The Practice of Lifelong Learning

Higher education is undergoing a fundamental shift. Long, technically oriented programs struggle to keep pace with accelerating change driven by artificial intelligence, evolving work, and social transformation. In this context, lifelong learning is no longer optional—it is the central task of the modern university.

This proposal responds to that shift with a five-day, immersive, retreat-based experience for 30 to 60 participants, conceived as an experiment in lifelong learning. It is not a traditional course, but an experience that invites participants to rethink how they learn, how they develop over time, and how they remain grounded, ethical, and human in a rapidly changing world. Thus, it intentionally integrates technological awareness, innovation, and a humanistic formation.

The approach is informed by a long tradition of thinking on lifelong development and self-renewal, including the work of John W. Gardner, and by my own formation at La Salle two decades ago. Returning now with an offering explicitly centered on lifelong learning feels both timely and deeply meaningful.

Designed to be transformational for participants, experimental for La Salle, and scalable into a broader lifelong learning ecosystem, the experience serves as both an educational intervention and an institutional learning platform.

1. Inner Foundations

Lifelong learning begins with self-awareness. Participants explore identity, authenticity, personal values, emotional self-regulation, attention, gratitude, meaning, and purpose.

They are also invited to reflect on what it means to lead “the good life,” exploring ideas of flourishing, balance, and sustainable success, while questioning the difference between enduring fulfillment and the constant pursuit of more.

2. Relational Intelligence

As technical skills are automated, human relational capacities become decisive. Through highly collaborative exercises, participants develop empathy, listening, dialogue, psychological safety, and collective sense-making competencies.

3. Learning as Experimentation

Lifelong learning becomes practical and actionable through design and systems thinking. Participants design small, real-world, fail-forward experiments, using rapid prototyping, openness to ambiguity, deep reflection, and continuous iteration as learning tools.

4. Human Formation in the Age of AI

This theme runs throughout the experience. Rather than competing with AI, participants focus on what must be cultivated in humans: critical thinking, presence, ethical judgment, care, and wisdom.

In an AI-rich world, the most valuable human skill is not producing answers, but learning how to frame meaningful questions, sustain attention, and think independently. Lifelong learning therefore doubles down on interpretive judgment, intellectual stamina, and human presence — capacities that cannot be outsourced.

The central question is not how to keep up with technology, but who we choose to become as individuals and professionals — ethically, socially, and humanly — while leveraging it.

I am a proud Lasallian. My father was educated in the Lasallian tradition in Mexico, I had the privilege of being formed by it here at La Salle–Ramon Llull, and I sincerely hope my daughter will one day join those same ranks.

The values at the heart of this experience — educating the whole person, ethical judgment, and service for the common good — are not new ideas to me; they are the foundation on which my own learning and teaching have been built.

From a Lasallian perspective, this reflects a lived vision of a flourishing life, grounded in humility, compassion, inner freedom, and responsibility for others. It offers a practical framework for lifelong learning centered on character, self-transcendence, and ongoing renewal.

My intention is for this experience to serve as a lifelong-learning experiment that makes La Salle’s educational mission visible, lived, sustainable, and future-oriented.

This experience is designed for learners at different stages of their educational and professional journey: from bachelor students beginning their exploration, to final-year students preparing to enter the workforce, and those in between. The earlier lifelong learning begins, the more powerful it becomes; the later it begins, the more urgently it is needed.

The experience is intentionally interdisciplinary. Bringing together participants from business, engineering, architecture, design, and the humanities creates a richer learning environment where different ways of thinking meet, challenge one another, and broaden perspective — one of La Salle’s distinctive strengths.

Participants do not leave as “finished” professionals. They leave as lifelong learners-in-practice: with a clearer (yet evolving) learning philosophy, greater awareness of how they learn, and practical tools for self-directed, reflective, and experimental development. Most importantly, they undergo a tangible identity shift: from passive consumers of education to empowered designers of their own lifelong learning journey.

Academic rigor is ensured through philosophy, theology, positive psychology, cutting-edge neuroscience, and systems-based leadership research.

The experience is embodied, visceral, and participatory, reflecting how lifelong learning occurs. Through reflection, dialogue, movement, and real-world experimentation, participants move through a rhythm of inner awareness to relational learning to applied action.

Innovative learning methods such as routine journaling, mindfulness practices, guided visualizations, and structured dyadic engagements are used to support deep reflection, insight, and integration.

Participation is voluntary and carefully framed, with clear boundaries and professional facilitation to ensure psychological safety and respectful engagement throughout.

The impact of this experience will be measured less by what participants know at the end of five days, and more by what continues afterward: ongoing learning experiments, sustained peer reflection, and observable shifts in how participants approach work, relationships, and uncertainty.

At the institutional level, La Salle would treat this initiative as a living laboratory for lifelong learning, generating insight into new pedagogical formats, learning rhythms, and scalable models that can evolve over time within a socially engaged university environment.

This is intentionally conceived as a pilot with a longer horizon. The initial experience is limited in scale by design, aimed at producing shared insights, learning artifacts, and transferable frameworks that can inform La Salle’s lifelong learning efforts well beyond any single cohort or facilitator. The goal is not a finished solution, but a shared experiment the university can continue to learn from and build upon.

This proposal reflects my engagement with how people learn, develop, and change over time within institutional settings:

• nearly ten years leading a similar five-day Life Design seminar at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) within the CEMS program (~70 students per year), which has consistently received some of the strongest student feedback in the program

• nearly 20 years of university teaching, executive education, and public speaking across multiple continents

• participation at the Stanford d.school‍ while the Reimagining Higher Education initiative was first taking shape, directly informing this proposal

This proposal is intentionally exploratory. The natural next step would be a co-design conversation to refine scope, audience, format, and how this experience might integrate into La Salle’s broader lifelong learning strategy.

I’m deeply grateful for the openness, curiosity, and trust with which this idea has already been received. It means a great deal to me to explore this work in dialogue with an institution that shaped my own formation and continues to stand for education as a human and social endeavor.

From a practical standpoint, this is an initiative I am ready to move forward with quickly. I can be physically available in Barcelona during:

• the second half of January

• early April through mid-August

• late October through December