As a Berkeley student, Randy Hall ’79, MS ’80, PhD ’82 was an original member of the student co-op Kingman Hall. Kingman Hall was named for Harry Kingman, a founder of the co-op system that has housed thousands of students over the decades.
Kerr’s book The Uses of the University has been an inspiration for Randy. Kerr depicts universities as “multiversities,” due to their broad spectrum of interconnected activities and their overarching purpose to serve society.
In Randy’s new book, Managing Innovation Inside Universities, Systematic Change for Research Service and Learning (Springer), Randy aimed to bring the multiversity to the present.
Kingman Hall was a second inspiration for Randy’s book. He and his future wife, Janice Partyka ’79, jointly served as workshift managers at Kingman, assigning students to the various tasks needed to keep the house running, including cooking, cleaning, maintenance and even rodent control.
Randy’s book specifically examines how old institutions (i.e., universities) can lead in the knowledge economy. As universities seek to modernize in a world altered by changing demographics and information technology, Randy has articulated a roadmap for change.
He draws from his long experience as V.P. of Research at USC, along with case studies, new scholarship and his student days. In particular, he examines how universities can be more effective as learning institutions, where learning doesn’t just mean educating students.
In his words, “a culture of learning should encompass the entirety of the university, engaging students, staff and faculty in a continuous process of examination, innovation and change. That is, universities can do the things themselves that they have been teaching their own students to do for so many years.”
