The Keystone Institute for Higher Education Innovation encourages and enhances education research and development (R&D) at those institutions with a principal responsibility to educate students.

To accomplish this mission, the Keystone Institute organizes and facilitates R&D collaboration in the areas of:

(a) the scholarship of teaching,
(b) advanced learning technology,
(c) assessment of learning,
(d) faculty development,
(e) curriculum and instruction, and
(f) program evaluation and accountability.

The United States and Canada boast excellent primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI's) many of which have a few staff members, and/or modest centers, dedicated to instructional technology and/or faculty development -- but even this minimal support is not universal.

The Keystone Institute supports education research, the enhancement of learning, and dissemination of effective teaching by catalyzing and maintaining connections among higher education support professionals and faculty members interested in the scholarship of teaching and advancing disciplinary and inter/multi-disciplinary instruction.

On campuses where support staff and centers exist, the Keystone Institute creates inter-institutional "scale" to compare with (and compete for) the resources and opportunities of much larger educational entities. On campuses without specialized support structures, the Keystone Institute provides direct consultation and programs.

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As it grows, the Keystone Institute will become a nexus for researching and developing techniques and technologies to advance higher education.

As a new start-up the Keystone Institute is in a bootstrapping phase. Ultimately, the Keystone Institute will be a not-for-profit organization. While bootstrapping, the Keystone Institute is providing workshops and consultation on a fee-for-services basis to any educational institution, anywhere, at any level (secondary, post-secondary, graduate, or professional.)

According to the US Corporate R&D Data Series, published by the Office of Technology Policy, the most successful industrial sectors in the US economy invest seven to twelve percent of gross sales into R&D in order to improve and create new products and procedures. However, higher education is currently a non-R&D industry.

• What improvements might be expected were even five percent of tuition, grant, and gift dollars invested in innovation?
• What outcomes might be expected if higher education institutions had specific personnel dedicated to R&D?

At least a segment of the faculty and staff of colleges and universities should be involved in bridging scholarly productivity and the practice of educating undergraduates. The scholarship of teaching and the creation of innovative methods and materials to improve learning must become a recognized and rewarded part of professional activity at colleges and universities. By distributing this responsibility among individuals and institutions, and by providing expert guidance, the Keystone Institute makes such R&D activity not only desirable but possible and practical.

The goals of the Keystone Institute are:

1. to stimulate R&D interests on the campuses of small and medium sized institutions where teaching is the focus,
2. to bring people with similar interests from different campuses together,
3. to enable innovative ideas to be fully developed into useful prototypes, and
4. to create independent entrepreneurial entities in partnership with the developers in order to market these innovations for the mutual benefit of the innovators, their institutions, and the Keystone Institute.

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The actual planning for the Keystone Institute began in October of 2006. The idea, however, had its beginning in the previous year's sabbatical at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Based on John Newman's experience teaching at liberal arts colleges and working in the education labs of research universities, it seemed that a great wealth of experience, knowledge, skill, and even wisdom about learning and undergraduate education went undeveloped and under-utilized. It was hypothesized that,

“…colleges may have the same ratio of teaching:research expertise as universities have in research:teaching expertise” (Newman, 1998, p.1042).

The Keystone Institute is a novel mechanism for tapping and enlarging the expertise at teaching institutions. In November of 2007, the Keystone Institute for Higher Education Innovation was formally announced at the National Assembly of Project Kaliedoscope's Faculty for the 21 st Century.

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See the Services page for workshop and consulting information.

The Keystone Institute is partnering with the primarily undergraduate institutions of North America and the philanthropic organizations supporting post-secondary education efforts. Institutions and organizations wishing to participate in or support the Keystone Institute should contact us through the Director, John Newman.