The End of the University?

I've been wondering about this for a long time.

Despite financial enticements from my university, I've thus far refused to develop and refused to run web courses, largely because I worry that this thing may bring about the end of Western civilization.

Seriously.

Actually I do think that many classes could be done over the web--some better, some not--and I think that some classes could benefit from a web component. But I very much doubt that a good college-level education is likely to be gotten completely over the web.

For one thing, one of the most important things one gets from one's instructors is a certain kind of intellectual sensibility, and that sort of thing is largely transmitted in person.

Furthermore, at decent schools, students learn a great deal from other students, and, though the web obviously facilitates this kind of thing, again there probably has to be a face-to-face component.

However, we really don't know the answers to many of the empirical questions here. Obviously we don't want to go running over the electronic cliff here by precipitously abandoning one of the most important institutions of Western civilization. (If not the most important.) The university should stay largely as it is for the foreseeable future, though some experimentation with some web-based and mixed courses is, of course, good.