O desafio da mudança

Mudança: promovida do exterior ou vinda do interior; o debate interno e a importância dos processos, não apenas dos resultados; agir ou reagir; responder a pressões e necessidades ou contribir para criar o futuro; instituições prestadores de serviços ou agentes de mudança.

Aqui fica uma reflexão, vinda do outro lado do Atlântico, na transição do século e do milénio.

Yet, when one speculates about the extraordinary nature of the changes that might occur over the decades ahead, it becomes increasingly apparent that there may be no useful precedent upon which we can draw. We face a future in which permanence and stability become less important than flexibility and creativity, in which one of the few certainties will be the presence of continual change.
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It is clear that much of the impetus for change is coming from external forces over which the university has little control. Yet the most significant challenges facing higher education today may lie not in the tangible al issues such as resources or public perception, but rather in the need to understand better and gain broader consensus about the central goals and beliefs that guide decisions made about the university. The intellectual renewal of the role, mission, values and goals of the university may be the key challenge before us. And to respond to this challenge, it may well be that the process of renewal itself, the debat over these qualities of the modern university, is far more important than the ability to converge on a particular solution.

As with other institutions in our society, those universities that will thrive will be those that not only can respond to this future of change, but that also have the capacity to relish, stimulate, and manage change.

J. Duderstadt (2000) A University for the 21st century. The University of Michigan Press.