Last week Inside Higher Ed interviewed me for their podcast, The Key.

Doug Lederman, a fine host, began by asking me about futures thinking, so I offered a quick intro to the profession. Next, we discuss how the pandemic changed higher education, and what those changes might portend for the future.  I positioned things as a continuum of options, between one pole wanting to transform the university, especially in terms of race and technology, while another pole wants to return back to fall 2019.

We went on to discuss innovation, improving teaching, building up a higher standard of student care, the importance of CARES, my peak higher education scenario.  I make the case for the importance of the trends which afflicted academia before the pandemic persisting after COVID declines.  Then I introduce my work on academia in the climate crisis.  Doug asks me to pin down the present moment, and I riff on how futurists should consider a wide range of futures.

I conclude on a big picture note, asking listeners to think of what kind of ancestors future academics might want us to be.

Here’s a direct link to the podcast page.