptive innovation to higher education. Unlike the many doom and gloom books that have come out recently, they offer a nuanced and hopeful analysis of where the traditional university and its traditions have come from and how it needs to change and find new models for the future. Through an intriguing examination of the histories and current transformations of the authors’ two very different university homes—Harvard and BYU-Idaho—and through other stories of innovation in higher education, Eyring and Christensen decipher how universities can find innovative, less costly ways of performing their uniquely valuable functions and save themselves from decline.  They explain the strategic choices for traditional universities to consider and alternative ways in which they might be made. As higher education communities face vast operating problems like fluctuations in enrollment, overexpansion of campus capacity and non-academic activities, and battles between local boosters and governing boards, this book offers novel insights into the kind of change that is necessary to ensure the economic vitality of the traditional university. It uncovers how the traditional university survives by breaking with tradition, but thrives by building on what it’s done best.

Author Biography

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the founder of Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank. He is the author of many books, including The Innovator's Dilemma, and has applied his theory to K--12 education in Disrupting Class and to medicine in The Innovator's Prescription. Henry J. Eyring serves as an administrator at Brigham Young University-Idaho. He is a former strategy consultant at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Monitor Company.

Table of Contents

Preface vii Acknowledgments xv Introduction: Ripe for Disruption and Innovation xix Part One: Reframing the Higher Education Crisis Chapter 1 The Educational Innovator s Dilemma: Threat of Danger, Reasons for Hope 3 Part Two: The Great American University Chapter 2 Puritan College 33 Chapter 3 Charles Eliot, Father of American Higher Education 46 Chapter 4 Pioneer Academy 72 Chapter 5 Revitalizing Harvard College 80 Chapter 6 Struggling College 98 Chapter 7 The Drive for Excellence 110 Chapter 8 Four-Year Aspirations in Rexburg 139 Chapter 9 Harvard s Growing Power and Profile 148 Chapter 10 Staying Rooted 157 Part Three: Ripe for Disruption Chapter 11 The Weight of the DNA 171 Chapter 12 Even at Harvard 185 Chapter 13 Vulnerable Institutions 192 Chapter 14 Disruptive Competition 206 Part Four: A New Kind of University Chapter 15 A Unique University Design 223 Chapter 16 Getting Started 238 Chapter 17 Raising Quality 249 Chapter 18 Lowering Cost 276 Chapter 19 Serving More Students 301 Part Five: Genetic Reengineering Chapter 20 New Models 325 Chapter 21 Students and Subjects 347 Chapter 22 Scholarship 358 Chapter 23 New DNA 379 Chapter 24 Change and the Indispensable University 396 Notes 403 The Authors 445 Innosight Institute 447 Index 449

Review

"Scholars will find this work a good point of departure for asking more pointed questions about how nest to meet the demands of an increasingly disparate population of students (and potential students) who have different needs and expectations from previous generations of college-going individuals." -- Journal of College Student Retention Vol. 15 (3)

Review Text

"Scholars will find this work a good point of departure for asking more pointed questions about how nest to meet the demands of an increasingly disparate population of students (and potential students) who have different needs and expectations from previous generations of college-going individuals." ? Journal of College Student Retention Vol. 15 (3)

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