Rob Vischer on Meaning, Purpose and the Future of Higher Education

University of St. Thomas President Rob Vischer recently wrote an op-ed for University Business about the importance of educating the whole person as artificial intelligence continues to transform higher education and the workforce. In the piece, Vischer argues that while colleges and universities must help students develop career skills, they must also foster purpose, character, critical thinking, and the human qualities that support lifelong success and flourishing.

Below is his full op-ed, as featured in University Business:
I recently met with a first-year student who wanted my advice on how to achieve her remarkably specific and demanding career goals. When I nudged her to reflect on the source of those goals, the tears came quickly and the words tumbled after them: carrying a family legacy forward, making her name in the world, providing for her future kids and grandkids.

“Wow,” I observed as gently as possible, “that’s a lot of weight for an 18-year-old to carry.”

Don’t get me wrong, having career goals is important. But life teaches us (sometimes painfully) they are a woefully inadequate foundation for a meaningful life. That puts higher education at an important crossroads as the AI explosion has many current and future college students worried about their employment prospects.

Let’s be clear: Universities must take seriously the pressure they face to demonstrate a strong economic value proposition for students and their families. We absolutely cannot afford, however, to become transactional, focused only on providing necessary job skills as efficiently as possible.

Efficiency is important, but one of the best ways to help graduates get good jobs is to care about more than their ability to get good jobs. By engaging our students on deeper questions of meaning and purpose, we help them grow in character and prepare them for lifelong flourishing.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, almost 40% of core job skills will change by 2030 and the skills growing fastest aren’t only technical ones. While technical skills still remain relevant, AI is automating more tasks, and hiring managers are increasingly focused on human skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, adaptability, entrepreneurial thinking, creativity, communication, relationship-building, empathy, and initiative.

Those skills develop as a person grows in self-awareness, engages with a wide range of life experiences and perspectives, and deepens their understanding of the human condition. An aspiring engineer must learn the nuts and bolts of their field, but their long-term career prospects will suffer if they’re myopically focused on technical skills and inattentive to the human dimension of professional excellence.

More broadly, career preparation should not be higher education’s only objective. If college is simply an economic transaction, we tell our students they don’t need to spend time or energy understanding history, grappling with the meaning of life, developing a love of art or literature, experiencing the joy of scientific discovery, honing their leadership skills, appreciating the wonders of nature, pushing forward on their faith journey, or discerning their vocation.

We tell them they definitely don’t need to spend time figuring out how it all fits together, exploring whether diverse domains of knowledge have any relationship to one another or to their own lived experience.

Ideally, a college education will help students connect the dots that support the cultivation of a meaningful life. In his new book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, Arthur Brooks defines a life of meaning as a life of coherence (“Why do things happen the way they do in my life?”) plus purpose (“Why am I moving in this direction?”) plus significance (“Why does my life matter?”).

There’s a place for personal and professional goals in any meaningful life, of course. But if they consist only of goals rooted in extrinsic achievement, they’ll fall short. Are they prepared to answer deeper questions of coherence, purpose, and significance?

At their best, universities are in the business of transformation, helping develop students’ whole selves – body, mind, spirit – and cultivating the virtues necessary not only to succeed professionally, but to thrive as people. This dimension of our work should always have been at the heart of a university’s mission: In a world where AI will be automating a rapidly expanding range of cognitive tasks, this dimension must also be at the heart of our business model.

Which brings me back to my student, instead of focusing on the weight of her future responsibilities, I tried to pivot our conversation to the here and now as Brooks does in his book: What’s one thing she’s learned about herself during her first year of college? What does she hope to learn about the world during her upcoming study abroad? What are the classes that have energized her, and what might that tell her about her vocation?

By the end of our conversation, there were more smiles than tears. She asked if we could meet again. For those of us in higher education, few appointments could be more precious.