Panel: The Future of Higher Education
Panel Description
Building upon a brief overview of The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future (Levine and Van Pelt, 2021), this panel will explore critical challenges and opportunities for higher education in the years ahead. Attendees of this session will gain familiarity with The Great Upheaval – a sweeping account of critical trends and future trajectories in US post-secondary education. Attendees will also gain perspective from a panel of higher education researchers and practitioners on key challenges and opportunities emerging from the above, including those having to do with academic faculty, the future of civic and general education, the importance of personalized learning and of initiatives that strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion. Lastly, participants in this panel will have an opportunity to direct questions to and gain insights from panelists on issues of particular interest to themselves.
Panelists Bios
Arthur Levine is Distinguished Scholar of Higher Education at New York University, President Emeritus of Teachers College, Columbia University and President Emeritus of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. He was a faculty member and chair of the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, president of Bradford College, senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation, and founder and first president of the Woodrow Wilson Graduate School of Teaching and Learning. Levine has written 13 books, including “The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future (2021)” and published many articles in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Politico, the Chroncile of Higher Education, Education Week and Inside Higher Education. He has appeared on programs such as “60 Minutes,” “The Today Show,” “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition,” “Open Mind” and Fox News. Levine has received a number of awards, including 26 honorary degrees and Carnegie, Fulbright, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ann Kirschner is a strategic advisor, board director, and writer. The thread that runs through her diverse career is understanding the dynamic changes shaping our future, especially the impact of technology on how we work, shop, entertain, and learn. She is currently president of Comma International and University Professor at The City University of New York (CUNY), and independent director of the Movado Group, Noodle Partners, and Strategic Cyber Ventures. She is a Senior Advisor to the President at Arizona State University, where she also serves on the management committee of ASU EdPlus and Learning Enterprise. Ann Kirschner serves on the national advisory boards of Chegg, WorldQuant University, and Break Through Tech. She co-chairs the Princeton Graduate School Leadership Council and is a former trustee of Princeton University. She co-chairs Footsteps and serves on the board of NYC First and the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation. As the first digital strategist for the National Football League, Ann Kirschner co-launched NFL SUNDAY TICKET, NFL.COM, and SUPERBOWL.COM. A pioneer in e-learning, she was co-founder and CEO of FATHOM with Columbia University and the London School of Economics. She was the founding co-director of the Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship (WiTNY) initiative at CUNY and Cornell Tech. Her books include Sala’s Gift and Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Forward, Chronicle of Higher Education, Newsweek, and she is a contributing writer to Forbes. A graduate of the University of Buffalo and University of Virginia, Ann Kirschner received her Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she was a Whiting Fellow in the Humanities. She is the Dean Emerita of Macaulay Honors College at CUNY.
Adrianna Kezar is Dean’s Professor of Leadership, Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education, at the University of Southern California and Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education within the Rossier School of Education. Dr. Kezar is a national expert of student success, equity and diversity, the changing faculty, change, governance and leadership in higher education. Kezar is well published with 20 books/monographs, over 100 journal articles, and over a hundred book chapters and reports. Recent books include: The Gig Academy (2019) (Johns Hopkins Press), Administration for social justice and equity (2019) (Routledge), The Faculty for the 21st century: Moving to a mission-oriented and learner-centered faculty model (2016) (Rutgers Press),and How Colleges Change (2018) (2nd ed) (Routledge Press).
Dr. Daniel Greenstein became the fifth chancellor of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education on September 4, 2018. In that role, he serves as chief executive officer of the state’s system of 14 public universities, serving nearly 90,000 degree-seeking students and thousands more enrolled in certificate and other career-development programs. Chancellor Greenstein is leading a system-wide redesign effort focused on increasing opportunities for students—including those in underserved populations—while enhancing the financial sustainability of the universities. Greenstein previously worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where he led the Postsecondary Success strategy, at the University of California where he was Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Programs, and in several internet-based academic information services in the United States and the United Kingdom. He began his academic career as a senior lecturer in Modern History at Glasgow University in Scotland and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.