Introduction
Service-Learning Faculty Scholar Workshop at Cal Poly Pomona
Although I have spent much of my life in formal institutions of education, true education goes beyond degrees and certificates. It occurs when one connects what one learns from books and lectures with what one understands about and does in the world, pulling and stretching academic knowledge to consider and to solve real-world issues.
As globalization shrinks 6 degrees of separation to 4.74, as witnessed in the Egyptian uprising that ousted what was believed to be a far-gone conclusion of a president, education in the 21st century should understand how the individual fits in the local and global web of economics, politics, culture and humanity. Truer today than in the past, persons on the other side of the world are an extension and reflection of me, of my fate.
While my training has circumscribed my profession within the domain of higher education, I believe that the boundaries between a university campus and the surrounding community should remain permeable. Students bring knowledge, concerns and life situations from their communities onto college campuses and classrooms.
Universities, particularly professors, provide resources, knowledge and approaches that can enhance that knowledge and address those concerns and situations. College education today offers a new collaborative environment for professors and students to engage in mutual teaching and learning. Since individuals need to adapt at unprecedented rates, higher education, all education for that matter, must tighten the link between knowledge and application. We need to know, act, and re-evaluate that knowledge and action continually to thrive in the fast-changing world of 21st century life were enduring ethical,political and social issues remain.
As globalization shrinks 6 degrees of separation to 4.74, as witnessed in the Egyptian uprising that ousted what was believed to be a far-gone conclusion of a president, education in the 21st century should understand how the individual fits in the local and global web of economics, politics, culture and humanity. Truer today than in the past, persons on the other side of the world are an extension and reflection of me, of my fate.
While my training has circumscribed my profession within the domain of higher education, I believe that the boundaries between a university campus and the surrounding community should remain permeable. Students bring knowledge, concerns and life situations from their communities onto college campuses and classrooms.
Universities, particularly professors, provide resources, knowledge and approaches that can enhance that knowledge and address those concerns and situations. College education today offers a new collaborative environment for professors and students to engage in mutual teaching and learning. Since individuals need to adapt at unprecedented rates, higher education, all education for that matter, must tighten the link between knowledge and application. We need to know, act, and re-evaluate that knowledge and action continually to thrive in the fast-changing world of 21st century life were enduring ethical,political and social issues remain.
