This is the second post in a short series inspired by the recent visit and talk I attended by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist. His two-hour conversation on The Search for Life in the Universe left me thinking not only about space, but about education—how both fields depend on curiosity, data, and the willingness to look in new places for signs of life.
In astrobiology, the guiding principle for finding life beyond Earth is simple: follow the water.
Where there’s water, there’s the potential for life. Even in the harshest environments, the polar ice of Mars or the frozen surface of Europa, scientists look for the smallest trace of liquid, because life in any form we know cannot exist without it.
That same logic applies to higher education. If we want to find where learning, growth, and belonging truly thrive on our campuses, we have to follow the modern learners.
Following the Modern Learner
For decades, colleges were designed around a “traditional” student…..18 years old, living on campus, attending full time. But that model no longer describes the majority of students we serve. The modern learner may be 35, working full time, raising a family, or finishing a degree started years ago. They are diverse in background, motivation, and circumstance.
Just as scientists must upgrade their instruments to detect new kinds of worlds, colleges must expand their understanding of who today’s learners are and how they move through higher education. Following the modern learner means tracing where their energy already flows, how they learn best, where they struggle, and what conditions allow them to thrive. Now, a separate issue relates to grading, grade inflation, and academic rigor…. Although I’m not diving into those issues today, I recognize they are at a minimum, adjacent to my consistent drumbeat of serving the modern learner. Understanding them and how they learn best, and the support they need, in no way means compromising rigor. To do the work needed to best serve students and ensure quality it will take a lot of work!
Institutional Responsibility
At Gardner-Webb and elsewhere, following the modern learner means more than changing class schedules or adding online sections. It means building conditions where life can exist:
- Clear academic pathways.
- Transfer-friendly processes.
- Stackable and career-relevant credentials.
- Student services that reach every learner, not only those on campus.
“Follow the water” doesn’t mean create life….. it means create the environment where life can take hold. That’s our institutional role: to design and sustain ecosystems that allow curiosity, belonging, and learning to grow.
Student Responsibility
But just as water alone doesn’t guarantee life, opportunity alone doesn’t guarantee success.
Institutions can provide support, access, and flexibility, but students must do their part. They have to show up, stay engaged, ask for help, and make use of the resources offered. Higher education works best as a shared effort: the institution creates the conditions, and the learner capitalizes on them.
When I talk with students, I often remind them: we can build the conditions, but you have to bring the curiosity. You have to want to find life, your own sense of purpose and possibility, within what’s being offered.
Balancing Design and Discovery
One of the most powerful moments in Tyson’s talk was his reminder that science is never static. The search for life on Mars or the study of distant exoplanets isn’t about certainty, it’s about disciplined wonder. Scientists design, test, and refine; they don’t wait for proof to appear, they build the tools to discover it.
Higher education should operate the same way. Modern-learner success requires experimentation, iteration, and reflection. Each initiative, whether it’s a new advising model, course format, or co-curricular experience, should be treated as a living experiment: Is there life here? Is something working? If not, what conditions need to change?
Closing Thought
To follow the water is to believe that life is possible, even where it hasn’t yet been found.
For colleges and universities, it means believing that learning can flourish in new settings, among new populations, through new models. But belief alone isn’t enough; it takes design, data, and empathy on one side, and engagement, effort, and ownership on the other.
When both sides do their part, the institution and the student, we don’t just find life in higher education.
We sustain it.