Education of the Heart and Mind. Santa Ono at TEDxEmory (20 min, 30 sec)
In this TEDxTalk, Santa Ono, Ph.D., provides a glimpse of his perspective on Education of the Heart and Mind. On Saturday, March 1, the Canadian-American biologist who now serves as the 28th President of the University of Cincinnati (UC) [1] and the Honorary Consul for Japan in Ohio will explore The End of the University? The live videoconferencing will originate from UC with members of InterVarsity’s community gathered at eight “MidWest” sites spanning 5 states.
If you’re near one of the eight sites, please join us for the morning. If you have friends/colleagues near one of the sites, please forward information to them so they can also join us for the morning. Please register today if you can or by February 25, 2014 at the latest. Attention Graduate students and ESN members: if cost is an issue, email the Emerging Scholars Network to inquire about scholarships. All additional questions regarding the gathering(s) should be directed to Howard Van Cleave, Symposium Coordinator, Van-cleave.3 at osu dot edu.
There was this idea of a University, and now . . . We will explore its meaning and purpose for a new century. Higher Education as we know it will go through tremendous changes in the future. Dr. Santa Ono, President of the University of Cincinnati will explore this topic in two talks live via videoconference. In his second talk he explores the challenges and opportunities for followers of Jesus Christ.
A little bit more . . . I hope to see some of you in Pittsburgh at Duquesne University and possibly connect with more of you via the videoconferencing. In addition to particular campus application, there will be follow-up conversations with the wider overlapping networks of InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) and Faculty Ministry. This blogging will include video from the symposium. The pump has been primed by “The End of the University?” Symposium, an ESN Blog post which includes a list of relevant links and pictures of books pertinent to the topic.
As you have material to contribute, please do such below. In addition don’t miss the opportunity to make nominations for ESN’s March Madness ’14:
Which topics must Christians be prepared to engage in today’s higher education?
BONUS: Please invite friends from your InterVarsity fellowship group to collaborate with you in making submissions in order to enter the drawing for a $100 InterVarsity Press prize for your fellowship. To learn more (and make nominations) visit ESN’s March Madness ’14.
Notes
- “UC is a large, public institution, a comprehensive research university. We have 43,000 students, of which three-quarters are undergraduate students. We have 14 colleges. We’re located on seven sites and are strategically growing an international presence in the middle of China, in a city of 32 million people called Chongqing. That’s going to create a lot of opportunities. We’re working through a process internally to identify areas that we’d like to cluster higher in and grow prominence in, and that process should end in January or February. . . . We’re the second-largest university in Ohio. We’re a top 25 public research university. We have, just in terms of economics, an active budget, which is currently at $1.2 billion, and an affiliated health system, which is $1.6 billion. We’re virtually a $3 billion impact on this community to give you an idea of size. That puts us in the top 75 universities in the nation in terms of size. . . . In terms of our conversations about the higher education landscape, we’re directly involved in those conversations, both at the state and the federal level. We make regular trips to Columbus and Washington, D.C., to articulate our view on how to deal with this changing landscape. In terms of how UC is doing, we’re very strong right now from a financial standpoint. We’re probably stronger than we’ve been in five to seven years. . . . We’re very fortunate in that my predecessors focused on trying to get ahead of the curve. We were one of the early entrants into using technology so we have one of the largest online distance programs in the nation. That’s been a positive, proactive step. The other step we’ve taken over the past three years is to try to expand our applicant pool. So, even though the numbers of graduating high school students is actually plateauing or going down in the Midwest, our applications last year were at a record high. We just transitioned to the common application and, this year, we’re ahead of last year’s record high. . . . Even though the demographics do look depressing, we have been proactive in widening the net. We look at that on a daily basis. We know where the applications are coming from. We’re seeing the geographic diversity of the applicants dramatically spreading across the nation. We’re also getting a number of applications from around the globe.” — Santa Ono describes UC in The Higher Education Forum, which ran in the Cincinnati Business Courier (12/26/2013). I encourage you to read this piece and material posted on the UC Office of the President’s website not only for some of his perspective on serving in higher education, but also to receive a sense of how he interacts with other leaders in higher education. ↩
Tom enjoys daily conversations regarding living out the Biblical Story with his wife Theresa and their four girls, around the block, at Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ Church (where he teaches adult electives and co-leads a small group), among healthcare professionals as the Northeast Regional Director for the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), and in higher ed as a volunteer with the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN). For a number of years, the Christian Medical Society / CMDA at Penn State College of Medicine was the hub of his ministry with CMDA. Note: Tom served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA for 20+ years, including 6+ years as the Associate Director of ESN. He has written for the ESN blog from its launch in August 2008. He has studied Biology (B.S.), Higher Education (M.A.), Spiritual Direction (Certificate), Spiritual Formation (M.A.R.), Ministry to Emerging Generations (D.Min.). To God be the glory!