Post-secondary education will play a crucial role in the future success of our country. But to play that role, it must change. To accept change means first to accept reality, and that means recognizing that many people believe things that are no longer true or perhaps never were true. In other words, they are myths.

One such myth is that Canadians are better educated and trained than citizens in developing countries. All you have to do is look to India or China or Eastern Europe to know that this is just not true. Graduates emerging from schools in those countries are just as competent and just as knowledgeable as Canadian graduates, and most are much more motivated. They take nothing for granted. Partly through circumstance and partly through mindset (or, part- ly through luck and partly through choice), many of these young people possess a wider worldview and are hungrier to contribute. They know the living conditions in the West, and they want to have them.

This isn’t to say that developing countries educate their full populations. There are huge problems of poverty, and unfortunately it is the poor who have the most children and receive the least education, fuelling the cycle of poverty. But these countries also have burgeoning middle classes, some larger than 10 times our country’s total population.

Canada cannot rest on its laurels and assume that people from develop- ing nations are unable to outperform us in higher learning. The fact is that they are getting better. I submit that our institutions of higher learning need to raise themselves to a whole new level of performance and results. In the private sector, our performance and results are constantly being meas- ured, and capital goes to the perform- ers. The phenomenon Darwin called survival of the fittest drives the private sector to constantly get better. Nonperformers cease to exist. When was the last time a public university ceased to exist? When was the last time the results of universities were actually measured?

We all know there’s the Maclean’s survey, but I mean measurements like the quality of the undergraduate teaching experience and the preparation of students ”” not just to survive, but to thrive and contribute ”” measured by the actual ability of students to find good jobs in the fields in which they graduate. It’s hard to do this measurement, you say! Well, the technical schools do just that and report it in their public accountability reports. In business, we also know that we won’t survive if we don’t produce products that are in demand. For uni- versities, this means allocating resources in relation to the needs and demands of society, in other words, to focus resources on turning out gradu- ates who can get jobs. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard graduates complain, ”œThere are no jobs,” when it was clear four years earlier that the courses they took were not of much use in a competitive job market.

Leading a large corporation is a lot easier than leading a large research-based university. That’s because CEOs can hire the people they want, and together with the board, establish the expectations, strategy and rewards to achieve the company’s objectives. CEOs can make change happen. I believe it was Charles Givens who said, ”œBefore you have an argument with your boss, you’d better take a good look at both sides: his side…and the outside.” We all know it’s not so straightforward in a colle- gial university setting.

I have seen a copy of the Boyer Commission report on undergraduate education at research-based universi- ties in the United States (Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities). I under- stand that many people believe the report’s findings were pretty much on the mark for Canadian universities as well. The report doesn’t paint a pretty picture of undergraduate education at large, research-based universities. Remember my point about allocating resources in response to the needs of society (where the jobs are)? Here’s some perspective from the Boyer report: ”œUniversity budgets are now based on the principle of departmental hegemony; as a result, important inno- vations such as new approaches through interdisciplinarity are often doomed for lack of departmental sponsorship. Departments necessarily think in terms of protecting and advancing their own interests, defined in numbers of faculty, courses and majors. Initiatives for change coming from sources outside departments are viewed as threats rather than opportu- nities. New decisions on distributing resources must be carried out at the highest levels in the university, and they can be expected to meet little enthusiasm from those whose interests are protected by existing systems.”

But here is the report’s wake-up call: ”œResearch universities cannot continue to operate as though the world around them is that of 1930 or 1950 or 1980. As everyone knows, it is changing with dizzying rapidity. These universities must respond to the change; indeed they ought to lead it. Their students, properly educated for the new millennium, will be required as leaders while that world continues to transform itself.”

As I said, the technical school and college systems have been much more responsive to the need for change and the needs of their cus- tomers. On this subject, I again quote the Boyer report: ”œIn a context of increasing stress ”” declining gov- ernmental support, increased costs, mounting outside criticism, and growing consumerism from students and their families ”” universi- ties too often continue to behave with complacency, indifference, or forgetfulness toward that constituency whose support is vital to the academic enterprise. Baccalaureate students are the second-class citizens who are allowed to pay taxes but are barred from voting, the guests at the banquet who pay their share of the tab but are given leftovers.”

Pretty strong stuff, but reality. Those who suffer the greatest negative impact from institutional resistance to renewal are the university’s customers: students, parents, employers, and ulti- mately, all Canadians.

What then, are some possible solutions? At the core of breakthrough progress, I believe, is the notion of alignment, the key to radical transfor- mation. Early in my career I realized that no organization could be success- ful without achieving alignment.

Alignment is that condition where there is commonality of under- standing, intent, action and accounta- bility on several fronts: on vision, strategy, goals and objectives, and on measures, roles and accountabilities. I’m not talking about perfection here. But I am talking about galvanizing unity of purpose into an unstoppable force. The kind of force that has driven our company to where it is today. I cer- tainly didn’t invent the idea of align- ment. Maybe some of you have seen it in your children’s and grandchildren’s soccer games. Perhaps you’ve seen it in your own place of work.

