What Does It Mean To Be Educated?

My heart is full after three days in Crete, Nebraska, leading a seminar on “What Does It Mean To Be Educated?” — a partnership, a year in the making, between the Aspen Institute Socrates Program and Doane University.

Crete is a remarkable community, anchored by a 150-year-old university that is thinking seriously about the present and future of higher education. Under the leadership of President Roger Hughes and VP Luis Sotelo, Doane is opening its doors to the community, alumni, and partners—not just to adapt to change, but to rethink what a university and a college degree mean to students and society.

Across a community dinner of nearly 200 and a closed-door seminar of 25, we wrestled with a set of enduring questions:

• What is education for—preparation for work, cultivation of citizenship, formation of character, or something harder to define?
• How do our assumptions about truth, authority, and inquiry shape what we teach, how we teach, and whom we serve?
• As AI reshapes how knowledge is produced and accessed, what must remain constant, and what must be reimagined?
• What is the future of a liberal arts education?

Around the table, participants shared stories, tested ideas, and engaged difficult questions without easy answers. The group spanned ages, perspectives, and backgrounds, but converged around a shared commitment to community, to the next generation, and to the promise of education. We also turned to Willa Cather, one of Nebraska’s most enduring voices, who wrote in 1919:

Her words still resonate. They remind us that education is not only about utility, but about aspiration, identity, and the search for meaning. Crete and Doane are doing that work with deep care. It was a privilege for the Aspen Institute to be part of it.