Formation for Flourishing in Higher Education: Reimagining Purpose
Publication Date
Spring 2024
Publication
Virtues and Vocations
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Higher education as an industry needs to be re-imagined. The challenges we face are too numerous to think we are just dealing with a series of complicated problems that can be attacked one at a time. Rather, they are complex problems that require creative solutions. If we assume they are merely complicated, or hard, we will just focus on one without realizing that we are making related problems worse.
We need to re-imagine the purpose of higher education and connect it more explicitly to human flourishing. Doing so will require fewer incremental approaches and more of a transformed vision. To be sure, such a transformed vision should not be nostalgic for some idealized and romanticized past. We need a vision that embodies “traditioned innovation,” drawing on the best of higher education’s past for innovative approaches to current realities and anticipated trajectories.1 This is especially true for professional education and for preparing people for diverse professions.
What might such a transformed vision entail? Three ways of re-framing the imagination for higher education will illumine the outlines of such a transformed vision: (1) A rediscovery of purpose; (2) A holistic approach; and (3) An embrace of perpetual learning across the lifespan to cultivate human flourishing.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Gregory, "Formation for Flourishing in Higher Education: Reimagining Purpose" (2024). Public Intellectual Writing. 20.
https://repository.belmont.edu/gregoryjones_public/20
