ANALYZING DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION IN U. LIBERAL ARTS HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS by Huiyuan Ye B., Shanghai International Studies University, 2006 M., Shanghai International Studies University, 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education University of Pittsburgh 2017 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF EDUCATION This dissertation was presented by Huiyuan Ye It was defended on July 27, 2017 and approved by Stewart E., Clinical Professor, School of Education Michael G., Associate Professor, School of Education Susan K., Associate Professor, School of Business Dissertation Advisor: W. James Jacob, Ph., Associate Professor, School of Education ii Copyright © by Huiyuan Ye 2017 iii ANALYZING DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION IN U. LIBERAL ARTS HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS Huiyuan Ye, Ed.
University of Pittsburgh, 2017 Independent liberal arts colleges (LACs) are slowly disappearing from the landscape of U. Depletion of endowments, mission creep, and a stigma in institutional innovation are prominent factors that threaten this institutional legacy of higher education. On the other hand, LAC graduates are constantly sought after by employers as strong job candidates, suggesting that the LACs in the United States need an innovative approach to self- transformation. Propelled by technological advancement and based on the marketing principles of non-competition, job-to-be-done, and unbundling, Clayton Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation Theory (DI) has been adopted in the social sector for a few years.
There is no evidence suggesting that the LACs are immune to the impact of DI and its examples (e., MOOC) that have already entered the higher education sector. The Disruptive Innovation Theory can be enriched by lending a transformational vision to a higher education sub-sector, but there is a glaring shortage of empirical research that aims at developing the two concepts through their marriage. This dissertation research employed a mixed method of online survey and semi- structured interview with senior administrators from 225 private "Baccalaureate Colleges - Arts iv & Sciences Focus" based on 2015 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The senior administrators are equivalents of chief academic officer, chief information officer, and chief financial officer from each institution.
Conceptual awareness and existing models of disruptive innovation were analyzed and presented in this study. Keywords: Liberal arts college; Disruptive innovation; Institutional innovation; Governance in higher education; Educational technology v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .1 AN OLD FRIEND: THE LIBERAL ARTS .2 A NEWCOMER: DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION .6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .1 UNIQUE VALUES OF LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION .2 Communication of disciplinary knowledge .2 CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES FACING AMERICAN INDEPENDENT LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES .1 Causes for optimism .1 Financial difficulties: A domino effect starting from demand .3 WHAT DOES DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION BRING TO THE TABLE? .1 Disruptive innovation and sustaining innovation .2 MOOC: An example of DI in higher education .3 The theory of DI .2 Job-to-be-done .4 The way forward.1 GUIDING THEORY AND METHODOLOGY .2 PARTICIPANTS AND PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS .4 ETHICAL CONCERNS OF RESEARCH DESIGN .5 RATIONALE OF DATA COLLECTION METHODS.1 RESULTS OF DATA COLLECTION .1 Participating LACs in the online survey .2 Individual participants in the online survey .3 Individual participants in the follow-up interview .2 RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS ON THE ONLINE SURVEY .1 General awareness and conceptualization of disruptive innovation.2 Contextualizing non-competition and job-to-be-done: Rationales for faculty and students choosing their LACs .3 Contextualizing unbundling: Focus and relevance of LACs .4 Existence of DI examples at U. liberal arts colleges .5 Summary of findings from the online survey.3 RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS ON THE FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEWS .1 The strengths of U. liberal arts colleges .2 The weaknesses of U.
liberal arts colleges .3 The extent of DI changing the status quo of U. liberal arts colleges .4 The opportunities DI brings to the U. liberal arts colleges .5 The threats DI brings to the U. liberal arts colleges.6 The role of DI in institutional innovation of U.
liberal arts colleges.7 Existing examples of DI in U. liberal arts colleges and three case studies .0 DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS, AND FURTHER THOUGHTS.1 CAOS, CIOS & CFOS .2 DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION & LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES .4 SCALING A GREAT EDUCATIONAL MODEL .5 ON DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AS A STRATEGIC TOOL. 169 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1. 2007-2008 market value of 225 private LACs’ endowment assets ($000).
Rationale for selecting participating institutions. Outline of research methodology. Summary of individual participants and participating LACs. Participating LACs and their geographic locations.
Distribution of participating LACs across states. Individual participants in the follow-up interview. Profiles of the 19 participating LACs in the follow-up interview. Breakdown of Responses to Survey Question 2.
Senior administrators’ opinions on the importance of key components of a successful LAC. Senior administrators’ opinions on their institutions’ commitment to the key components of an LAC. Senior administrators’ opinions on key components’ contribution to institutional mission. Summary of the opinions on the extent of DI changing the status quo of U.
liberal arts colleges. Summary of the opinions on the opportunities DI brings to the U. Liberal Arts Colleges. Summary of the opinions on the threats DI brings to the U.
Liberal Arts Colleges. Summary of the opinions on the role of DI in institutional innovation of U. Liberal Arts Colleges. Summary of the DI Examples from the 19 LACs.
Sample Ideas of DLRD Proposals at LAC20. 145 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Graduation rates of “at-risk” students at public 4-year HEIs and LACs. Four quadrants of innovation.
