It is an outstanding intellectual and leadership challenge in higher education to develop effective ‘competence’ delivery and evaluation practices complementary to and building upon the traditional programs. The key obstacle is the growing generic gap between systems of thought and organization governing the established curriculum and those required for decision making conditioned by the radical changes in the divisions of labor. It is argued that this decision making takes place in an open problem space in which success depends on being able to recognize and make use of the pathways imposed upon us by digitalization of knowledge systems and work practices. These are the highways along which the current thoughts and material exchanges travel and collide, and which condition the much needed synergy of inputs spanning disparate knowledge and power systems. Two aspects of this structural problem are of particular interest here. Firstly, the boundary separating human and machinic contributions have become blurred beyond repair. Secondly, the failure to recognise fully the impact of new work practices amounts to de facto abdication by humans from taming runaway complexification. This rapidly reduces the space in which to make efforts required to ensure that the human condition - and the standing of higher education as a guardian of the consititutive role of human –human engagenment in particular - remain open for debate and perpetual re-positioning in rapidly changing circumstances. The aim here is to establish pedagogy for a fresh re-appraisal of this constitutive process in the liminal space of human and machinic contributions, and one capable of engendering the human-centered character of University without depriving staff and students of benefits brought by the maturing post-mechanical culture.

leadership and methodology in higher education, competence development and evaluation, human-centred pedagogy in the space of digital systems, interdisciplinarity