The Future Belongs to Learning Organizations

This chapter examines how Davidson College transformed an initial massive open online course (MOOC) experiment into a framework for institutional innovation that proved essential during the COVID-19 pandemic and offers a model for navigating artificial intelligence (AI) disruption in higher education. Through three distinct phases – digital learning R&D (2016–2018), the incubator framework (2018–2020), and crisis-tested refinement during COVID-19 (2020) – Davidson evolved from accidental discovery to systematic innovation capacity. This evolution revealed five transferable principles for adaptive institutional change: start with systematic listening, honor “those closest to the work,” design for users rather than designers, treat resistance as valuable feedback, and build learning capacity rather than solution capacity. The Davidson example demonstrates that institutions facing technological disruption benefit more from developing robust learning systems than from predicting specific technological futures. As AI reshapes higher education faster than traditional strategic planning cycles can accommodate, Davidson’s model offers a tested approach for building organizational resilience through continuous experimentation and adaptation. The framework suggests that small liberal arts colleges can maintain their distinctive identity while successfully navigating technological disruption through systematic experimentation.