This is another column in an occasional series in which I share with readers some of my perspectives on the University.
Recently I returned from Nashville, Tenn., where I participated in the first meeting of the 1998 Commission on the Future of the South. The commission is charged with developing a plan for the region's future.
I was honored not only to represent this great state, but also to be able to offer a valuable perspective on the role higher education--particularly public universities like ours--can play in the future of our region.
During my travels of the past year, I saw that there are truly two North Carolinas. At the conference, I realized that was also true of the South as a whole. There are prosperous pockets of economic growth reflecting knowledge-intensive companies with high-paying jobs that require sophisticated intellectual skills, while just miles down the road are rural areas that remain tied to the past, dependent on the land or labor-intensive manufacturing jobs.
The commission's first meeting, quite appropriately, focused on the role of technology, globalization and education in shaping the region's future. Each member agreed that our future will be rooted in knowledge-intensive endeavors, and all recognized education's important role in building a strong foundation.
Although discussions often focused on K-12 education as the common base upon which we all build, there was widespread agreement that a well-educated workforce of high school graduates alone will not sustain economic growth in a technology-based economy.
Commission members clearly valued the skills taught in our institutions of higher learning, and they were quick to point out the importance of public universities, which at the very core of their mission are obligated to do whatever possible to help their states achieve economic growth.
Native Southerners are increasingly finding themselves underemployed as highly educated immigrant populations are flocking to the region from New England and the Midwest and, in large part, sustaining our economic growth. Our Southern colleges and universities must take the lead in finding ways to make sure the region's citizens have the marketable skills necessary to compete.
At Carolina and other schools, that effort will extend far beyond simply teaching students a set of skills. We must prepare our students to be the masters of the new technology, to be on the front end of not only using but developing the knowledge upon which tomorrow's economy will depend. We must give them the intellectual tools appropriate to this new global economy and the capacity to think analytically, critically, and, most of all, imaginatively.
Inherent in a knowledge-based economy is rapid change. The latest skills a new graduate possesses today can easily be outdated in as little as five years. We will increasingly be faced with providing lifelong learning opportunities--for our alumni, as well as for all the people of North Carolina.
That responsibility includes providing retraining opportunities--courses, degree programs, and professional development opportunities--to keep our workforce competitive. It means UNC must be prepared to stretch itself to find the best strategies for delivering education, whether in the traditional classroom setting, through distance-learning initiatives, or through a combination of methods.
We also must be prepared to create totally new ways to facilitate lifelong learning, especially making creative use of the Internet.
Technology has the potential to change the South, to give the region an opportunity to move beyond simply catching up with the rest of the country, to actually leading it. Higher education is at the heart of the technology that will drive tomorrow's knowledge-based global economy. Only through strong investment in education--particularly our public education systems--will the South be able to make that leap forward.
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