Enhancing Impact and Effectiveness of University Education: The MIT Story

In recent year there has been great debate internationally about what kind of college education best prepares students for the world we live in today. For many, the emergence of the digital economy, globalization, the dominance of financial institutions, and the ever-presence of computers has created a belief that students should be concentrating on the so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering, and medicine. Indeed, in many countries it is difficult to find alternatives to this kind of education.
Yet the most pressing and complicated problems that we face in the world today will not be solved by STEM alone, because these problems are fundamentally human problems. Whether it is entrenched warfare, climate change, poverty, discrimination, clean water, adequate employment, disease, STEM alone will not lead to lasting solutions. It is only through a rigorous liberal arts education that students can learn how to deal with these human problems, and become the leaders we need in the days ahead.
In this talk Dr. Deborah Fitzgerald will describe how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other universities have met these challenges while still maintaining technical leadership.