The Doorway
Every journey begins with a threshold.
This page is that threshold.
Before we explore the hidden rooms of higher education, we pause here at the doorway, where the familiar story of the university starts to loosen. From this vantage point, we can sense that what appears solid is layered, and what feels natural has been chosen, repeated, and reinforced over generations.
The university often presents itself as grounded in certainty and timeless knowledge. Yet when we stand at the doorway long enough, we begin to notice the textures in the foundation. Ideas that seemed universal start to reveal their origins. Traditions that felt eternal show their seams.
This doorway invites you to step back and ask:
What stories were used to build this institution?
Whose knowledge became the blueprint?
What possibilities were walled off in the process?
Imagine placing your hand on the frame of an old entrance. It looks smooth from afar, but up close, you feel the unevenness, the marks of what was shaped, what was erased, and what was never allowed to take form. This is where the past and present touch, where the inherited narratives begin to shift.
Today, the ground beneath higher education trembles with new pressures: artificial intelligence, shifting learner needs, widening epistemic landscapes, and uncertainties about the future. Rather than destabilizing the doorway, these pressures ask us to walk through it with intention and curiosity.
Perhaps this threshold is not an ending or a beginning, but an opening.
A place to stand still, breathe, and rethink what we thought we knew.
Instead of offering explanations, this page holds space for questions.
What is the university for?
Who does it serve?
And what futures become possible when we dare to look beneath its foundations?
Unveiling Academic Foundations
Higher education has always carried a tension between what it claims to be and what it actually does. Grosfoguel (2013) reminds us that the idea of “universal” knowledge was never truly inclusive. Western male voices were privileged while Indigenous, African, Jewish, Muslim, and women’s perspectives were pushed to the margins. His call for pluriversality challenges universities to move beyond narrow definitions of knowledge and to value multiple perspectives. I find this powerful, but it also makes me think about how we are dealing with new knowledge systems today. Artificial intelligence, for example, is often presented as a threat. I cannot help but wonder if our fear of AI repeats old patterns of exclusion. Instead of treating it as something to block, we might need to ask how it could be integrated responsibly.
I also think about the efforts to bring First Nations and Indigenous ways of knowing into Canadian curricula. These knowledge systems were silenced for generations, and even today their integration is slow and uneven. Land-based learning, oral traditions, and community-centered approaches often do not fit easily into university structures that were built on Western models of assessment and hierarchy. This struggle reveals how strong the old exclusions remain. At the same time, I realize this challenge is not limited to Indigenous knowledge. We are also missing out on international ways of knowing from other cultures, different approaches to learning, collaboration, that could enrich higher education if they were taken seriously. Yet these perspectives also struggle for recognition in systems that continue to privilege Western frameworks.
Gregory (2024) and Culbert (2023) turn my attention to what students expect now. Gen Z wants more than a degree. They expect mental health supports, inclusivity, equity, and the ability to shape their own educational experiences. I admire their courage in demanding these things, but I also see the complexity. Flexibility and accommodations are essential, but they raise questions about fairness. How do we know when supports are being used genuinely and when they might be misused? This is one of the hardest tensions in education today in my opinion which is to design policies that are compassionate without creating loopholes, and to protect rigor without losing trust.
The Ernst & Young (2022) report looks further ahead with its vision of micro-credentials, hybrid programs, and lifelong learning. While these ideas seem practical and efficient, they also reduce education to something transactional. The focus is on stacking skills that can be bought rather than on the human experience of growth, dialogue, and belonging. What seems to be missing in this vision is the human touch, the sense of education as a shared journey.
What troubles me most, however, is how we will assess learning in an age of AI. In professions with tangible outcomes, such as building a bridge or performing surgery, it is easier to measure competence. But in fields where process and critical thinking matter such as writing, leadership, or teaching, the line becomes blurry. If AI can produce polished products, how can we fairly evaluate whether a student has truly learned? Relying only on end results risks confusing AI’s work with the students. But if we turn assessment into constant policing, we create an atmosphere of distrust. This dilemma makes me wonder not just about tools and policies, but about the purpose of universities themselves.
If education becomes something that can be purchased in fragments or generated by machines, will we still need universities? I believe we will, but only if they hold onto their human core. Universities must remain places where dialogue, mentorship, and community matter, where knowledge is shaped by diverse voices, Indigenous, international, and technological, and where students are shaped not only by what they know but by who they become. Without that human dimension, higher education risks losing both its integrity and its purpose.
References
Culbert, L. (2023). Gen-Z: How today’s Grade 12 Metro Van grads differ from older generations. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/gen-z-grade-12-metro-van-grads-on-a-future-different-from-older-generations
Ernst & Young. (2022). Are universities of the past still in the future? https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/noindex/ey-future-of-higher-education-report.pdf
Gregory, M. (2024). Today’s students expect more. Are you listening? Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2024/07/03/find-new-ways-meet-students-where-they-are-opinion
Grosfoguel, R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in westernised universities: Epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicides. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 1(1), 73–90.