It was a memorable week for Fairleigh Dickinson University as the university commemorated the opening of its new campus in Vancouver with two gala events featuring the powerful images of world-renowned photographer Steve McCurry.

Steve, whose work has long been featured in National Geographic, has graciously agreed to display at the new campus his wonderful images of children in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. He joined us on September 17 for a special reception to celebrate the exhibit and our new campus, and then mesmerized a standing-room only audience at a lecture on the campus on September 18.

The largest private university in New Jersey, FDU introduced its Vancouver campus to the public earlier this month. FDU-Vancouver is the University’s fourth campus, joining the Metropolitan Campus and the College at Florham in New Jersey, and Wroxton College in England.

The University’s mission is to prepare world citizens through global education. And so, it is incredibly fitting and poignant that our walls now feature the work of this amazing photographer, who with great skill captures the essence of humanity. Steve’s story is one of genuine curiosity and concern for the next generation; their hardships, their successes, the simplicity of their lives and, in spite of all their challenges, their humor and sense of community. I am reminded of his description of a tailor in India whose village was caught up in some awful flooding and who was trying to save the only means with which he could make a living. He was carrying his sewing machine on his shoulder. The water was up to his chin. His friends were teasing him about smiling for the camera. He couldn’t resist! It was stunning! He had lost everything he owned but his spirit for life was evident and his sense of humor enthralling. I complain if it gets overcast in Vancouver and it rains in North Vancouver!

The exhibit is really all about the ‘next generation’ of children and what we are doing to help prepare them for whatever life has to offer. Alongside Steve’s images are some thought-provoking quotes from J. Michael Adams, the president of Fairleigh Dickinson University, who co-authored the recent book, Coming of Age in a Globalized World: The Next Generation. As Dr. Adams suggests, we are not doing enough to prepare the next generation to understand our world and to solve the major problems in the 21st century. FDU has long been committed to address this educational challenge. It has taken bold steps over the years to go beyond traditional programs and introduce innovative approaches to global education. For example, in 1965, the University became the first American university to open its own overseas campus in Wroxton, England. Its nationally recognized Core curriculum features an award-winning online course called The Global Challenge. Its acclaimed Global Virtual Faculty program features course contributions from scholars and practitioners around the world (Global Virtual Faculty). Its wonderful association with the United Nations (United Nations Pathway) allows students on all its campuses and students from other universities to participate in important discussions with ambassadors and world leaders.

One of its most recent and boldest moves was to establish a campus for international and American and Canadian students in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The educational model calls for highly accredited American degrees, taught in an exciting cosmopolitan Canadian city by international faculty and staff to international students. It confronts many of the challenges facing higher education in one broad initiative. FDU-Vancouver is not a traditional university, on a hill someplace and distanced from the real world in which students will work and live. It is a downtown urban campus in a bustling city. FDU-Vancouver offers two interdisciplinary degrees that connect with the technical and scientific skills students will need in their professional lives. It is a technocentric campus that recognizes the power of the Internet for research, teaching and student development activity. FDU boasts a fiber-optic network second to none. Its small size means classes of 20 or fewer students in each section, close relationships with each other and with tenure track professors. It attempts to customize its student support services by tailoring them to the needs of each student and integrating them with the academic learning outcomes for the campus. They are community based and ethnically anchored.

And herein lays the key difference between the FDU-Vancouver campus and other international campuses. If it is the goal of the campus to develop world citizens for the 21st century, then the campus core competencies that students take from the experiences at FDU-Vancouver must be integrated across the entire campus experience.

Our starting point for addressing this challenge is the 21st century student learning outcomes project of the American Association for Colleges and Universities. These learning outcomes will be cross-referenced alongside the academic courses and programs, as well as the student support services. At the end of a full and enriching FDU-Vancouver experience, students will be ‘empowered’ with the skills and confidence they need to tackle the immense personal and professional challenges they will face. They will be ‘informed’ by the social, scientific and technical models of academic inquiry. They will be held ‘socially responsible’ for the welfare of others and accountable for the quality of life in their community. Finally, they will have developed an ethical framework that allows them to distinguish between right and wrong and good and bad, and to consider the consequences of their decisions.

It’s a tall order. It’s a canvas about to be painted. It’s a photograph about to be arranged. It’s an attempt to improve the lives of the next generation of FDU graduates. They in turn will be prepared to improve the lives of the generation to follow, whether that generation lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Canada or China. Every day we walk on the campus we are reminded of our challenge and our responsibility thanks to Steve’s incredible photographs, which will remain on display for at least the next year. We are inspired by the words of President Adams. And we are motivated by the enthusiasm of our freshman class. It was indeed a wonderful week for FDU and the ‘next generation’ of university graduates.