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[Phys-L] From the Chron. of Higher Ed.



June 25, 2012
A Conversation With Bill Gates About the Future of Higher Education
By Jeffrey R. Young
Bill Gates never finished college, but he is one of the single most powerful figures shaping higher education today. That influence comes through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, perhaps the world's richest philanthropy, which he co-chairs and which has made education one of its key missions.

The Chronicle sat down with Mr. Gates in an exclusive interview Monday to talk about his vision for how colleges can be transformed through technology. His approach is not simply to drop in tablet computers or other gadgets and hope change happens—a model he said has a "really horrible track record." Instead, the foundation awards grants to reformers working to fix "inefficiencies" in the current model of higher education that keep many students from graduating on time, or at all. And he argues for radical reform of college teaching, advocating a move toward a "flipped" classroom, where students watch videos from superstar professors as homework and use class time for group projects and other interactive activities. As he put it, "having a lot of kids sit in the lecture class will be viewed at some point as an antiquated thing."

The Microsoft founder doesn't claim to have all the answers. In fact, he describes the foundation's process as one of continual refinement: "to learn, make mistakes, try new things out, find new partners to do things."

The interview comes on the eve of Mr. Gates's keynote speech at an event Tuesday to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, which created the nationwide system of land-grant colleges. The "convocation" will be held in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities.

Below: A complete transcript of the conversation. First: Three video excerpts from the chat. (More video excerpts are available here: Gates on Technology and Philanthropy | Gates on Lectures and New Universities)

bc observing fair use.