Higher Education: A Rendezvous Between Generations

Dear LinkedIn Readers,

Here, I plan to share my thoughts on a particular subject, which naturally derives from my experiences at Ko? University, at various locations around the world and my dialogues with industry, government and community leaders in Turkey and abroad.

And it is only fitting to start with one of my favorite times of the year. September is ‘Back to School’ month for almost every student of all ages across the globe…We welcomed our new incoming undergraduate students, all 1224 of them, at our amphitheater ODEON, one of the many landmarks of our beautiful campus at Ko? University. In my opening remarks, I shared my thoughts on how I see university education as a rendezvous, or an appointment if you will, between generations.

It has always been my belief that what we have at our university and others now is the ‘appointment’ of Generation X (Born before 1980s) with Generation Z (Born after 1995). The way the ‘teachers’ learned what they know is dramatically different from the way the ‘students’ are poised to learn or are ready to absorb. Technology is advancing rapidly, so much so that customized instruction tailored to individual students, based on their past histories of learning (or not), may soon become possible. So how important is the syllabus? Should there even be one? How much of university education should be based on departmental curricula? Should we not stop being rigidly insistent on covering syllabi and listen to, follow and be guided more by our students? Such thoughts constituted the essence of my remarks on a panel at the 10th annual Reinventing Higher Education Conference, bringing together 37 university Presidents to discuss the challenges in managing the human capital of the future, which you can watch below.

And to further elaborate on these topics, here are a few more ideas I would like to share …As we cannot really know what lies ahead for Generation Z, in terms of lifestyles, job opportunities etc., it would seem that providing them a broadly-based education is the only thing to do. Too much specialization at this stage may limit their opportunities in the medium or long run, even though some (maybe most?) potential employers may still prefer graduates who are specialized experts in their narrow areas.

It is in this context that our Liberal Arts Core program at Ko? University is such a crucially important part of what we do on this campus. The Core Program requires that each of our students must have at least one course in each of our seven ‘Knowledge Areas’, unless they already do so in the context of their own Department. The Knowledge Areas consist of Humanities, Social Sciences, Aesthetic & Interpretive Understanding, Economic & Strategic Analysis, Ethical Reasoning, Empirical & Quantitative Reasoning and Natural Sciences.

The underlying goals of the Core Program are to instill appreciation of ultimate unity of human knowledge, to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, to foster critical and analytical thinking, to equip students with ethical reasoning skills, to instill a culture of free inquiry and intellectual exploration without the limitations of vocational concerns, to serve as a bridge between university and society, to instill appreciation of the artistic and cultural heritage of Turkey and the World, to facilitate and encourage collaboration with individuals from diverse backgrounds and to empower students as effective leaders & communicators. These are mighty high goals indeed, but I believe this core program differentiates our graduates from their counterparts who mostly receive a narrower education, limited to their own disciplines.

The interdisciplinary excellence at Ko? University of all of our Colleges and Departments also allows our students to broaden their education by exploring their wants & wishes in areas well outside their own. We are pleased to observe that a truly remarkable 20% of our students are doing double-majors, constituting almost half of all students with a GPA>2.8, as required by Y?K (Council of Higher Education). It is especially pleasing to see students double majoring in areas that are ‘orthogonal’ to one another, i.e. engineering with multimedia and visual arts or math with philosophy or economy.

Furthermore, providing a broadly-based education to our students requires a different approach to teaching; it is clear that the days of one generation ‘teaching what they know’ to the next are long over. It is now time to learn & teach together with our students so that we can maximize the dialogue among the generations in this ‘appointment’ of ours, for the benefit of both generations. Surely, there should be some syllabi and curricula to guide the flow of our appointment days during the Semester, but I would wish that the communication in our classes are more and more in the form of a two-way dialogue rather than a one-way delivery. The most fulfilling times for me in my ELEC206/PHYS302: Electromagnetism course are those when we freely discuss the class or other things in general with typically 75-80 students. And my TAs take notes of these discussions, so that the participation in the class becomes a factor in the final grade of the students. I cherish the two-way exchange where I get to learn from my students, even though I am at the teacher's chair. Appropriately, since I do truly believe that university education is an appointment between generations that learn and teach from/to one another. 

With these thoughts on my mind, I feel excited to start the new academic year and look forward to further engage with you on this platform.