Set the World on Fire

When I was an undergraduate at Loyola University Chicago, a quote from St. Ignatius of Loyola appeared everywhere on campus—on banners, posters, flags on light posts—and it nagged at me: “Go forth and set the world on fire,” it said. I didn’t really get it. Set the world on fire how? End world hunger? House the unhoused? Cure cancer? Some of my friends went into the Peace Corps or joined Teach for America after we graduated. Those journeys, it seemed to me at the time, were really “setting the world on fire,” unlike whatever plans—or nonplans—I had after graduation. 

I was reminded of the message during my conversation with Paul LeBlanc this week for Inside Higher Ed’s podcast The Key. In his new book, Reclaiming Purpose: The University in an AI World (Wiley), LeBlanc argues that in this time of existential technological disruption, what could save higher ed is a shift away from knowledge transfer and toward an education that teaches students how to be good human beings. 

When you consider the serious strains on the sector at the moment, LeBlanc’s vision is optimistic, to be sure. But I prefer to imagine a world going forward in which human skills matter more, not less. And there’s still time for higher ed to lead it in that direction.

LeBlanc, who, as president, turned Southern New Hampshire University into one of the country’s largest nonprofit providers of online education, acknowledges the human and societal toll of AI advancement. Already, automation is changing the workforce, data centers are depleting our limited resources and exploiting poor communities, and our economy is teetering on an AI bubble. Still, he challenges readers to imagine what could come next. “I’m not glossing over how hard the transition will be,” he said in our interview. “But we have to start talking about what does it look like if we get it right.”

In his vision, getting it right means rebuilding the economy after AI gobbles up many white-collar jobs. The new system will value things that set us apart from the machines, such as teaching, teamwork, collaboration and creation. And by moving away from our current “soul-deadening” jobs to ones based on human relationships, we’ll feel more connected and believe that our work matters. “If AI takes our best-paying jobs, there will be a hard transition, but there will be an invitation to do jobs we know make people feel amazingly fulfilled—if we just pay them enough and we don’t burn them out,” LeBlanc said. 

Developing these human skills, he argues, will come to define higher ed. 

Some institutions already teach students a set of values, but they need to go further. Faith-based institutions like my Jesuit alma mater, as well as historically Black colleges and universities and military academies, are examples LeBlanc gives of institutions focused on developing the whole human. Students at other kinds of institutions might also learn these skills through extracurriculars, service learning or volunteering. But for higher ed to truly reclaim this purpose, institutions need to get serious about developing students’ human capacities. 

“We treat [human development] as an act of faith. Like, if we create all these conditions, you will come out as a better human being,” LeBlanc said. “We don’t know if that’s true. We don’t measure anything. We’re not very clear about the claims we make for it.”  

What does this model of higher ed actually look like? AI will do the work of knowledge transfer so faculty and students can spend time giving it meaning— a “flipped classroom on steroids,” LeBlanc called it. A hyperpersonalized learning platform will draw on data about students—reading levels, the learning materials they respond best to, their attention span in the given moment, whether they’re tired—to be responsive to their needs in real time and adapt the teaching accordingly. “If you and I are in the same course, we might have a very different experience, but the same objectives mastered at the end,” he said. “That’s kind of the holy grail that we’re working on now, and it’s within reach.” 

In the classroom, faculty help students develop the complex human sensibilities and discernment that machines don’t have —an architecture student with their professor and classmates thinks about what their designs mean for the communities they serve; a nursing student considers the moral dimensions of end-of-life care. 

With some life experience under my belt, I have a better understanding of St. Ignatius’s message. In part, setting the world on fire is about figuring out how you want to be in the world and then living that fully. For me, it’s a lifelong endeavor, and I find myself circling back to the things at the center of LeBlanc’s vision for higher ed: cultivating a sense of self, engaging with a community, wrestling with ethical questions. I still don’t have an answer to Ignatius’s charge, but if LeBlanc’s bet for higher ed is right—that human flourishing and connection will matter more as AI transforms how we work and live—then maybe the trying is enough.