Universities Reinvented: Shaping Legacy and Impact for a New World
In this three-part lecture series, President of Singapore Management University and 15th S R Nathan Fellow Professor Lily Kong will reflect on the idea of the university and how it has evolved over time. She will examine the public value of universities, and the potential and reality of their contributions to societal development. In the first lecture entitled “Through the Looking Glass: Insights into the Origin and Evolution of Universities”, she illustrates how, throughout history, the university has reflected changing societal contexts. The contemporary university is no different — a condition of our post-industrial, post-truth world. In the second lecture entitled “At the Crossroads: Universities for the 100-Year Life”, Prof Kong examines what a university stands for if humanity contemplates and confronts the very real possibility of a 100-year life. The relevance of the university will of necessity extend beyond the narrow slice of three to four years in the first of four quartiles in human life. In her third lecture, she invites discussion about the responsibility of universities — as brain trust — to the world beyond its walls. Entitled “Beyond the Ivory Tower: Research and the Dilemmas of Quality and Relevance”, she addresses questions of misinformation, manipulation, and misconduct in research, but also, more optimistically, research that is creative, catalytic, and consequential.
Through the Looking Glass: Insights into the Origin and Evolution of Universities
To set the context, in this first lecture, Professor Lily Kong will take the audience through the looking glass and examine the evolving idea of the university, from classical antiquity to post-industrial society. Just as the lens of the present frames the questions and tensions surrounding the roles of the university today, so too has the idea of the university evolved throughout history, reflecting changing contexts. As societal needs, political power and economic demands shift, the idea and reality of universities have transformed accordingly. Looking back through the centuries, the audience is invited to see the university’s development defined by its own contextual looking glass, refracting different purposes for education and different expectations of its value.
To find out more about Professor Lily Kong, the 15th S R Nathan Fellow, click here.
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• Speech by IPS Director Mr Janadas Devan at the IPS-Nathan Lectures by Professor Lily Kong — Lecture I