Creating a Culture of Mindful Innovation in Higher Education

Book excerpt: Higher education institutions have traditionally nurtured artistic and scientific development and served as catalysts for innovative ideas and products. However, contemporary discourse too often relegates the concept of innovation to the private sector, where the rhetoric of "disruption" frequently reduces innovation to economic terms. As a result, innovations that could benefit society instead exacerbate existing inequities, and the environmental factors that stimulate long-term innovative progress are neglected. Creating a Culture of Mindful Innovation in Higher Education offers a different vision by identifying the conditions that enable college and university administrators, faculty, and staff to promote an innovative institutional culture. Mindful innovation is defined through six central tenets: societal impact; the necessity of failure; creativity through diversity; respect for autonomy and expertise; thoughtful consideration for the dimensions of time, efficiency, and trust; and the incentivization of intrinsic motivation and progress over scare tactics and disruption. Michael Lanford and William G. Tierney offer a clearheaded analysis of the challenges and opportunities in creating a culture of mindful innovation and argue that the institutions that do so will be poised to lead entrepreneurial endeavors, scientific progress, and greater social equity in the twenty-first century.