Invite Louis to Speak at Your School or Event

Louis Newman is a compelling public speaker, who is able to introduce students to the core concepts of critical thinking in a manner that is both clear and accessible. His many years of experience working with undergraduates comes through in the ease with which he is able to speak and connect with them. We are grateful for the time he spent with the members of the Echols Scholars Program.

We had Dr. Newman visit during our three-day end of year faculty conference, and many faculty commented that his presentation was amazing. In fact, his talk was the #1 choice on the event evaluations as “most useful part of the conference.”

While many experts offer advice about college admission, Professor Louis Newman does something revolutionary: he tells us how to help students succeed in college. In his outstanding webinar, Dr. Newman describes the importance of developing critical thinking skills, not just as a means of academic success, but to prepare young people to become engaged, lifelong learners and productive members of society.

Louis’ presentation as part of the Bay Area Case Studies program was candid, thoughtful, informative, and funny. Our audience of Silicon Valley parents gained tremendous insights about conducting a more intentional college search, building the skills to thrive as a college student, and most importantly, redefining success. From the start to the finish of our event planning process, Louis was wonderfully collaborative and collegial.

Thank you so much, Professor Newman, for such an amazing workshop series on Critical Thinking. Our faculty at Al Akhawayn University felt extremely engaged in such an inspiring learning journey. Your innovative approach made this experience insightful, fruitful, and impactful.

Thank you so very much for speaking with our seniors as they head off to college in the fall. Your advice and tips are invaluable as they transition from high school to college and you highlighted several concrete and attainable ways they can be productive and successful college students. It’s hard to imagine how different college might be from high school, but you helped them feel more confident and comfortable about the uncertainty ahead of them.

Louis Newman’s workshop was incredibly informative and insightful for our incoming college freshmen. Louis delivered invaluable knowledge about succeeding in college that our students hadn’t heard before, and he delivered it so accessibly. We are so grateful they could gain this knowledge from Louis and wholeheartedly recommend this workshop for other college students.

You did a masterful job of getting advisers to articulate their most important concerns and leading a probing, productive conversation around their specific concerns. Thanks, too, for the excellent presentation you gave to students, a highly engaging and well-organized talk that met students where they are, prompted them to reflect on the core purposes of college education, and gave them concrete suggestions on how to accomplish those purposes.

We thoroughly enjoyed welcoming Louis to Haverford. He clearly spent a tremendous amount of time preparing materials that were relevant both to mentors and students. Students lined up after the presentation to ask him questions, which is a testament to his deep knowledge and engaging presentation style.

Dr. Newman’s timely message to “put critical thinking at the center of our work” challenged us as institutional leaders, faculty members, and advisors to not abandon our calling. The value proposition of higher education is to provide our students the best opportunity to explore, ask questions, and learn to think critically. Technologies will change, but good thinking skills will last a lifetime.

Thank You, Dr. Newman! We’re grateful to you for delivering two outstanding presentations, one for students and another for our faculty and staff. Attendees praised your engaging style, thoughtful answers, and practical strategies for teaching critical thinking. You reminded us that critical thinking does not happen by osmosis; it must be intentionally taught and practiced. Your book Thinking Critically in College has been an impactful resource that shows how to ensure critical thinking, not just hope for it. Your work has left a lasting impact, inspiring our community to approach dialogue and learning with greater intentionality.

I am deeply grateful that you shared your insights, research, and experiences facilitating critical thinking. Your book is like a pedagogical map, providing steps for educators to navigate the cognitive geography of young minds. Not only did you impact our faculty, but also our administration and our student peer educators. Thank you!!

Louis Newman presented to our team several valuable frameworks for thinking about the work of academic advising: about moving from transactional to transformational relationships with students, about higher education not as the acquisition of a ticket-like credential but as the cultivation of a passport-like menu of capabilities. He also provided us with space and support to do what we needed most to do: converse together about how such frameworks might function practically in real scenarios. We are better advisors for Louis’s having visited us, and we hope to welcome him again in the future.