No higher education institution can remain static in today’s rapidly changing workforce environment. The next evolution of academic programming, in fact, requires revolution, Ozlem Kilic, inaugural dean of the University of Tennessee’s College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies, says on The University Business Podcast.
“As emerging technologies abruptly change the way we live and work, higher ed finds itself in a conundrum,” she says. “We want to educate for the future, but we are not necessarily optimized structurally and process-wise to respond at this new pace.”
Rather than break down silos, Kilic hopes her college, founded July 2023, provides a central forum for the university to quickly scale cutting-edge curriculum that responds to career-bending trends in data science, AI and everywhere those two disciplines intersect.
“It enables us to leverage our existing strengths on campus, share resources and do things efficiently in a way where we don’t complicate it,” Kilic says. “We’re here to provide students a clear path in these topics and to their careers of the future.”
The college isn’t just looking at STEM in new ways, Kilic adds. With AI investment poised to hit $200 billion globally by 2025, Kilic is working to connect the University of Tennessee with a broad range of industry partners that can help inform curriculum, provide internship opportunities and help the college stay relevant. Aside from its three new undergraduate degrees, the college invites multidisciplinary collaboration through an armada of minors, exploratory courses and undergraduate certificates. The latter can be “stacked” to create a custom degree.
“It was great fun to come up with the idea and the model, but [the college] would have remained as a two-page white paper if we didn’t have innovative leadership, starting with our president to vice chancellor for research and our provost. That was the game changer.”
If you’re looking for a quick tip on building your own dynamic, innovative curriculum, try this advice:
“If an institution is planning to make a disruptive change, this revolutionary approach—rather than evolutionary—must work with campus culture,” Kilic says. “Otherwise, many good ideas will die on task forces or committee discussions because of the time it takes. As an engineer, the most critical thing I had to embrace—and it was hard work—was communication.”
You can listen to this episode at any time on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Podbean or down below.
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