Make Advancements, But Nurture Humanness

By Larry Skogen

The world is engaged in an unprecedented technological revolution occurring at a rate of speed that is hard to comprehend. Consider that both Julius Caesar and George Washington, who lived 1,800 years apart, lived in 5-mph worlds. Yet, Abraham Lincoln, born into that same world, died in a 60-mph world. And 100 years later, humankind walked on the moon.

What differentiated the Caesar-Washington world from the LincolnApollo world was the industrial revolution that replaced muscle power (animal and human) with the combustion engine and mechanization. That era, often called the first machine age, saw unprecedented transformation of the world. Next came the technological revolution with the advent of computers. Combining those computers with machines accelerated that transformation so we are now in what writers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee call “the second machine age.” In this new age, the marriage of computers and machines has resulted in unprecedented automation. Couple artificial intelligence with that automation and one wonders what role humans will have in the future.

While the exponential increase in technology over the recent past and today is stunning, in the days to come, things will move even faster. Futurist Ray Kurzweil famously stated that the technological revolution we are seeing today will result in 20,000 years’ worth of change (compared to the change witnessed in our past) within this century.

In higher education, the technical skills and technologies we teach our students today will likely be obsolete within a few years after they graduate. Whole industries are shifting. Automation has drastically changed manufacturing and is poised to completely upset the transportation industry. At Bismarck State College, we’re training students to operate autonomous welding machines. As a faculty member in that program told me, “We’re not educating welders; we’re training programmers.”

Within this new age of automation and advancement, we must ensure that students learn about more than the technical specifics of their chosen careers. They must learn to think, to understand the impact of decisions and the context of their work. They have to be comfortable with change, and armed with the decision-making skills they’ll need to adapt to the next, rapidly approaching shift in their chosen field.

Moving forward, success for our students, and for all of us, will be defined by much more than our technological knowledge or our technical aptitude. Success will be more dependent than ever on our absolute humanness. Our curiosity, our aesthetic sensibilities and our love for beautiful things — art and music and good books; gardens and sunsets and dancing. It’s nurturing those uniquely human interests that will drive creativity and keep the world moving in new directions.

Our humanness is what differentiates us from animals, and machines for that matter, and why we must, whether we are educating students to be technicians or teachers, ensure that they learn about art, philosophy, music and history. It is those core humanities, subjects required of most students before they are allowed to pursue their specific program goals, that will ensure their success. A strong grounding in humanities will strengthen all that is best in them, and ensure that technology is their tool to success rather than an obstacle.

Larry Skogen PRESIDENT, BISMARCK STATE COLLEGE BISMARCK, N.D. LARRY.SKOGEN@BISMARCKSTATE.EDU

Peter Stenehjem President

Dave Mason Bismarck President