Vision
The mission of Education is to prepare us to live! We need to teach what it is to be a human being. (Edgar Morin, 2013)
We have a vision of the long term. Modern university often seems to have lost its direction and its responsibility to create a better humanity and a better situation on the planet. Short term goals are sensitive to trends and fashions, not to the depth of the matter, which requires time and freedom. We aim to having life-long connections with our students and offer great job perspectives.
We have a vision of the long term. Modern university often seems to have lost its direction and its responsibility to create a better humanity and a better situation on the planet. Short term goals are sensitive to trends and fashions, not to the depth of the matter, which requires time and freedom. We aim to having life-long connections with our students and offer great job perspectives.
We believe in offering options and freedom to learn. Our teachers may have differing views and perspectives on what is necessary on this planet, and they come from a vast range of disciplines. But their focus is trans-disciplinary: it transcends the disciplinary specialty. We propose a mosaic of useful knowledge that supports higher level thinking and initiative. In each discipline, we focus on what other universities do not teach: the unknown, the out-of-favor, and topics that are deliberately ignored because they do not fit with neoliberal ideology and short-term profit.
We believe in doing business with a conscience.This requires financial transparency and accountability, consistent dividends to the shareholders and respectful payload to the teachers. We aim to offer outstanding customer service and be of service to all the parties involved.
We believe Deep Institute is creating what will be the mainstream in the future. We work as an international think-tank reflecting on the best future for every discipline. The linkage of disciplinary contents with interdisciplinary connection subordinated to life-anchored, transdis-ciplinary goals is more than a new approach to knowledge: it describes a new way of thinking, a path to wisdom, a new way of life.
A New Type of University
Revolutionizing higher education is not an easy endeavor. It requires new frames, and a re-framing of what we mean by “teaching.” Transcending disciplines may be done in proposing students to define and pursue their own projects on a topic of their choice that is relevant to the world situation. Then the form of Education adopted gets highly integrated into the pursuit of social, ethical, and problem solving goals. Such an integrative approach transforms the student, as a living person who starts defining who she is, branding herself, and acting in the pursuit of her own goals. This revolution in the place of the student in the Education system makes Higher Education more meaningful and motivating.
Without Boundaries
With the current world problems, the importance of knowledge without boundaries is increasing. Creating integrative Universities for the 21st Century creates revolutionary challenges:
Achieving such wisdom will call for an understanding of the interrelationships of knowledge that will allow problems to be reframed and solutions to coalesce in new ways.
Beyond translating discoveries into action in the service of society, the university is also being asked to prepare the next generation of citizens with the skills and abilities that are needed to face the challenges of the new world in which they will live.
(Awbrey & Awbrey, 2000, p.1)
For Learner Autonomy
The trajectory of learning is directed by the participants who know what they want in relation to the course topic. The curriculum is not fixed, facilitation on the side may be optional. Learner centered-ness demands intense and deep content interactions. Participants mold the resources proposed, add their own to match their interests, lead discussions based on their knowledge needs related to the topic. This entails a certain casualness: participants are curious in either the format or are intrigued by the topic and content.
Learning engagement is different, and the measures of success rest on intrinsic motivation.
Note: We are very grateful to Professor Francois Victor Tochon, a professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison whose education department has been ranked the best in the world for the past 19 years, who created the Deep Approach and allowed us to use the above text from his book, Deep University, which was published by Deep University Press in 2017 with the ISBN number of 978-1-939755-26-1.