Dive Summary:
- San Francisco's Minerva Project, a venture aspiring to redefine higher education, announced Monday that it will launch an annual $500,000 prize next year for any faculty member at any institution in the world proven to demonstrate innovative teaching.
- The nonprofit Minerva Academy, led by 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Roger D. Kornberg of the Stanford University School of Medicine, will oversee the award.
- In the long run, Minerva Project founder Ben Nelson aims to create a top-tier for-profit research university in which students live together but take classes that are online seminars, an idea that The New York Times notes provides an interesting look at how technology may change higher education.
From the article:
... “We hope the Minerva Prize will be the Nobel Prize of teaching,” said Ben Nelson, Minerva’s founder. “Universities want to reward teaching, but the industry gives no incentive, or negative incentives, for focusing on teaching. Every honor is all about the creation of knowledge.” ...