Dear Lynch School Community,
I am writing to you from Shanghai, where I have just attended the first Global Education Deans Forum, a group of about 35 deans working together to share best practices and advocate for improved education around the world. Our membership in the group builds on the extensive international work done by Lynch School faculty across the years.
The group includes eight American and nine Chinese deans, plus representatives from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Latin America. Despite the differences in national contexts, the deans share a vision of education as central to the development of individuals and society and a commitment to education that goes beyond narrow skills to develop whole human beings. We have pledged to learn from each other in coming years about effective ways to prepare educators and other human service professionals and to work together to communicate the importance of holistic education to educational policymakers.
I return from the meeting encouraged by the shared commitment and vision of educational leaders around the world and hopeful that we can accomplish many things together. I am also encouraged by the positive response to our Boston College vision of whole-person, formative education by diverse audiences. People around the world hunger for education that develops the whole human being, and at 51茶馆 we are well positioned to lead in research and advocacy around this theme.
I look forward to sharing more with you as our work progresses.
Sincerely,
Stanton Wortham
Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean