Minerva Sailing: Redefining the University

Brown wooden box front, black lettering engraved with "Curiosity" (English: Curiosity).

There is an ipad in the box and a specially recorded video is played when it is opened. The first time you connect to WiFi, an American man named Ben Nelson in 5 minutes will communicate with you through the Internet.

All this is not Apple's latest marketing strategy, but an admission letter from a start-up university in the United States. In September this year, 29 students from 14 countries in the world came to San Francisco, California, to become the first students of the new university created in the 2012 years.

The school, called Minerva University, has a distinctive feature of traditional American universities from the day it was born. The name chosen from the school can be seen: Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom in ancient Roman mythology, the Greek name is the more popular known Athena (Athena).

In 2012, founder Stephen Kosslyn, director of the former Department of Social Sciences at Harvard University and director of the Behavioral Science Center at Stanford University, named the University Minerva University, highlighting the ambitions of the organizers.

The university has been involved in a number of big shots in the U.S. higher education sector, such as former Harvard principal Larry Summers, former dean of the Wharton School, Patrick Harker, former president of the American Institute of Educational Research and Professor Lee Shulman of Stanford School of Education, Stephen Kosslyn, a famous educational psychologist and former dean of Harvard Social College.

They gather to rethink the role of college education in today's society and incorporate their own reflections on American higher education over the years into the construction of new schools, including curriculum design, new global experiences and online and offline education.

Their goal is to provide "the world's future leaders and innovators with an unusually liberal arts and sciences education".

Four year seven city, campus moved all over the world

"We received 2,474 applications, of which more than 100 were ivy-reading undergraduates. Eventually only 68 people were admitted, and the admissions rate was only 2.8%, lower than Harvard's 6%. "Rokai Kenn Ross, executive director of Minerva Greater China, said.

What attracts so many students from all over the world who have outstanding performance to apply for this newly founded university?

"I like this learning experience that can be a true world citizen," he said. Li Yig, a 19-year-old Beijing girl, said she was a freshman at Minerva University in China this year. When it comes to why they wanted to declare the school, "globalisation" is a phrase that the young man often mentions.

Compared to other universities, the pace of globalisation of Minerva University has gone more thoroughly, and they have moved campuses all over the world.

The founder of the school thinks that if you keep students in Cambridge town, Massachusetts, or New Haven village in Connecticut State for four years and tell them what's going on in the world, it may not be the best way to really nurture global talent. As a result, according to Minerva University's plan, students here will go to live and study in a different city every semester for four years, including San Francisco (first year), Mumbai, India, Rio de Janeiro, China, Hong Kong, Sydney, London and Cape Town, South Africa, etc. They will live in the same city as the class, the whole city is their campus.

To this end, the school has set a long-term goal: students to integrate local culture, master the local language, and make full use of the country and the social characteristics of the city to carry out practical activities. Four years later, they will build a truly global network of relationships and an understanding of the world.

The school's bold learning style is known as the immersive globalization experience (global immersion).

There is no doubt that for a young man with a vision for the world, four years and seven cities, this dazzling travel experience is far more natural than staying in a campus called the Ivory Tower.

29 new 2014 freshmen, including Li Yig, were called "Vanguard Classes" by Minerva University, and they had a more dazzling college career: Completing the first year of the core course in San Francisco, and then dropping out for a year, GAP years, as the global envoy of Minerva University, traveled, Or choose the internship life that you prefer. Thereafter, they will be spent in Buenos Aires and Berlin, India, Mumbai, and Hong Kong, London and New York. In 2019, they will graduate with the first official class at Minerva University in 2015.

"For me, this was the first thing Minerva attracted me. Another student from China, Lu Xiaoning, wrote in his social media, "Sometimes I even think you're reading Minerva, but you're reading more about the different cultures behind these cities and the cities." ”

Lu Xiaoning even intended to try to do a little global Business in the past five years, making better use of the opportunities Minerva gave him to travel around the world to achieve greater value.

Minerva University managers believe that a free and open University should not be confined by walls.

"Our program plans to study in cities such as Hong Kong, Berlin, New York and Cape Town, and you can interpret each city as a campus." Teaching buildings, laboratories, reading rooms, gymnasiums and so on can be realized by leasing and sharing, the facilities in these big cities are perfect, there is no need to repeat the construction. "Rokai said.

In addition to sharing campuses with local institutions, the Minerva University dormitory is a combination of leasing and self construction. According to Rokai, the school has already reached an agreement with the developers of Argentina, Germany and other countries, the two quarters are under construction, other cities of the dormitory or will be rented.

