On Tuesday, I attended the Dean of Libraries Speaker Series lecture featuring Richard N. Katz. The title of his talk was “Higher Education at the Inflection Point” and he discussed the changing nature of higher education.

Katz illuminated some of the challenges faced by higher education institutions. He said that universities and institutions are currently in a time of crisis, and a time of great opportunity. Some of the challenges facing schools like the University of Oregon today are:

• credibility crisis
• affordability crisis
• business model crisis

As a self-described optimist with 32 years of experience in higher education, Richard Katz is a change agent and a “lifelong provocateur” who was able to identify some of the threats and opportunities facing universities today. The role of higher education in today’s society is changing. As an MBA student at U of O and a graduate of a small liberal arts college, Katz’s description of the “affordability crisis” facing schools resonated with me. Research shows that the amount of student debt owed by young Americans is having negative implications on our economy.

Since I’m currently a business school student studying business models, entrepreneurship, and innovation, I was particularly interested when Katz spoke about some of the disruptive technologies that are changing education, such as Khan Academy, and advent of eTextbooks, and even Bitcoin. Overall, Katz was an engaging speaker with much wisdom to share about the challenges facing higher education.