Staley, D.J. (2019). Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press.
Rather than focus on alternative delivery and MOOCs, design thinking should encourage universities and colleges to reimagine the experience of learning and the way in which teachers engage with learners, community and social networks to connect to knowledge. What if the university or college were designed around a curriculum of broad cognitive skills or as a series of global gap year experiences? What if, as a condition of matriculation, students had to major in three disparate subjects? What if the university placed the pursuit of play well above the acquisition and production of knowledge? By asking bold "What if?" questions, the author assumes that the university is always in a state of becoming and that there is not one "idea of the university" to which all institutions must aspire. A bold, creative and well-written book will make all of us who think about “what’s next” think differently.
