Where this was said
Whole-Person Education and What a University Is Really For
At 35:53 · chapter starts 35:30
Dubner frames a challenging question: is the university now doing the foundational developmental work that families and K-12 education used to do, and is that mission creep? Beilock's answer is direct and rooted in her background as a psychologist: you cannot separate the human from the scholar. The knowledge economy is rendering pure expertise increasingly commodified while the ability to build coalitions, navigate disagreement, and pose better questions becomes more differentiating. Dartmouth, she argues, has always been known for producing whole people — not just brilliant researchers — and the skills needed to lead in a polarized democracy require exactly the kind of social and emotional capacity that the university uniquely builds. The segment ends as the host transitions to Beilock's own path from researcher to administrator.
Dartmouth's faculty developed a policy they called 'institutional restraint' — not neutrality — to prevent the university from making statements that could suppress dissenting voices. The goal is to create brave spaces where heterodox thinking thrives.
