The Singapore National Academy of Higher Education, as led by Founding President Assoc Prof Stephen Lim, organized an Invited Panel Dialogue on 1 December 2021—Empowering Youths and Their University Teachers in a Digital Age.

The Panel comprised two panelists: Mr. Eric Chua, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, and the Ministry of Social and Family Development; Dr. Lim Sun Sun, Full Professor of Communication & Technology and Head of Cluster (Dean) of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and was moderated by Assoc Prof Lim himself. The Panel discussed such pertinent questions as: “How might a truly flourishing university look like?”, “What should ‘flourishing’ mean to our university youths and teachers?”, and “How might we promote ‘flourishing’ among our university youths and teachers?”.

Assoc Prof Lim remarked:

In today’s digital age, universities seek to empower our youths and teachers, so that they may not only experience psychological well-being, but ultimately flourish at school, and in their lives. According to VanderWeele (2017, PNAS), human well-being or flourishing consists of a wide array of states and outcomes, such as mental and physical health, happiness and life satisfaction, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, as well as close social relationships. We continue to be intrigued by the possibility of applying such a Flourish measure to a higher education context, and the implications on university policy and practice.”

The session was attended by educators from across our local autonomous universities, who reacted positively. We warmly congratulate Assoc Prof Stephen Lim on a well-curated and meaningful Dialogue, and look forward to many more engagements between universities and the National Academy.