College-university dialogue: From confrontation to cooperation

A historical review of the development of Israeli institutions of higher education from statehood to the present attests to the dialogue between universities, on one hand, and the colleges that were established and developed under their influence. Development trends, reflecting diversification, and distinctiveness on the one hand, and uniformity and imitation on the other, indicate that the Israeli higher education system is progressing toward a monistic structure in which academic institutions of both types are converging, drawing closer to each other, and becoming more closely integrated in a single system of higher education (Davidovitch and Iram, 2005). Herein we examine the openness of the higher education system, its willingness, and ability to contain a university institution that was originally established as a regional college At the establishment of statehood in 1948, the higher education system was a dual system: several non-university institutions operated alongside the two university institutions (Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Technion). Mass immigration and socioeconomic developments in the 1960s and 1970s led to an increasing demand for higher education, and demands to expand access of new population sectors to higher education emerged, specifically to make higher education accessible to underrepresented sectors of the population in peripheral areas (mainly Jews of North African or Asian origin, as well as Arabs and other minority groups) (Iram, 1996). These nascent needs were addressed on two levels. On the university level, Haifa University, Ben Gurion University, and the Open University were established in 1970, 1972, and 1976, respectively. Although Haifa University and Ben Gurion University were founded as regional universities and were therefore expected to serve the special needs of the peripheral areas of the north and south, respectively, they effectively embraced the elitist ethos of the veteran research universities (Ben David, 1986, cited in Iram, 1996)