• 

Today’s Ypulse Author Spotlight is on Anya Kamenetz and her new book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education.

If the title (and awesome cover) didn’t clue you in, DIY U is an impassioned call to action for changes in higher education reform both on the level of institutions and on the ground with students (hence the whole DIY emphasis). I connected with Anya, a staff writer at Fast Company and bestselling author of Generation Debt, over email to find out more about the current crisis on campus and how to fight back from here.

DIY U is out in bookstores now, but we’re giving a free copy to the first three readers to tell us about an innovative approach to higher education (teacher or student-led) they’ve spotted or attempted!

On a related note, remember to spread the word to any forward-thinking public school teachers out there, applications for our Totally Wired Teacher Award sponsored by Dell are due by May 3! We will fly the winning teacher to San Francisco to accept the award in person at the 2010 Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup.

Ypulse: How did you get inspired to write about higher education reform? How did your thinking on the topic change during your research for the book?

Anya Kamenetz: My first book Generation Debt was a lot about student loan debt, so I knew a bit already about the plight of students dealing with cost, access, and quality of higher education. As I started covering technology and innovation for Fast Company magazine I realized that I was learning about how disruptive change can transform industries, and discovered a novel, evolving solution space for higher education.

YP: What are some of the crises you address?

AK: Well, 44% of students who enter a four year program don’t graduate after 6 years. Hundreds of thousands of qualified high school graduates are shut out altogether due to tuition costs, which grew more than any other major good or service between 1990 and 2008. And potentially a bigger problem is that students often don’t feel that their degrees prepare them for good jobs and good lives in the way that they were promised. They don’t really know what they’re getting into when they choose a college, and when they leave, they don’t really know what they got out of it, and often don’t feel that they have the resources and support they need to take the next step.

YP: Are there any professors or universities who are already dong a good job evolving with the times and incorporating “technohybridization” (blended learning) and the “personal learning paths” into their teaching style? Which ones and how?

AK: Yes, absolutely. You can find them all over the place. I talk about some innovative institutions in the book like Western Governor’s University, Brigham Young University-Idaho, & Southern New Hampshire University. For innovation in teaching styles a great person is Michael Wesch at Kansas State, who teaches Anthropology using social media, and also teaches the anthropology of social media. His student produced videos like “A Vision of Students Today” are classic.

YP: What types of widespread changes do you hope to see in education in the immediate future? In the next five years?

AK: The more students become aware of the fact that they have the ability to learn about anything in the world for free, and to become part of communities online that are doing the things they want to do, again largely for free, the more traditional colleges will be forced to justify the value they are providing in exchange for tuition, by creating communities, fostering mentors and turning students into leaders — in other words, the stuff they claim to be already doing.

YP: Who should read “DIY U”? What message do you hope current college students will take away?

AK: People who are interested in our country’s future–is that broad enough? I would love for college students to take away a message of empowerment. No more should students sit around and say, “my college doesn’t provide that program” “It doesn’t support this.” DIY U means that if you have the awareness, the resources are falling into place for you to assemble your own learning path. I want to make visible the efforts of students who have been proactive in going out and finding ways to pursue their dreams. 80% of college grads or more have done at least one internship, and most students take a class at more than one institution before they graduate. This is increasingly the way of the future.

For more campus coverage, visit the Ypulse Collegians Channel, sponsored by Campus Media Group.

• 

Categorized under: Collegians

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. If you are a Facebook user, comment using your Facebook account.