Connecting Learning to Life is an important reason why.

Our presentation to the Education Committee focuses upon what we mean by that phrase. You saw an illustration in our presentation on the Campus Master Plan; and, I hope you found some minutes this morning to take in the extraordinary examples available at our annual Academic Excellence Symposium.

Here, let me simply note that our unique approach is in our blood and draws upon our roots. As one of those handful of institutions started during the ’60s and explicitly charged with radically responding to the critiques of American higher education then sweeping the country, we came up with an academic plan unlike any other in the nation. We emphasize hands-on practical problem solving from multiple perspectives and every undergraduate must take an interdisciplinary major or minor.

Even more so today, it is our firm belief that, as we prepare students for careers not yet known and societal problems we are, as yet, unaware of, it is precisely the UWGB approach that works best. Facts and techniques soon become outdated but not the habits of critical thinking and bringing multiple perspectives to bear upon fully understanding and then solving problems.