President Bergeron discusses Connections in radio interview
The world of higher education is changing to meet the demands of the 21st century. And Connecticut College is at the forefront of educational innovation.
President Katherine Bergeron spoke about the path toward adopting the College’s new curriculum, Connections, during an interview Monday on Big Beacon Radio. (Listen to the interview below.)
Bergeron spoke with David E. Goldberg, host of Transforming Higher Education, about arriving at Connecticut College in January 2014 to find faculty ready to make the College’s general education requirements broader and more purposeful. The push to reimagine liberal education was inspired by the outcomes of Connecticut College’s five academic centers for interdisciplinary scholarship, which encourage collaboration among disciplines.
“The world of education is turning toward an understanding that the sum is going to be greater than its parts if you figure out the way to link them together,” Bergeron said. “Each one of these ways of exploration ... brings a different element and a different sense of purpose to what one is doing. So you realize it is all contributing in very important ways.”
Connections launched with the Class of 2020 and includes a Pathway, which is a framework for academic exploration where students develop an animating question that is personally meaningful and integrates multiple disciplines.
Bergeron explained that posing probing questions, or getting to the why of a problem, is reflective of the depth of a liberal education.
“It has to do with trust and trusting the incredible creativity that is available in our faculty and in our students to make something bigger,” she said. “If we want to create the new leaders of our century, we have to trust and unleash the creativity that is there, and that will be the future of the best liberal education in the United States.”
Earlier this year, Bergeron discussed the College’s new approach to education in an interview with Dan Loney, host of Knowledge@Wharton on Sirius XM. Connections has also been featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education and The Day.
April 11, 2017
