TEDx

Tag: TEDx

Why Study the Liberal Arts?

Economist and President of Randolph College, Brad Bateman, discusses the value of the liberal arts in an opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.   Here’s the punchline:

There is a deep irony in the fact that a liberal-arts education is great preparation for employment. It is not designed for that purpose, but rather to prepare people to live as free citizens. It just happens that the breadth of learning required to create well-functioning citizens also is great preparation for being an effective employee.

President Bateman was on campus in 2013 discussing the role of advising as an integral part of the liberal education.

Advising at Lawrence

It is customary during Fall Reading Period for freshman and other new students to meet advisees.  But why?  What is the role of advising at Lawrence specifically and in the liberal arts more generally?

I give you Professor Galambos’ Guide to Advising posted and hosted on the Economics website (and endorsed by the economics department).

Last Spring Bradley W. Bateman addressed the topic directly in a TEDx talk right here at Lawrence.  Bateman is the President of Randolph College and formerly a Professor of Economics at Grinnell College, where he was my undergraduate advisor (!).

TEDx Lawrence

Professor Ádám Galambos spearheaded bringing a TEDx event to the Lawrence University campus this Friday, and I have been along for the ride.   The theme is Reimagining the Liberal Education, and we have some impressive people from around the country coming in to re-imagine things with us.  The university’s TEDx Lawrence site will contain the live web feed.  The Appleton Post Crescent posted a story Wednesday, and here’s what Ádám had to say:

Liberal education has a great deal to contribute to society. It’s up to us to figure out how we’re going to be a part of creating our future.

I hope this will result not just in intellectual exchange, although that’s really important, but also action, taking those new ideas to change in the world.

Professor Scott Corry will be featured on a Post-Crescent webcast tomorrow as well! (Link here)

Incoming Randolph College President, Bradley W. Bateman, will be on hand talk about the role of advising at liberal arts colleges.   This is a timely piece given that advising at large universities came under fire earlier this week.  Also, coincidentally enough, President Bateman was my undergraduate advisor once upon a time, though I don’t recall him ever suggesting that I should go to graduate school and become a professor (?).

One of the marquee speakers is Jeff Selingo of the Chronicle of Higher Education and author of the about-to-be-released College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What it Means for Students.  That talk is set for 9:35 a.m. Friday.  We are also very excited to have Andy Chan from Wake Forest coming in to talk about links between education and career development.  And, one of the co-founders of Coursera, Daphne Koller from Stanford, will join us via video feed to tell us about the MOOCs.

Wow!

LU has a strong presence as well, with President Beck and Dean Pertl sharing their visions of the future. The tireless Bob Perille (’80), founder and champion of of the Lawrence Scholars programs, will be on hand to talk about (you guessed it) the Lawrence Scholars programs. Rick Davis (’90) from George Mason will invoke the role of the liberal arts in fomenting collaboration and Jennifer Herek (’90) will be on hand to talk about spreading the liberal arts to technical education in Europe.

In addition, Jenny Kehl from UW-Milwaukee will be on hand to talk about how central collaboration and interdisciplinary work will be to tackling some of our toughest environmental issues.

All TEDx events showcase videos from TED events, and as part of that we will be watching the Erik Brynjolfsson video that Professor Finkler discussed in a previous post.

The full schedule is here. 

It should be a good one.  Professor Brandenberger and I were co-organizers, and fortunately John handled some of the more delicate interpersonal matters.  We’re interested in seeing how this goes over.  If you have a few minutes, tune in to the webcast and let us know what you think.  Here is that link.  

  

 

Update to TEDx Speakers List

As you may know, Lawrence is hosting a TEDx event this May, Re-imagining the Liberal Education.  It looks like we are going to have to update our speaker list, as Bradley W. Bateman has been named President of Randolph College.

(Now) President Bateman was on campus last year as part of our Senior Experience, discussing his book Capitalist Revolutionary.

A big congratulations.