University of the Pacific

Problems Solved: Visioning the Future of Learning, Work and Professional Practice; Fresh Vision and Leadership, Changing Culture and Behaviors, Developing Organizational Capacity		Strategic Focus: Leading and Navigating Change, Crafting and Executing Strategy, Developing Organizational Capacity; Tapping the Capacity of Personal Responsibility for Perpetual Learning
Project Team: Donald Norris, Anya Kamenetz, Phyllis Grummon

The metaphor of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Personal Learning is an unexcelled device for reimagining our future.  Strategic Initiatives designed the Strategic Planning Project at the University of the Pacific in this fashion.  We utilized Anya Kamenetz as a member of our Project Team, engaging students through interviews, providing a keynote address, participating in the Futures Symposium, and engaging university leaders to frame a new, two-faced context for visioning, based on DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education:

• In one sense, the new approaches to DIY Learning create a complex constellation of alternatives to institution-based learning pathways, enabling Millennial learners to craft options that are less expensive, more unbundled, and more linked to the world of work than traditional institutional offerings; this is DIY U as threat;

• In a parallel sense, however, DIY personal learning can be deployed by existing institutions to reinvent their processes and practices to enrich, enhance and extend personal learning, creating a fresh version of the life-long learner, updated for perpetual learning at the pace and scope of the internet/Web and fully integrated with experience and the world of work; this is DIY personal, perpetual learning as opportunity.

This is not just repackaging or rebranding.  It requires a real “flip” in the perspectives and practices of individual faculty, programs, institutions, and professional practice.  And it requires that students actually develop the requisite habits of mind, body and spirit through experience in applying modern tools and patterns of engagement.

The real story is preparing graduates for success in a dramatically changing 21st Century world of learning, work and professional practice, which will be defined by DIY personal learning.  These will be dominated by digital denizens who can engage in the eLifestyle to achieve affordable and valued forms of perpetual learning which they seamlessly integrate into problem solving and teamwork on a just-in-time basis.  The capacities of such individuals will increase exponentially with the progressive take-up and refinement of next-generation devices and personal performance tools supported by artificial intelligence, analytics, and data mining.  Even today, the leading edge of such activities is reshaping every profession - from law to teaching to medicine, health and wellness to engineering, architecture and design - and the way that commercial enterprises do business.  Graduates need to have encountered several versions of such environments in their authentic learning experiences, if they are to develop the range of insights and responses needed to thrive thereafter.

At the University of the Pacific, these concepts have been baked into the Strategic Planning Process.  This is especially appropriate to Pacific, which has a strong portfolio of professional programs and a liberal arts core and a reputation for preparing graduates for lives of meaning and success as citizens, professionals, and practitioners.  The Strategic Planning Process has been designed to incorporate these perspectives and engage substantial numbers of faculty and staff in conversations and explorations.  This is part of the capacity building element that is a critical element of a planning process that is truly strategic.