Of interest to the preparation of the presentation on "Teaching the skills of intercultural communication and empathy across the generations" was the following:  

“Dr. Sara Konrath, Assistant Professor at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and one of the authors of the 2009 study, spoke with BTR to discuss its findings.

“’What’s interesting is that [our study] didn’t look at the attitudes of previous generations toward college students, but actually surveyed the beliefs of college students themselves,’ Konrath explains. ‘When asked about some core empathy traits, we tended to see responses such as, “I don’t think about others when they’re in need, when someone is suffering it doesn’t move me,” and so on.’"