📢 Call for Applicants: CUNY Peer Leaders Program 💡 Are you a motivated and collaborative undergraduate at one of CUNY’s 2- or 4-year campuses? The CUNY Peer Leaders program is now accepting applications! 📅 Apply by Tuesday, September 30, 2025: futuresinitiative.org/2025/09/12/t...

👏 👏 👏 Congratulations to Cathy N. Davidson, founding director of the Futures Initiative and senior advisor on transformation to the CUNY chancellor, who has been awarded the 2025 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education! mcgrawprize.com/news-events/... #HigherEducation #Equity #CUNY #McGrawPrize

We close by celebrating @cathyndavidson.bsky.social for her bold leadership and unwavering commitment to higher education—and for 10 transformative years of the Futures Initiative. Here’s to a legacy of innovation, justice, and public good.

Another blind spot in higher ed: failing to grasp the deep value of diversity. We define excellence narrowly and ask diversity to prove its worth—while taking homogeneity as the norm. It’s time to question who defines excellence and why.

Higher education has as its mission to serve the public good—but rarely stops to ask how the public defines it. One of our biggest blind spots is assuming our definition is shared. To rebuild trust, we have to listen—especially across difference.

@cathyndavidson.bsky.social speaks about college debt and that most have $40K in debt but for profit college debt is three times that plus higher dropout rates. It exacerbates the problem but we're seeing a push for privatization and that's precisely what we don't want. @futuresed.bsky.social

"If funding is going to be tied to politics, we need to be tied to each other. Transform competitive spaces into collaborative ones." - Nancy Cantor, President of CUNY's Hunter College.

Challenging times can open space for imagination. In moments of crisis, resistance, endurance, and imagination become essential—not just to survive, but to transform. These moments can be the catalyst for long-overdue change in our institutions. #FutureOfHigherEd #TransformHigherEd

Hunter College President Nancy Cantor calls for creating shared spaces—not controlled by universities or communities alone, but co-created together.

To shape the future of higher ed, we must co-create with communities - not drop in grant by grant, but commit for the long haul. It’s about shared spaces, visibility, and building together. That can be revolutionary!

Shelly Lowe, Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, highlights our responsibility to communicate the value of our work: "Higher ed is facing cuts, discrediting, and public distrust—but the public doesn’t know what’s being lost. That’s on us!"

Hunter College President Nancy Cantor reminds us of the importance of doing research embedded with communities: “We need a two-way street—a community of experts with and without formal credentials—who really co-produce solutions.” #FutureOfHigherEd

"Storytelling is as important as science". @shellyeversley.bsky.social about the importance of liberal arts and humanities in Higher Education.

We start our event with a powerful question: What does it mean to defend higher education and cultural institutions for the public good—not just for today, but for generations to come? #FutureOfHigherEd

We are LIVE: The Future of Higher Education!

In today's "AI and the Future of Higher Education," @cathyndavidson.bsky.social mentions former FI Fellow Chris McGuinness and what she has learned about Hugging Face, a "GitHub for AI": huggingface.co @hf.co @futuresed.bsky.social @hastac.bsky.social

At today's Futures Initiative webinar on AI and the Future of Higher Education, @cathyndavidson.bsky.social quotes Andrew Chee: "Love yourself enough to write your own term papers," @alexanderchee.bsky.social. SO important that we emphasize love, and foster self-advocacy & self-trust in students!!

This will sound weird but love yourself enough to write your own term papers.

If OpenAI / chatGPT is supposed to do something for the public good, then it could have been rolled out differently to actually serve education and learning rather than overwhelming the education system in the whiplash. Great point by @alondra.bsky.social at today's @futuresed.bsky.social webinar!

We just finished the amazing conversation with @alondra.bsky.social and @cathyndavidson.bsky.social, and @hastac.bsky.social area directors Dr. Jade E. Davis and Dr. Kevin Healey. We will be sharing the recap of the conversation on our website soon.

@alondra.bsky.social reminds us that expertise is often weaponized to exclude. So, we must reject the notion that only technical experts should shape AI policy. When it comes to its usage in schools, educators, parents, students, and citizens must have a voice.

As we explore AI’s possibilities, @cathyndavidson.bsky.social also worries about what we’re not learning when we outsource too much to ChatGPT. Like using our critical thinking, developing writing skills, and being aware of how we learn.

“Part of what we’re going to learn is from the students.” — @alondranelson on the need to engage AI in education with humility, knowing we’re teaching future generations who will have grown up with it.

Thanks @cathyndavidson.bsky.social for sharing some encouraging initiatives like @huggingface.bsky.social, an open-source community that helps open the AI blackbox. Initiatives like this put tools in the hands of policymakers like @alondra.bsky.social, to design better policies.

