Events

Upcoming Events

  • Graduate & Professional Student Forum on the Future of the American University

    Date: February 25, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
    Location: Big Red Barn

    Graduate and professional students are invited to attend this forum to discuss the future of higher education with members of the Provost’s Committee on the Future of the American University. The event is co-hosted with the Graduate & Professional Student Assembly, with pizza provided.

  • The State of Science in the U.S. with Rush Holt

    Date: February 26, 2026, 3:30 p.m.
    Location: HEC Auditorium, 132 Goldwin Smith Hall

    Rush Holt is a Former Member of Congress (NJ-12, 1999-2015) and CEO-Emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), physicist, advocate for science and the environment, and five-time Jeopardy! winner.

    Vannevar Bush famously wrote that without scientific progress “no amount of achievement in other directions can ensure our health, prosperity, and security.” With the current great disruptions there is unsatisfactory scientific progress in several important respects. Even more important than the losses in research funding and the cancellation of many university programs is the expulsion of science from governmental, social, and cultural areas. Evidence, scientific expertise, and collaborative questioning of the unknown are being replaced with unmoored opinions. We risk descending into what Cornell’s Carl Sagan called a demon-haunted world. Is there something the non-scientific public should get from science that is more important than the medicines, materials, and munitions that Bush imagined? Talk followed by a panel discussion with Lisa Kaltenegger (Director, Carl Sagan Institute), Praveen Sethupathy (Co-chair, Committee on the Future of the American University), and Chris Smart (Goichman Family Director, Cornell AgriTech).

  • What Professors Don't Understand About Students Today: A Panel Discussion

    Date: February 26, 2026, 4:30 p.m.
    Location: Kaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall

    Panelists: Corey Ryan Earle, Daisy Fan, Erica Kryst, Marla Love

    Undergraduates in the 21st century grew up in and face a very different world. How do the challenges of technology, political polarization, and a more globalized world create concerns and anxieties specific to this generation and future generations of college students? And in what ways are these concerns and anxieties manifestations of longstanding challenges for students at this precarious yet profound stage of life? In part one of this program, professionals will present a macro-level perspective based on research and their professional experience. In part two, the microphone will be open to students only, as we invite them to present a personal perspective based on lived experience. Pizza provided.

  • The Campus as Planning Apparatus – Land Controls, Labor Management, and Local Governance with Davarian Baldwin

    Date: February 27, 2026, 12:20 p.m.
    Location: Milstein Hall Auditorium

    Colleges and universities have quietly become central players in today’s knowledge economy — emerging as major landholders, employers, healthcare providers, and even policing agents within communities nationwide. In this lecture, Davarian Baldwin examines how the physical form of “the campus” operates as a planning tool that transforms neighborhood blocks into engines of university and corporate wealth through land control, labor management, and the semi-private governance of host communities. Drawing on work from his Smart Cities Research Lab, Baldwin reveals how campuses convert laboratories into tax shelters for investors and graduate workers into wage-suppressed apprentices — while also spotlighting grassroots efforts to resist these trends. What are the implications of living in the shadow of a planning model Baldwin calls the “UniverCity”?

  • Current Challenges in Higher Education: A Conversation with Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education (ACE)

    Date: March 12, 2026, 4:30 p.m.
    Location: HEC Auditorium, 132 Goldwin Smith Hall

    More details to come.

Past Events

  • The University of 2075: Reimagining the Role of Faculty in the Classroom

    Date: February 10, 2026, 5:00 p.m.
    Location: 142 Upson Hall

    In this workshop, you will work with educators from departments across the university and reimagine how we engage the scholarship of teaching and learning to robustly respond to a continually changing world. With the advent of new technologies seemingly every day, the educational landscape is constantly evolving. As a result, we observe a similar evolution in our students, both in how they learn and what they value in education. In this rapidly changing environment, we can envision and design the future of higher education by reflecting on our values and roles as educators. Together, we will co-construct a vision for the university of tomorrow and identify strategies to move towards that vision.

  • FAU Town Hall for Faculty

    Date: December 1, 2025, 9:00 a.m.
    Location: Zoom

    All Cornell University faculty are invited to a Zoom Town Hall hosted by the Provost’s Committee on the Future of the American University to learn more about their work to explore how the university can evolve to best serve future generations while pursuing its core mission of education, scholarship, public impact, and community engagement.

  • FAU Town Hall for Staff

    Date: November 24, 2025, 10:00 a.m.
    Location: Zoom

    All Cornell University staff are invited to a Zoom Town Hall hosted by the Provost’s Committee on the Future of the American University to learn more about their work to explore how the university can evolve to best serve future generations while pursuing its core mission of education, scholarship, public impact, and community engagement.

  • John Tomasi: The University at a Crossroads – And How We Can Build Cultures of Open Inquiry

    Date: November 18, 2025, 5:30 p.m.
    Location: Lewis Auditorium G76, Goldwin Smith Hall and via Zoom

    John Tomasi, the inaugural president of Heterodox Academy (HxA), a nonpartisan nonprofit advocating for open inquiry in higher education, will discuss how disagreement, done well, is not a threat but a form of collaboration, and how universities can cultivate a uniquely creative and disciplined environment that enriches the entire society around it.

  • Does A.I. Do More Harm Than Good in Higher Education?

    Date: November 4, 2025, 6:00 p.m.
    Location: 146 Stocking Hall

    Does AI do more harm than good in education? As part of the Future of the American University initiative, students, faculty, staff, and the broader community are invited to discuss different perspectives on the future of education in a time of ubiquitous access to Artificial Intelligence.