The Innovative University Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out

Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring, building on what Christensen has done for business, healthcare, and K-12 education, apply Christensen's model of disruptive innovation to higher education. Unlike the many doom and gloom books that have come out recently, they offer a nuanced and hopeful analysis of where the traditional university and its traditions have come from and how it needs to change and find new models for the future. Through an intriguing examination of the histories and current transformations of the authors' two very different university homes--Harvard and BYU-Idaho--and through other stories of innovation in higher education, Eyring and Christensen decipher how universities can find innovative, less costly ways of performing their uniquely valuable functions and save themselves from decline. They explain the strategic choices for traditional universities to consider and alternative ways in which they might be made. As higher education communities face vast operating problems like fluctuations in enrollment, overexpansion of campus capacity and non-academic activities, and battles between local boosters and governing boards, this book offers novel insights into the kind of change that is necessary to ensure the economic vitality of the traditional university. It uncovers how the traditional university survives by breaking with tradition, but thrives by building on what it's done best.