This unit of study aims to introduce course members to some of the major changes occurring in higher education, and the specific ways in which this is changing the academic profession. Principal examples include the pluralization and fracturing of knowledge(s); the increasing internationalisation and globalisation of higher education; the changes from elite to mass higher education; demographic dimensions of the professoriate; changes in teaching and learning in higher education, including the impact of virtual pedagogy; the increasing commodification of higher education, knowledge and the professoriate; and the simultaneous increase in regulation and de-regulation of higher education and the profession.

The unit of study focuses on why the academic profession and higher education generally, has assumed the form it occupies today, and what directions it is likely to take in the future, as it faces new challenges. The intention is to build on themes developed in other units in the higher education program to develop an in-depth theoretical understanding of the context in which the themes operate. So, for example, this course looks, not at particular issues in teaching and learning, curriculum design, or assessment in higher education, but at changes to the profession more generally, the directions of teaching and learning, how this relates to issues in research and the overall context in which this is placed.