October 29, 2012

A President for the Cyborg Generation

Rollins College's Lewis Duncan asks students to consider the ethics of their own immortality

Educating the Cyborg Generation 1

Brian Blanco for The Chronicle

Teaching students to ask tough questions is at the heart of higher education, says Lewis Duncan.

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close Educating the Cyborg Generation 1

Brian Blanco for The Chronicle

Teaching students to ask tough questions is at the heart of higher education, says Lewis Duncan.

By Jack Stripling

Winter Park, Fla

It's a muggy afternoon here at Rollins College, where the president feels strangely lucky.

"I have a huge advantage over many of you," Lewis M. Duncan tells a roomful of students in Crummer Hall. "I get to be part of the last generation to die."

Mr. Duncan, a rocket scientist turned college president, has a mild-mannered delivery that softens his habitual provocations. For the past decade or so, he has been giving variations on this same talk, which centers on the notion that