One thing I will venture: If you have alignment, your organization will be a great place to work and it will succeed in its goals. The fact is that true alignment isn’t achieved very often, and it is almost never achieved in public institutions. When it does happen in public life, it’s almost always in response to crisis. The key is to turn crisis alignment into continuous alignment.

In my experience there are differ- ent aspects to alignment, all of them important. First, there must be what I call mission alignment, an under- standing of the organization’s vision and objectives. Second, there needs to be functional alignment, organization- al structures and processes that enable people to be successful in achieving the clearly established goals they are accountable for delivering. Third, there needs to be emotional align- ment, a belief that our organization and its role in society is worthwhile and the organization’s values and behaviour make us proud to be there. And fourth, there needs to be recogni- tion alignment, where appreciation, advancement and compensation are aligned with the behaviour expected and the results wanted.

In addition to these aspects of alignment, I believe organizations also need guiding tools. These guiding tools must be so visible to people that they would virtually glow in the dark. For example, alignment requires a good organizational struc- ture so that everybody knows who is accountable, who has subresponsibil- ities, who needs to be consulted or informed, and perhaps as important- ly, who does not.

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So, how aligned is undergraduate education at research universities? For the answer, let me go back to the Boyer report: ”œDiscussions concern- ing tenure and promotion are likely to focus almost entirely on research or creative productivity. The depart- ment head, when making salary rec- ommendations, may look almost exclusively at the grants or publica- tions record.”

Students paying tuition get less than their money’s worth. Some of their instructors are likely to be badly trained or even untrained teaching assistants who are groping their way toward a teaching technique; some others may be tenured drones, who deliver set lectures from yellowed notes, making no effort to engage the bored minds of the students in front of them. Many students graduate having accumulated whatever num- ber of courses is required, but still lacking a coherent body of knowl- edge or any inkling as to how one sort of information might relate to others. And all too often they gradu- ate without knowing how to think logically, write clearly, or speak coherently. The university has given them too little that will be of real value beyond a credential that will help them get their first jobs. And with larger and larger numbers of their peers holding the same paper in their hands, even that credential has lost much of its potency.

The Boyer report continues:

”œThe junior faculty member who seems to give disproportionate time and attention to fresh- men/sophomore courses may well be counseled toward more ”œproductive” redirection.”

The professional associations do not, as a rule, see their responsibili- ties as embracing the teaching func- tion. The national conferences of the disciplines rarely offer sessions dealing with teaching effectiveness, and when they do, those sessions are likely to be poorly attended.

So what we have here is a lack of alignment. How could it be that the public and the students think that the university exists, and uses our taxpay- er dollars, primarily to prepare under- graduate students to get a job and contribute to the country’s success, while what the allocation of resources goes toward and what gets rewarded is publishing research papers?

Sadly, this situation hasn’t changed over the 30-some years since I attended university. I dare say only a handful of my professors in those four undergrad years were pas- sionate about teaching ”” the rest thought teaching was an unfortu- nate imposition on their research and collegial time. But here’s the other side: Those five professors changed my life. Think what could have been possible if all twenty-five of my professors had been so ”œaligned” with their students!

Now this is not to say that research is unimportant. We all know that our country needs R&D very badly. But it is to say that teaching is important! Heaven help EnCana if we didn’t figure out what and how much of each product we wanted to produce. Yet do you know how much of this university’s budget actually goes to undergraduate teaching? If more money is being requested to fund growing enrolment, don’t tax- payers have a right to know? I don’t know the number. What if only 60 percent goes to teaching? Would you be surprised to know that about 40 percent of the nearly $600 million budget, on a properly allocated full cost basis, was being directed to fund individual professorial research? And would you be even more surprised to know that teaching was a low priori- ty for most professors?

I want to be sure my remarks are not construed as an attack on our high quality, dedicated faculty mem- bers, many of whom are leaders in their field. I know most work long hours and are passionate about what they do. But the allocation of resources to these faculties where the jobs are or the allocation of resources to teaching is not a collegial matter, it is a public policy matter. There can be a healthy debate over allocation, but we should all know the numbers, the real, fully allocated cost and priority for producing each product, just as we do at EnCana.

I know there will be various degrees of agreement with what I have had to say about the urgent need for change in undergraduate education. But I’m sure we all agree with that ancient Roman, Cicero, who said, ”œWhat greater gift can we give the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?”

By building upon what is good and true in our research universities, and combining it with the imagination and courage to create new models, we can ensure that students actually receive a world-class undergraduate education. By achieving alignment with the inter- ests of key stakeholders, faculty, stu- dents and employers, Canada can continue to be one of the most won- derful places in the world to live in and to build a career. 

 

This article is adapted from a presentation to the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

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