The unnamed folks over at Microgeist posed an interesting question in the article, Will Social Media and the Internet Kill the University System.
The answer is no. No it won’t. The University system is too firmly entrenched in our business culture, and too many businesses believe you must have a degree in the area you’re seeking a job in. Social media won’t unseat the university system any time soon. The Internet may change how we obtain knowledge, but you’ll still need a degree from an accredited university to get that job.
They did raise an interesting question however.
Will The Internet force professors out of the Ivory Tower?
We’re starting to see this somewhat. The Ivory Tower was originally the idea that professors were isolated “from practical matters” so they could work unimpeded toward “greater levels of abstraction which can then be converted via various design, engineering and business principles into something more pragmatic.”
The problem is, some professors began to see themselves as the Philosopher-Kings of society, and we unwashed masses were left to scrabble an intellectual existence out of whatever crumbs they might carelessly drop.
The Internet is starting to knock down the Ivory Tower though. Now, people are able to share knowledge with one another, without professorial filtration. Graduate students are publishing articles in blogs. Professors’ class notes and lecture videos are available online. And thousands of entrepreneurs are writing books about subjects that are making their way back to the universities, not the other way around.
It used to be that new ideas and new practices came from the university level, and were slowly absorbed into business, medicine, or the arts, as the graduates entered the field, were promoted, and the old ways of thinking died out.
Now, it’s the professionals who are writing the books and developing the ideas that are slow to catch on in higher education. Social media is a great example of this.
I’ve spoken with a few friends — social media professionals and experts — who have spoken at different college classes, and are finding that not only do students not know how to use social media (collaboration, tweetups, networking), but many of them don’t even know what tools are out there beyond Facebook. And the concept of face-to-face networking with others to form beneficial relationships? One friend said the students just stared at her blankly when she brought it up.
Basically, colleges and universities are going to have to realize that life has gone on without them, and knowledge has grown beyond them. They’re going to have to climb down from their ivory towers and catch up with the rest of us. Start spending time in the real world. Hang out. Learn from the people you were teaching 5, 10, 20 years ago. They’ve got a lot more they can teach you now.
What other information is getting shared outside of the University’s influence? What new knowledge is being spread— or have you spread — without them? And what can the universities do to keep up? Leave your ideas in the comments section.
