Minerva: A New Kind of Higher Education

Monday, September 21, 2015
4:00pm - 6:00pm Reception to follow
8th Floor, Barrows hall, Social Science Matrix (map)
Stephen M. Kosslyn
Dean, Minerva School of Arts and Science at KGI

Stephen Kosslyn focuses the conversation on key aspects of the Minerva Program. Minerva is a unique undergraduate education experience which allows students to be globally immersed and live in other cities around the world . Each city becomes a campus, and Minerva uses its resources to engage students in innovative learning.  The entire curriculum is designed to help students master four core competencies, two cognitive and two social. The cognitive competences are critical thinking and creative thinking and the social competencies are effective communication and effective interactions. All the courses are “fully active learning” seminars; these classes are designed in accordance with the science of learning. Technology is used to teach in novel ways. The Minerva Active Learning Forum software teaches and collects data that help students to learn effectively. All the seminars are face-to-face, in real time, and have a professor guiding the class virtually. Students live together in Minerva residential halls, which allows them to have a full social life as well as a chance to engage in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.  Minerva campuses are located around the world and serve as an opportunity for students to experience higher education across several cultures.

Biography

Stephen M. Kosslyn is the Founding Dean of the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute. He served as Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and was previously chair of the Department of Psychology, Dean of Social Science, and the John Lindsley Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He received a B.A. from UCLA and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, both in psychology. Kosslyn's research has focused on the nature of visual cognition, visual communication, and the science of learning; he has authored or coauthored 14 books and over 300 papers on these topics. 

 Missed the event? Check out the recorded seminar on Youtube