The use of local educational resources in the field of cooperation model, but also to the newly established university to save a small amount of money. Reflected in school fees, the current Minerva university tuition is only 10,000 U.S. dollars a year, far less than the U.S. private university 450,000 dollars a year of tuition.

"We don't want to waste too much on expensive campuses, and we want to focus more on education itself." "Rokai said.

Freshman Introductory course? NO

For any educational institution, the curriculum is always the core.

The high profile of Minerva University's mission to "provide the world's future leaders and innovators with an extraordinary degree of liberal arts education" is a natural step in the curriculum.

One of the most memorable is to count its first year of discipline set up. The founder of the University of Minerva made clear that the university "does not offer a freshman introductory course".

According to the founder's logic, in an era of increasingly open educational resources, it is unreasonable to ask students to pay to learn an introductory economics or physical 101 that can be found online. What's more, the best high school students of this era have mastered the knowledge of traditional universities in the past two years before college through various means (AP, leavers, MOOC).

So, what kind of courses will be studied after the freshmen of Minerva University?

"We offer four instrumental courses that emphasize the importance of methodology." "Rokai said. Specifically, the four courses are "theoretical analysis" (rigorous logical analysis, rational thinking, data analysis and formal system), "Empirical analysis" (training students to use scientific methods to analyze the problem, test and demonstrate the conjecture), "Integrated System Analysis" (to help students understand secondary effects, multiple element interactions, Dynamic trends and complexity theory) and "multiple Modes of communication" (High level of reading, collaboration, public speaking, collective collaboration, communication, and debate capabilities).

In response to such "heterogeneous" curriculum, Minerva University managers believe that the future of mankind, including the problems faced by the need for methodologies and tools to deal with, and the above four courses are the basic quality of students ' future study.

"In addition to the four-course courses that the university's first annual session is devoted to, the next few years will minerva them throughout the teaching process," he said. "Rokai said.

For such courses, there have been more comparisons of the Lu Xiaoning of college life in China for three years. In his opinion, Minerva University can be said to have redesigned the teaching system of the whole university, paying more attention to training students ' critical thinking, creative thinking and effective communication.

"After three years of university, many methodological things are slowly understood by themselves, if there is a clear knowledge framework and methodology, can actually improve the efficiency of a lot." "Lu Xiaoning said.

Minerva University's unique curriculum design, in fact, is aimed at the current American higher education is a common disadvantage, that school learning and the use of the society is divorced.

Rokai shares a set of data: About 65% of Americans graduate from college with jobs or businesses that don't exist while they are in primary school, according to a survey by the American College of American Students, and a survey conducted by the University of America last year asked hundreds of companies about the skills they want their employees to have, 93% Company's unified response: Critical thinking, creative thinking and the ability to communicate in multiple modes.

"Owning these three points is far more important than the prestigious universities you graduate from." Rokai said in a public share in Shanghai.

Therefore, in the course design of Minerva University, especially in the first year of university, we try to cultivate students ' relevant skills systematically and purposefully. In a world that has changed so quickly, school officials believe it is necessary for schools to have core skills and thinking habits that will allow them to get anywhere in whatever field they want.

Hybrid Learning: combination of online and offline

Another label for Minerva University is an online university.

The school claims to have a "unique software" that uses the software to track and test students ' learning effects in real time, and to give feedback to their professors and next-class professors, so that professors can make corresponding adjustments to their teaching. The ipad that Li Yig got is equipped with Minerva Interactive teaching system, and will be the main tool in the students ' class in the future.

It is understood that Minerva University's main courses are in small class mode (15-20 people) online teaching, the school will be based on the global different time zones of students to arrange the reasonable course. More interestingly, the system also allows teachers to fully assess the interaction of each student, through timely feedback to greatly enhance students ' learning experience.

"Use this online platform for class, not only can see the professor, the classmate's real time condition, but also can see the rich classroom material and the stereoscopic display teaching aids and so on", Li Yig has participated in this year March experience course, she in the media interview to this system appreciates has added, she uses "The function is rich and is easy to use" To summarize her experience of using.

The U.S. Atlantic Monthly reporter was invited to participate in the Minerva University of a trial class. In a later report, the reporter said with a 45-minute course, online professors have a tight grip on the classroom, and students in small classes have to deal with the tests and questions that come up at any time. The classroom content is full of intensive research, discussion, all the basic knowledge of the study all left to the students to complete self-study.

It is reported that this online teaching platform, is one of the world's top psychologists, former Harvard University Dean Stephen Koslin study the teaching system into practical application. Minerva University has spent a large part of its budget on program development, employing the best technicians to develop an interactive video platform for teaching at Minerva University.

