In the coming weeks, The Benton Scholars will present a series of lectures on the future of higher education. Fiona Hollands (Columbia University – Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education), George Siemens (University of Texas-Arlington – LINK Research Lab), and Marc Bousquet (Emory University – Assoc. Professor of English and author of How the University Works) will each address the capacity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to re-shape the 21st-century university–and the implications for education policy, curriculum design, labor practices, and face-to-face relationships.

All lectures are free and open to the public, and most will be live-streamed or recorded for future reference. Please follow this blog for more information and direct questions to Peter Tschirhart, Asst. Dean for Undergraduate Scholars Programs, at ptschirhart@colgate.edu.

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Hannah O’Malley ’17 has created a blog to chronicle, contemplate, and process her experience on the Benton Scholars’ trip to Korea. Apart from explaining why the country’s name might be spelled “Corea” rather than “Korea,” Hannah encourages us to view travel through a self-critical lens. She writes :

I think it easy to notice and criticize flaws in and make generalizations about other systems without really critically looking back at one’s own system. Over the course of the trip, I tried very hard to think about ways in which we pretty much have the same, or worse, flaws in the US and about what the US can learn from Korea.

She also poses a series of questions inspired by Prof. John Palmer‘s FSEM for the Benton Scholars (fall of 2014):

• In what ways can the US education system learn from the national curriculum that applies to both public and private schools?
• How would the US benefit from rigor of the cram schools?
• Given that K-12 education in both South Korea and the US is driven in part by the university systems in both countries, in what ways might colleges be able to manipulate testing or entrance standards to influence the ways in which K-12 students learn?
• How can both countries make higher education more accessible and a less elite system?
• Is there corruption, whether manifest or latent, in our educational system? And if so, where?
• Who does our educational system serve?

You can see and read much more directly on Hannah’s blog by clicking here.

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