President Parrish addressed the faculty and a small number of administrators at a special faculty meeting, held two Thursdays ago in Kinnicut Hall, as well as a group of students at a special meeting last Thursday. The topic of discussion was the future of WPI, and the necessity for action. This is directly related to the Strategic Steering Committee, chaired by Prof. Weininger, created early this academic year. The presentation addressed the president's thoughts on where WPI now stands, the current status of the education field in general, and the reasons stating the need for change.
Currently, WPI stands as a premier institution far ahead of the rest of the field. The WPI plan embodies a large number of the recommendations the industry has been recently suggesting as the future for education. These include project oriented education, communication and team skills, global awareness, interdisciplinary understanding, and a strong humanitarian background. As the president stated, WPI embodies everything the industry is looking for, even if they don't know it yet.
The largest problem however, is that times have changed, and if WPI wants to remain the cutting edge of education, some amount of action is required. Because the WPI Plan contains all of the ideas that they are looking for means that WPI currently has a lead in education. In a presentation to the Frontiers in Education Conference, the president related the feeling that "[WPI] graduates report that life in industry is one IQP and MQP after another." Unfortunately, this also means that other institutions are soon going to be adopting similar programs, meaning the opportunity will not last long. Since 1990, the National Science Foundation has poured more than 100 million dollars into Coalitions of colleges and universities nationwide that are attempting to create programs like the WPI Plan that meet the recommendations proposed by the industry.
The WPI Plan in its day was a revolutionary step in education, but unfortunately is out of date. Its also has a large number of problems associated with it, such as resource allocation and determination. The times have also changed, eighteen year-olds are making up a smaller fraction of the student body as years do by, and students economic backgrounds are continuously becoming mismatched with an institution such as WPI with a tuition in the twenty to twenty-five thousand dollar tuition range. In the general field, an attitude of greater accountability has grown considerable, and even WPI must ensure that it justifies its choices to parents and employers.
"The planets are lined up," said President Parrish, and it is uncertain when this window of opportunity will arise again. WPI has an established product, and a strong history in cutting edge education. Because of this, it is much easier to make the 'next step' in education long before the competition, as they work to equal our current progress.
Currently, three large projects are going forward that will help to make the next change. The Steering Committee will provide the outline of what WPI should be in the future, and what the face of education will look like. The goal is to have the 'big picture' defined by April of 1997 to be presented at the trustees spring meeting. The BDAC (Budgetary Development Advisory Committee), created last year is looking at how to improve financial bottlenecks and stop from reinventing financial solutions. Third, the Capital Campaign, which will begin soon, will be ushering in a large number of changed to the campus, least of which will be the addition of a long-awaited campus center. It is important not to see these as separate activities, but as part of a much bigger picture. Each of these is linked into the future of WPI.
Finally, the president unveiled a number of vague, and admittedly questionable, goals and objectives for the future of WPI. He stated, "I'm not trying to come down with stone tables from Mt. Wachussett", but more to simply start the goal setting process with some suggestions. These included; integrate more research with undergraduate activities, achieve more external funding, doubling as a method of finance and as a way to get WPI's name out, refine and extend project based education into freshman and doctoral programs, emphasize values as well as academics, leverage positive scientific findings that state the way we teach and the way we learn are inconsistent, creative use of information technology, and to recognize and adapt to continuing change.