Lynn University

The world that we inhabit today is a world of perpetual and rapid change. Globalization as a determining factor of the twenty-first century brought with it the ever-accelerating movement of commodities, images, peoples and ideas. Moreover, the global embrace of the Internet, as well as satellite-based technologies, provide immediate and unlimited access to knowledge and information, thus perpetually widening the circle of social participation. Preparing oneself to become a player in such an environment necessitates the acquirement of knowledge and with it an inherent adaptability to change. In this state of affairs, the role of higher education is of paramount importance, not only in its traditional sense, but more importantly as a sphere of engagement, by which an ongoing dialogue concerning the nature of knowledge, its obtainment and evolvement is mobilized. I therefore believe that my role as a professor consists of two important tasks that may seem to be at odds with each other: On the one hand, inspiring each student to develop a critical and rhetorical skill-set necessary for the acquirement of knowledge which, in turn, would enable future performance in a variety of areas of engagement and the much needed flexibility to assume, when necessary, a change of direction; on the other hand, broadening students’ understanding of humanity in an interdisciplinary learning environment which fosters the development of what should remain their unchanging moral core.