Mission of The Academy: Internal vs External Priorities
What academic objectives are pursued and how they are pursued is always subject to many forces. Researchers, scholars, and pedagogists discern how best to advance their disciplines. Funders, politicians, regulators, and providers of services to communities have their own agendas and needs and advance them in part through influencing activities of The Academy.
Resources for The Academy: More vs Less
Governments, public and private organisations, and students all contribute to the bottom line of each academic organisation to varying degrees that are subject to an extremely complex mixture of external economic and political forces. Individual academic organisations differentiate and compete for their share of the pie. How does The Academy respond when the pie gets substantially smaller or larger?
Impact of Social-Technological Change on The Academy: Slower vs Faster
In what ways does The Academy change due to changes in the way its researchers, scholars and students conduct other aspects of their lives, and how quickly does it respond to those pressures? Do academics want their academic life to be like the other aspects, or do they want it to remain apart and with its own character? What happens if the response is too slow? What happens if it is too fast?
Inequity in The Academy: More vs Less
Those with more resources urgently want to solve their problems and move on. But their solutions can be out of reach of those with fewer resources, limiting their participation in forwarding the mission of The Academy. Will they be left behind, or what will propel participation to be global?