“The risks and possibilities of AI aren’t the same in K–12 and college classrooms. And we shouldn’t assume AI is an educational advance—it must be proven, demonstrated, and researched.” @alondra.bsky.social in conversation with @cathyndavidson.bsky.social in our webinar.

“My assumption is it’s not new.” — @cathyndavidson.bsky.social on AI as just the latest chapter in a long history of technological evolution.

We are starting now! Join us!

My latest podcast, with the amazing Mila Burns, Associate Director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.A GC alumna who is also on faculty at Lehman College. She shares her most recent research in Cuba. www.gc.cuny.edu/news/making-... #CLACLS

Hot off the press! Our 10-Year Anniversary Annual Report for 2023-2024 is now published! You can read the digital version here and pick up your hard copy at tomorrow's event in the @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social Elebash Recital Hall! futuresinitiative.org/2025/05/06/f...

… and stick around after 5 for pizza, drinks, music, and mingling! tlc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2025/04/25/t... @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @futuresed.bsky.social @cunygcps2.bsky.social

I'm prepping for "AI and Higher Ed" on Thurs 11 am EST, by listening to talks by @alondra.bsky.social. What clarifying, demystifying brilliance! You can register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/alondra-ne... #Science @futuresed.bsky.social @cuny.edu @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @hastac.bsky.social

Very excited for Thursday's big events! Join us! @futuresed.bsky.social @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social

Join us on May 8th! RSVP HERE: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-future...

Announcing presenters in the Dissertation Showcase! Damira Rasheed, Benjamin Diehl, Katherine Anderson, Erik Forman, Alex Steers-McCrum, Sarah Pangburn, Jacob Quartey, Eve Klein, Miguel Rodriguez, Oscar Aponte, Nicole Cote & Austin MacDonald. RESERVE for 5/13 event: www.gc.cuny.edu/events/insid...

Dive into the future of higher education with the Futures Initiative— two amazing events, one critical day of dialogue on AI, equity, and the public good! RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-future... @cathyndavidson.bsky.social @alondra.bsky.social @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social

Dr. Shelly Eversley invites us to be hopeful, learn from the high schoolers who know there is an entire world beneath the Hudson River, and remember that we are, every day, doing the work to make the impossible possible.

FI Executive Director Adashima Oyo asks panelists the tough question about how they are responding to the present funding cuts. David Gruber, having run a big laboratory, knows it takes years to establish something like that, and it's not something you can just turn off and on again.

In response to a question from the audience about starting community partnerships, Mauricio Gonzalez comments that getting started isn't the hardest part, it's managing the partnership (e.g., working smarter, finding people who care about similar things, asking for help, staying connected).

Responding to the question of what we can do, Caera Beightol leans into the choices we make: that we can choose not to invest in fossil fuels, evaluate our retirement investments and think carefully about what our 401Ks support, then align those interests with a better future.

Mauricio Gonzalez emphasizes the need to care for beauty in nature and that you don't have to go far to find it. It's important to look around you and find it where you are.

As a social scientist, Dr. Aguilera talks about the need to move from caring to political position and action.

David Gruber reflects that he's moved away from thinking about different elements as objects & moved toward thinking about possibilities because the future isn't written yet. There's so much darkness but also possibility. The world is 71% water. We're in the minority on land.

Dr. David Gruber speaks about the negative impact of the commodification of water at today's Future of the Planet event.

Mauricio Gonzalez at today's Future of the Planet event: "Here in New York City, we are spoiled because of the immense reservoirs of water. Most of the world gets alerts about low water levels in their reservoirs. Our understanding of water in NYC is very skewed because we are spoiled."

Dr. Aguilera's research focuses on land-body entanglements and decolonial approaches to critical geographies. She notes in today's "Future of the Planet" event that she was initially attracted to studying water because of the complexities of the conflicts about water and land-body rights.

Dr. Abigail Perez Aguilera is an Assistant Professor and Chair of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management at The New School. She comments on the common elements of most water-based conflicts, that they are complex and mediated by politics (e.g., classism, racial justice, many things).

The panelists at The Future of the Planet event shared personal details about their relationship with water and how water relates to their work.

Mauricio Gonzalez is is a Marine Science Research Instructor with the New York Harbor School. He tells us about teaching students evolution and marine biology. When organisms evolved to live on land, they had to figure out a way to incorporate water into their bodies in their circulatory system.

Caera Beightol, speaking at today's Future of the Planet event, reminds us that there's no such thing as a natural disaster, just the interaction of the planet with the structures we build and inhabit. Beightol is an Environmental Studies student at Hunter College (@huntercollege.bsky.social).

FI Faculty Co-Director Dr. Shelly Eversley reminds attendees that we will leave today's Future of the Planet event w/resources to pursue action. She introduces Dr. Megan Henriquez who reminds us that, despite Earth's reputation as the "blue planet," only 1% of Earth's water is drinkable.