The future of land-grant universities is changing.

This was the topic of “Research Universities: Past, Present and Future,” the Sigma Xi speech given by President Gregory Geoffroy Thursday in the Memorial Union.

Increasing importance and reliance on technological advances and how they shape land-grant universities were the key points of his speech.

“I can’t predict the future,” Geoffroy said, “but I think I can point to a number of developments that I think will impact our future in many significant ways.”

He said the discovery of new educational departments and the erosion of others will create organizational challenges at universities. The ever-increasing emphasis on technology will have a “revolutionary impact” on education in the future, Geoffroy said.

“Distance education courses and programs are proliferating around the country, and many of them are becoming quite sophisticated and quite good,” he said. “Web-based courses, taught at a distance but also taught right on campus, are growing rapidly in number.”

In the future, students will not have to take all their courses at their home university, but can instead fulfill graduation requirements through distance education.

“Although students may reside on a particular campus, and they may experience much of their out-of-class learning at that campus, that doesn’t mean in the future they will receive all their education at that university, or even the majority of their education,” he said.

Geoffroy predicted these kinds of courses will ultimately let universities make strategic decisions about what courses will be taught.

Universities such as Iowa State would ultimately have to decide what they want to be “world class” in, he said.

In the future it could be conceivable for a university to exist that does not teach any courses of its own. These changes will raise many issues and challenges. Geoffroy said questions will surface about accreditation, the payment process for education and the academic calendar.

Although doubts may develop about the future of education, Geoffroy believes the changes will be positive and effective in the learning process.