Universities need to change slowly, Likins says

"The importance of continually changing and modestly adapting will make our institutions even better," Likins said to about 30 people in the semester's last Faculty Community Lecture Series speech at the Arizona Health Sciences Center DuVal Auditorium. "We need to anticipate the demands of time."

He stressed that academic institutions do need to change, but they need to do it slowly and thoughtfully.

"Change is necessary, but we can't leap too quickly or respond too hastily," Likins said. "We need to adapt without abandoning our central purpose."

He said some of the pressures that need to be considered to keep the university alive are new technology and training schools.

"We have substantially lost our monopoly on learning," he said. "The university folk are on a crowded stage. There are a lot of alternatives out there (for learning)."

Likins said universities worldwide should consider the history of higher education when working toward the future.

"In history, there is something for us to learn about our future. If you go back, you will find many parallels with the modern universities, the European universities, that have been around for 800 years," he said.

Likins said higher education has experienced incredible growth and prosperity for the past 40 years, and nothing else has been so successful. But that prosperity, he said, will not last indefinitely.

"The trustees are telling you this isn't going to go on forever," Likins said.

He also said he is concerned about the popularity of for-profit schools that are threatening the purpose of universities.

"Their motivation is different and the school becomes a business," Likins said. "To contrast, a business exists to maximize financial benefits, whereas a university exists to maximize social goods."