My September Blog: “Unlocking the Human Potential”

Dear Baruch Community,

I hope your semester is off to a strong start. As we all continue to adjust to remote work, whether as students, faculty, or staff members, I want to share with you my latest blog post, “Unlocking the Human Potential.”

Some of my reading brought me to neuroscience research that studies the functional organization of the human brain as a window into the architecture of the mind. What if we use the research on brain development as a point of reference to rethink what it means to provide a high quality, rigorous education that will help unlock human potential and shape the development of healthy, well-adjusted, successful young adults? This seems to prompt a set of interesting questions. Some may coincide and some may differ from the conventional wisdom and long-held beliefs in education.

Among the questions I put forth and invite you to respond to are:

• Most institutions consider student stress and mental health to be non-core issues and have relegated them outside the academic realm. Recognizing these environmental factors that could deeply affect learning, can we envision a holistic approach to support our students?
• In the current remote learning environment, how do we transform class or group projects into opportunities for peer interaction so critical for our students’ growth? How might this assist in or expand a young adult’s connection to their community?
• If we consider the ultimate goal of education is to fully unlock the human potential, how far are we willing to go to insist that our students continue to receive an uncompromised, highest quality education in a tumultuous time such as this?

I invite you to read the post in its entirety here and subscribe, comment, like, and sign up for notifications. Our dialogues and conversations will help us improve our work today and envision a better Baruch for us all.

Sincerely,

S. David Wu
President, Baruch College