But on another level, school administrators also emphasise that this innovative university is not a pure online school, which is fundamentally different from the MOOC schools that are now popular.

Rokai said that the curriculum of Minerva University has three categories of curricular activities, half-class activities and extracurricular activity.

Specifically, all the school activities are routine classes, through the school's own online real-time interactive platform to carry out, online and offline combination. Students are in a class together, but everyone has to face a lens, although the teacher may not be present, but he can be monitored through this platform. And some of the academic half course and extracurricular activities that need to be done locally, belong to the offline courses.

The combination of this line under the model of the curriculum, is intended to use their respective advantages to achieve the best educational results. In this respect, Rokai appears more pragmatic, he felt that the hybrid model is more advantageous, because the education model is not necessarily to line up the election edge, online and offline with advantages, "The use of offline experience and online high-quality resources to achieve the best educational results."

Minerva's Chinese imprint

Today, at the headquarters of Minerva University in San Francisco, 29 students are starting their college careers. Among them, 7 students from China, the number of Chinese students accounted for 24% of the total number of students, almost every four students from China.

For this ratio, Rokai felt "very interesting". This, in his view, is also a major feature of Minerva University's breaking down of traditional American universities. The proportion of international students enrolled in American colleges and universities is tightly controlled, subject to current U.S. regulations.

In 2013, more than 250,000 Chinese students applied to American schools, creating a record high. But the number of places open to international students by American colleges and universities for Chinese students has remained low, at 10% and 1.13%, respectively.

Obviously, compared with 1.13% of Chinese students, the number of Chinese students at the University of Minerva highlights the unique concept of talent selection in this university, which is related to the orientation of the school--building a global university.

"We will accept all those who meet the requirements," he said. "Rokai said. Clearly, in the face of talent, nationality, ethnicity, ethnicity, gender and other reference factors are less important.

In accordance with the above logic, the large school-age population base, the world's leading basic education and a new generation of young people to their own globalization of the urgent mood, so that China has become the Minerva University, one of the most important source.

And China's contribution to this innovative school, in addition to 7 outstanding students, there are real gold and silver.

October 15, China Education technology enterprises-The Good Future (NYSE code: XRS) officially announced the Joint China Investment Consortium and the famous Silicon Valley benchmark Capital Minerva University. This is the Minerva University's B-round initial financing, its B-round equity financing will be completed in the next three months, the total will reach 70 million U.S. dollars.

According to the relevant investment agreement, a good future representative will be stationed on the Minerva board with Minerva Project's founder, board chairman and CEO and Kevin Harvey, Benchmark capital partner. Minerva will also designate another two members of the board later.

It is reported that the good future led by the Chinese consortium to raise a total of 25 million U.S. dollars. Among them, a good future unilateral contribution of 18 million U.S. dollars, Chung Jin Group and the Great Trust Fund a total of 7 million U.S. dollars.

For this investment, good future chairman and CEO Zhang Bangxin said: "Minerva and the good future of the school concept is very close to, this and Minerva to reach strategic investment, set up a new bridge between China and the United States education, will provide Chinese excellent students with extremely cutting-edge innovative learning perspective."

As an educational enterprise in China, Zhang Bangxin not denying that the education industry is facing great challenges, the combination of technology, Internet and education is becoming more and more obvious, "We attach great importance to the innovative practice of Minerva in the combination of unique teaching methods and Internet."

Rokai also admitted that Minerva University opened a round of financing, many organizations have expressed interest, and the school's choice is more cautious, "We think the good future, the serious fund, Chung Jin group such a combination, very suitable, important in the concept, and we very much match."

According to the good future of the relevant sources, two of the time to reach an agreement is not too long, "mainly with each other needs." The future can be through this investment into the United States of higher education, and close observation of an ongoing combination of online and offline education as one of the educational model of the exploration.

Today, Li Yig and her classmates from around the world, as the Minerva University's "Pioneer class" has been on the other side of the ocean in San Francisco began a journey full of unknown. And Rokai and his colleagues are continuing their efforts to create a new university, with hundreds of admissions expected next year, as well as dormitories in several cities around the world, and more outstanding teachers will be hired.

If Minerva University is regarded as a ship, it is not clear where the new ship will sail, for the unknown Sea is ahead. Why would anyone go on a boat trip? Li Yig, a 19-year-old Beijing girl, said, "I choose to go the same way as everyone else and try to be a pioneer in education."

Yes, it's curiosity let it happen.