What is a nurturing university?
A nurturing university is a learning institution that fosters not only academic growth but also personal and professional growth in a supportive, protective environment for all of its educational stakeholders.
The nurturing university's main focus is to equip students to be productive and caring citizens of the world and to foster their entrepreneurial nature as they become what they have been designed to become.
At forty-eight, he left Harvard to become a full-time writer and to escape the academic professionalism that nurtured a university overgrown with "thistles of trivial and narrow scholarship".
In general, according to a University of Michigan study, ventures nurtured in university-based incubators have an average five-year survival rate of 75%, much higher than the recent national average of 47%, and create jobs that tend to remain in the host region.
And in what may prove to be the most impactive development, the university is nurturing the nexus of science and business to create a biotechnology sector that has already brought millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs into town.
No one can predict the future of the jobs market exactly, but it is a fair bet that the thinking and problem-solving skills and adaptability nurtured at good universities will be in demand.
It makes sense that universities should be nurturing students' familiarity with technology, encouraging its use in teaching and learning, and paying attention to developing broader digital literacy skills.
Silicon Valley, home of Stanford and other universities, has long been the model of success for a modern regional economy, and policy makers worldwide have tried to emulate it by nurturing high-tech companies around universities.
These are the universities embracing success by nurturing students without coddling them and pushing students with the assumption that they will be successful.
