Disrupting the Ivy League: A Conversation in KL

"...I realized that what the universities are supposed to be is not what they are - that the concept of universities taking great raw material and teaching how it can have positive impact in the world is gone. Undergraduates come in, take some random classes, settle on a major and oh yeah, you're going to pick up critical thinking in the process by accident....my first six months, what did the consulting firm teach me? They didn't teach me the basics of how they do business. They taught me how to think. I didn't know how to check my work. I didn't think about order of magnitude. I didn't have habits of mind that a liberal arts education was supposed to have given me. And not only did I not have it, none of my other colleagues had it—people who had graduated from Princeton and Harvard and Yale. "

- Ben Nelson, CEO and founder of the Minerva Project, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Aug 9 2013. (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324110404578627712224845012)

Join Kenn Ross, the Managing Director for Asia at The Minerva Project, as he speaks about how Minerva aims to challenge the Ivy League, and create a completely reimagined university experience for the world's brightest and most motivated students - an Ivy 2.0.

Find out more at : minerva.kgi.edu
Register for this event at: http://minervakl.eventbrite.com/

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About the Minerva Schools:

Minerva hopes to be the school of choice for exceptional students who deeply desire to solve some of the world's most complex problems - a place where students can receive an education deliberately designed to train them to move the world forward, and become global thinkers, innovators and leaders.

Minerva's educational model has been designed by some of the top experts in American education to achieve this in several ways:

1. A rigorous academic curriculum based on the science of learning. Minerva's academics, modern and relevant in ways not achieved to date. By understanding the intrinsic way people learn, absorb, and understand information, Minerva can teach teach more effectively. Minerva's students learn key foundational concepts (knowledge you can build on) and habits of mind (mental skills that become automatic) that allow them to build competence across diverse fields as well as expertise in specific domains.

2. An active learning environment designed to improve upon the traditional classroom experience. All classes seminar-based discussions with no more than 19 students. Minerva will not provide or host any content-dissemination based lectures. Every class is an opportunity for students to interact with their professor and a small group of peers. Classes are run through an advanced, data and analytics-driven technology platform designed to enhance students' learning experience.

3. Global cultural immersion. Minerva's students live and study in seven different cities over the course of four years. We believe that to understand the world one must experience it firsthand. Every location offers an abundance of location-based learning, extracurricular and social opportunities, which will be facilitated by Minerva's on-site international staff. This location-based learning reinforces and expands upon lessons learned in class, while community involvement fosters empathy and curiosity toward people everywhere. Internships and apprenticeships build valuable skills, while creating lasting relationships.

4. Lifelong career support services. Minerva is committed to providing the tools, connections and guidance to help its students excel throughout their professional journey. From one-on-one sessions with Minerva's career specialists to ongoing promotion of personal accomplishments, Minerva's students will have unlimited access to the people, tools and services to help amplify their potential.

5. Accessible and merit-based education. All students who pass Minerva's rigorous admissions criteria will be ensured a spot at Minerva, with no weight given to ethnicity, lineage or place of origin. Tuition fees are USD 10,000 a year - a fraction of the price at traditional top American and European universities. Personalized financial aid and scholarship options will be provided for students based on demonstrated need.

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Minerva: A Brief History

The Minerva Project was founded in 2011. In 2012, Minerva secured USD 25 million in early stage funding from Benchmark Capital, which is among the world's most respected venture capital firms; Benchmark Capital also funded companies like Instagram, Ebay and Twitter at the early stage.

In 2013, Minerva recruited Dr. Stephen Kosslyn as its Founding Dean; Dr Kosslyn was previously the head of the Centre for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and prior to that, was the Dean of Social Sciences at Harvard and chair of its psychology department. Dr. Kosslyn supervises the hiring and curriculum development for each of Minerva's academic colleges. In addition, four additional Deans were selected to lead the individual academic colleges within the school, all of whom are world-class, renowned academics in their respective fields; an example is Dr Daniel Levitin, musician, neuroscientist author who wrote the science bestseller "This is Your Brain On Music", and has played and performed with musicians like Sting and Carlos Santana. Minerva has also assembled a prominent team of academics to sit on its advisory board, which includes Nobel Laureate Dr. Roger Kornberg and MIT professor Alex 'Sandy' Pentland.

Minerva, with an acceptance rate of less than 3 percent, is preparing to welcome its Founding Class of 32 extraordinary students from 10 countries and five continents; these students matriculate in Fall 2014 and will work closely together with Minerva's prominent team of academics and professionals to turn the Minerva vision into a reality.

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Minerva in Kuala Lumpur

Minerva seeks to reach out to exceptional Malaysian students who are deeply curious about the world, hope to generate positive change and desire a challenging, mission-driven education. They should be academically accomplished and have demonstrated attributes of leadership, creativity and initiative. Applications for the first official class who will matriculate in Fall 2015 have opened.

In addition to student outreach, Minerva hopes to engage with communities of local leaders, professionals and change agents to collaborate on crafting a university experience that will train students to become future leaders and innovators in their own societies - including Malaysia. Minerva's success as a university will be measured by the impact and positive contribution its students generate, and it is hoped that a continuous, symbiotic relationship will be developed between Minerva and the communities its students hope to serve.

Minerva is also recruiting to build its Southeast Asia team, to seek out attract the most exceptional students, and eventually create a re-imagined extracurricular, co-curricular and residential experience student experience here.

Kenn will be in Kuala Lumpur to initiate Minerva's outreach efforts in Malaysia; he will be giving an in-depth presentation on Minerva, and will be actively reaching out to relevant and interested parties during the course of his stay here in Malaysia. He will also be joined by two Malaysian students who have been accepted into Minerva's founding class. They will share their stories, hopes and ideals for Minerva and its potential contribution to Malaysia's unique narrative.