Several years ago I worked with a librarian at our college, crafting a strategic plan for the library, when he said something that made me sit up and take notice. “Everyone says nice things about a library, but no one will tell you anything real.” I pressed him, curious about his frustration. Libraries are hard…
Author: David Potash
Growth Mindset Matters
Daniel Porterfield, now president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, served as president of Franklin & Marshall College from 2011 – 2018. During his tenure, F&M, a private liberal arts college in rural Pennsylvania, significantly increased civic outreach and student access, all while strengthening academic excellence. Porterfield came to the post with an impressive history:…
Investiture Address
My college’s system, SUNY, has a tradition. Approximately a year after a president is appointed, the institution holds an inauguration, capped with a formal investiture. It’s a celebration. Ours was held on October 23, 2024. It was a very good day for the college and I’m extraordinarily grateful on many fronts. My address follows (edited,…
Inspirational First Comes With Costs
Alejandra Campoverdi, by just about every measure, is an amazing person with an inspirational success story. The first in her family to graduate from college, she’s an author, a women’s health advocate, a public intellectual, and a former White House aide under President Obama. Campoverdi was a brilliant student, graduating cum laude from the University…
Amping Up Civic Power
Some works of political philosophy and action belong on library shelves. Others have a home in the classroom and community. K. Sabeel Rahman and Hollie Russon Gilman’s Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis belongs in the latter . The book examines current problems with American democracy (inequities, disengagement, lack of trust)…
The Rise of the All-Knowing Universities
Who knows best? And who do we trust to know best? In the years after World War II, America’s large research universities increasingly put themselves forward as the nation’s administrative experts, taking leadership roles in addressing big, complicated questions of economics and society. How higher education came to think of itself as the nation’s manager…
Thought Experiment: Climate Justice Universities
Jennie C. Stephens is a scientist, academic, feminist and provocative thinker. With a PhD from Caltech in Environmental Science and Engineering, along with decades of faculty appointments, Stephens knows about energy systems and the move from old to new technologies. The focus of her latest book, Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future…