In this episode of Not Alone: Leaders in conversation, host Rafael Bras sits with President Lily Kong to probe trust, purpose, and the future of universities through the lens of Singapore’s model and global headwinds. From neutrality to rankings and the 100-year life, we explore how institutions can rebuild relevance without losing their soul.

Topics include:

• Singapore’s planning state and education-led growth
• first-generation academic journey and gender in leadership
• causes of trust erosion and ROI pressures
• universities leading versus lagging across economic phases
• liberal orthodoxy and cultivating true viewpoint diversity
• institutional neutrality versus passivity and red lines
• rankings, bad metrics and perverse incentives
• the case for humanities and experiential learning
• crisis of direction and diverse institutional missions
• lifelong learning, demographics and the 100-year life

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In this episode of Not Alone: Leaders in conversation, we trace how university leadership split between internal stewardship and external politics, and what that means for mission, trust, and culture. Robert A. Brown lays out why research finance is fragile, how immigration and AI shape the future, and where focus and courage will be required.

Topics include:

• Growth of constituencies and the provost–president divide
• Declining public confidence driven by cost, access and politics
• Research economics, indirects and the risk to Endless Frontier
• Subcritical departments and the culture of merit
• Teacher‑scholar model under pressure and reputational incentives
• Immigration as talent strategy and soft power
• Demographics, consolidation and institutional resilience
• AI shifting teaching from facts to judgment and identity
• Focused research priorities and harder leadership choices

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In this episode of Not Alone: Leaders in Conversation, host Rafael Bras speaks with Tony Chan about building a Western-style research university inside a rapidly changing Saudi Arabia, the rising political pressure on US academia, and what AI can and cannot do. The through line is leadership that protects the university’s soul while adapting to new realities.

Topics include:

• Why KAUST adopted US-style research culture and governance
• Vision 2030 expectations and national impact pressures
• Fitting KAUST into the local academic ecosystem
• Recruiting global faculty and top Saudi students
• Mobility risks amid US–China tensions for scholars
• Political pressure on US universities and funding threats
• How top institutions might evolve by 2040
• AI hype versus evidence, and the risk of another AI winter
• Practical regulation that protects innovation and society
• Access, inequality, and the power of big tech in AI

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