(Music)
Welcome NYU Stern Class
of 2023! My name is Matt
Statler and I’m in my
tenth year as professor
and Director of Business
Ethics and Social Impact
Programming. I wanted to
take a couple of minutes
to help you prepare to
join our community and
enroll in classes for the
fall by offering you some
insight into how and why
the integration of the
liberal arts and the
social impact core in the
Stern curriculum
will prepare you for a
successful career and a
lifetime of learning.
The pace of societal and
environmental change
appears to be
accelerating, driven in
part by technological
innovations.
Machine learning, artificial
intelligence, big data –
developments in these
fields are disrupting
entire industries and
sectors of the economy.
Think about it, ten years
ago, companies like Uber,
Tesla and Spotify were
startups – they barely
existed, and now they've
changed the way we live.
As future business
leaders, you not only
need to understand these
technologies, you also
need to stay ahead of
them by thinking in ways
that cannot be automated.
Stern’s Liberal Arts Core
provides you with
opportunities to broaden
your mind, to learn in
different ways, to become
more reflective about how
you learn and to develop
the flexible and creative
mindset that will help you
outrun the robots over the
course of a long career.
The other thing you 
need to do is look at
how you amplify or
how you better utilize
people's human skills.
The skills we don't think
will be replaced for the
next, for decades, are
complex problem solving,
cross-domain, really
complex problem solving,
creativity in any
profound way. I
don’t believe that true
creativity will be
replaced.
Business plays a complex
and important role
in global society.
We are currently living
in the ‘anthropocene
age’, when, for the first
time in history, humans
are shaping the geology
of the planet.
More people are alive
than ever before.
We’re communicating and
interacting with greater
frequency. We are
increasingly mobile and
increasingly urbanized.
And we’re having an
unprecedented ecological
impact.
As future business leaders, you
need to be responsive to
a wide range of
social and environmental
challenges and
opportunities.
Companies coming on Shark Tank
now, particularly from younger
entrepreneurs, have a
social component.
You don't wanna buy something
unless you think the
company is contributing.
Stern’s Social Impact Core
Curriculum enables you to create
a positive impact as business
leaders, focusing on
global challenges and
opportunities in Business & Society.
Communication and
teamwork in
Organizational Communication & Its
Societal Context. The
changing legal and
regulatory landscape in
Law, Business &
Society. And finally,
success and resilience
in Professional
Responsibility &
Leadership.
Whether you are going to go work
for a Fortune 100, Fortune
500 company, whether
you're going to take an
entrepreneurial path
and you're seeking equity
investors, being able to
articulate your value to
many different
constituencies and how
you view your place in
the world and in your
ecosystem, I think is
going to be critical to
demonstrating your
leadership.
We're all happier and more
productive when we’re
doing something that
gives us a sense of
purpose. But this kind
of activity doesn't just
happen once – instead it
develops over time as we
have new experiences,
reflect on their value
for our lives, and
learn how to seek greater
fulfillment. By embracing
different learning
experiences, we become
more interesting and
complex people, and we
improve our ability to
make qualitative
judgments about what is
good or bad for us and
our world.
All parts of you are essential,
all experiences make you who
you are. Don't be afraid
of your voice. The thing
that makes you different
is the thing that makes
you strong. And I believe
this distinctly. It is in
our specific voice, that's
the only thing we can contribute
to the world.
The Stern undergraduate
curriculum will provide you with
the freedom to explore your
own interests, develop
yourself as a human being
with a sense of meaning
and purpose in life.
Again, we want to welcome
you to our NYU Stern
community, we look
forward to learning
together starting in the
fall. See you soon!
(Music)
.
