Imagining the University of the Future

Higher education today is characterised by the hyper-modernisation of global, entrepreneurial, corporate universities and speeded up, nomadic public intellectuals. This is often underpinned by the archaism of globalised gender inequalities and elitist participation patterns. Change has been rapid and extreme. Counter hegemonic advocates did not necessarily predict the scale of neo-liberal driven change. Traditionalists did not foresee the industrialisation and massification. The academic imaginary has been harnessed to compliance and critique, rather than to futurology. Desire, as well as loss, needs to be considered. Questions about the morphology of the university of the future seem to be eclipsed by pressing concerns in the (neo-liberal/ neo-conservative) present. What should the university of the future look like?