Abstract

It is possible that the “perfect storm” is brewing on the seas of change for higher education. This paper will address the urgent need for adaptive strategies for change within higher education institutions (HEIs) with a focus on Complex Adaptive Systems theory (CAS) as a means of explaining the disconnection between higher education and its environment. Unlike many social, economic and geopolitical issues that vary from culture to culture, higher education has a relatively uniform monocultural penchant to ignore, resist and even the wart change within academe. CAS has its origin in the genome specified biological system of speciation and Darwinian evolution as discussed historically by Dennet (1995). However, it was first applied as a paradigm to address organizational evolution and change by Gell-Mann (1994). The fundamental premise for CAS is that organizations, like living organisms, are classes of complex systems that are maintained, defined and specified by replicators or schemata.

Key words: Complex adaptive systems, higher education, change, leadership.