AltLiberalArt Presents: Higher Education in the Crossfire: What is at Risk?

American higher education is facing a convergence of pressures—declining public trust, political polarization, demographic change, and the rise of generative AI—that collectively expose a deeper misalignment between institutional design and contemporary social, economic, and technological realities. While often addressed as discrete challenges, these forces call into question not only the value of liberal education itself, but how its core aims are structured, delivered, and connected to opportunity. This talk argues that the enduring goals of liberal education—critical thinking, ethical reasoning, civic engagement, and lifelong learning—are more essential than ever. Yet, they require a more intentional and comprehensive redesign to remain effective.

The presentation introduces a framework for reimagining higher education around six interrelated principles: integrating curriculum with career pathways; embedding AI literacy across disciplines; recentering humanistic inquiry and moral imagination; cultivating teaching and learning environments grounded in care and belonging; building clear “hope circuits” that connect education to tangible opportunity; and adopting an institutional mindset oriented toward abundance rather than scarcity. Across all dimensions, equity is positioned as a foundational design requirement to ensure that innovation expands, rather than reproduces, access and opportunity.

By outlining actionable priorities for institutional leaders, including redesigning general education, incentivizing pedagogical innovation, and strengthening partnerships beyond the campus, this talk moves from critique to strategy. Ultimately, it contends that higher education must evolve not through incremental reform but through coherent, mission-driven redesign. In doing so, institutions can better align learning with work and democratic life, renew public trust, and reclaim their central role in advancing both individual mobility and the broader social good.

Lynn Pasquerella was appointed president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities in 2016, after serving as the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College. She has held positions as Provost at the University of Hartford and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Rhode Island, where she taught for more than two decades. A philosopher whose work has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law. Her most recent book, What We Value: Public Health, Social Justice, and Educating for Democracy, examines the role of higher education in addressing some of the most pressing contemporary issues at the intersection of ethics, law, and public policy. Pasquerella is a past president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society (2018-2021), the host of Northeast Public Radio’s The Academic Minute, and a member-elect of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Register on Zoom

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Time: 12:00 pm

Location: Online Event