How does a disruptive technology disrupt?. Hypothetical framework of DI in higher education/LACs. Guiding framework for analyzing DI in the LAC context. 3+1 model of disruptive innovation.
Comparisons between CAO, CIO, and CFO mean values on the 11 statements. Shared themes of the reasons for students and faculty choosing their LACs. Student-only themes of the reasons for choosing their LACs. Faculty-only themes of the reasons for choosing their LACs.
Comparisons between CAO, CIO, and CFO perspectives on the importance of key components of a successful LAC. Alignment between the importance, commitment, and contribution factors for the key components of an LAC. Are you aware of a current example of disruptive innovation at your institution?. Mind map of the strengths of the U.
liberal arts colleges. Mind map of the weaknesses of the U. liberal arts colleges. The SWOT Mind Map of the U.
Liberal Arts Colleges. 155 xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to the gracious guidance from Professors W. James Jacob, Stewart E. Gunzenhauser, and Susan K.
This study is dedicated for my beloved Peilu Wang as well as a defense for the liberal arts.0 INTRODUCTION In 2009, I made a decision after receiving my master’s degree in English Language and Literature in China that I would go to the United States to pursue my doctorate. At that time, I had no idea as to what I would like to study or a clear projection about my future career. The sole reason for me to fly over was that this country as a world leader in higher education had so intrigued me that I felt like risking a few years of my life to see it with my own eyes. I naturally selected the subject of higher education… management.
I had a little trouble making applications because initially I thought the higher education institutions (HEIs) in this country were lined up by a homogeneous ranking system where one HEI was supposed to be better than the other if it appeared first to the eyes in that single system. I felt ridiculed to find myself surrounded by a host of ranking categories such as “Top Public Schools”, “Best Value Schools”, “A+ Schools for B Students”, “Best Historically Black Colleges and Universities”, and “Best Liberal Arts Colleges”, to name a few (U. News & World Report 2016). This was the first time that I realized the core strengths of American higher education come not from homogeneity, but diversity which represents an unrelenting call for recognizing and fostering different values that together contribute to the excellence of human learning.
In 2010 and 2011, Williams College, a private liberal arts college housing a student population of mere two thousand, was refereed by Forbes magazine as the best American undergraduate institution ahead of every Ivy League university. A loyalty to the teaching of “the 1 simple joy of learning” and a claim of her most practical offerings being “openness, creativity, flexibility, and power of education in the liberal arts” (Williams College 2016) rendered the triumph of Williams College not only a surprise but also a revelation. It brought light to me that, within the discourse of American higher education, the revered doctoral-level education, symbolized by monolithic research universities, was not the sole path toward human excellence. There are, on the other hand, liberal arts colleges that cherish a bit of something else.
Upon this realization, I was ignited to the inquiry about this unique HEI species that was completely alien to me eight years ago.1 AN OLD FRIEND: THE LIBERAL ARTS It is important to make it clear from the very beginning that my study focus is upon the independent liberal arts colleges in the United States, rather than liberal arts education in general. However, I shall inevitably delve into some of the useful information about liberal arts education in order to guide my inquiry as to the effectiveness of these institutions in providing liberal arts education. The term liberal arts, or artes liberales in Latin, originated during the Late Antiquity where seven canonical subjects emerged in two groups, i. trivium, the humanities that consist of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and quadrivium, the scientific arts of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.
Mastery of the seven subjects were believed to bestow freedom of mind, a noble and lofty educational pursuit that was carried over later to the United States in a peculiar institutional form. In the contemporary discourse of American higher education where liberal arts is still largely relevant, the independent liberal arts colleges bear a better witness to how this 2 educational ideal is still being preserved and advocated. However, being disproportionally smaller in number than other HEIs often rattling with their own contentious issues, these colleges are underrepresented in their efforts of advocating a higher education that is more than skills training and job preparation. It is highly revealing to examine how colleges like Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst have maintained their prominence in American higher education vis- à-vis the likes of Ivy Leagues and state universities.
The independent liberal arts colleges in the United States are also underrepresented in terms of institutional struggles and difficulties. Empirical research to address these issues is strikingly rare. Among few, David Breneman (1990) and Louis Menand (2001) reported sharp decrease respectively in independent liberal arts colleges and liberal arts enrollments in the past several decades, due to depreciation of liberal arts education and a vocational orientation of American higher education. Consequently, misinformed and negative opinions emerged toward liberal arts and independent liberal arts colleges, which caused further statistical drops, and thus the vicious cycle.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for a college in trouble is a drastic transformational approach that may or may not work. The latest 2015 version of Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education suggested a 6.3 percent shrink of the “Baccalaureate Colleges – Arts and Science Focus” classification which constituted only 5.4 percent of all the higher education institutions in the United States. Of those “disappearing” colleges, two announced closure in the past five years, with many others adding vocational-oriented programs and consequently becoming less focused on the liberal arts.2 A NEWCOMER: DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION The 21st century presents another challenge toward independent liberal arts colleges with an unprecedented call for innovation. Clayton Christensen, Professor of Harvard Business School, contributed a significant dent to the mystery of why some innovations succeed when others fail, which, despite the business discourse, sheds a light upon how a surplus of less meaningful innovations cannot but perpetuate the stagnations in higher education.