Larry Summers on Universities' Future Role. (February 7, 2012)

Lawrence 'Larry' Summers (58), United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001, President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, Director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010 spoke to Britain's Sunday Times' Sian Griffiths and Josh Glancy recently advocating a shake-up of the American university system: Universities need to move in a world that is changing.

It’s slightly absurd that in the English-speaking world on 15,000 separate occasions each year a lecture is given parroting the basics of capitalism. Surely watching a video of the expert on the topic would be better? Technology can be harnessed to create better learning experiences.

Universities are going to have to be increasingly about pinpointing principles, ways of thinking, common values and common aspects of experience rather than trying to teach all there is to know because no one can know all there is to know. More and more questions, whether it is which football players to hire or how best to design an ad campaign or how best to treat a strep throat, require an ability to marshal data to test presumptions and locate paths to success.

International experience should be part of what happens to every college student. This is not to learn languages, but to discover cultures that work will throw up in a globalised world. In a world where there is much English spoken, one can have a valid international experience without speaking the language of the place one visits,” he said. “It is better to experience China without knowing Chinese than not to experience China at all, given the impact China is going to have in the modern world.