TOP U.S. AND GLOBAL ACADEMIC LEADERS TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
THE NEW SCHOOL'S 26th SOCIAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE

December 8 to 9, 2011 at The New School
New School President Van Zandt: "This is a critical time for a forward-looking, national conversation about higher education"

New School President David E. Van Zandt

"To prepare students for a rapidly changing world, higher education must continually reinvent itself to remain relevant," said New School President David E. Van Zandt. "The New School, which has for a century challenged the academy's status quo, is an ideal host for this wide-ranging conversation about what tomorrow's university must look like to continue to serve our students and the world."

The conference will begin on Thursday, December 8, with "What Ought Universities Look Like in 20 to 30 Years," a panel discussion moderated by President Van Zandt and featuring Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor, City University of New York; Jamshed Bharucha, President, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts; Neil Grabois, Dean, The New School's Milano School for International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy; former Provost, Williams College; President Emeritus, Colgate University; and Robert Zimmer, President, University of Chicago.

"This is a critical time for a forward-looking, national conversation about higher education," said Chancellor Goldstein. "Universities across the country are confronting pressing issues: maintaining access and keeping tuition affordable as revenues decline and enrollments increase; sustaining a robust research agenda as global competition intensifies; and defining and implementing effective accountability metrics. I thank The New School for enabling a much-needed discussion about sustaining higher education's central role in advancing the country's innovation economy."

The Future of Higher Education continues on Friday, December 9, with a day-long program of in-depth explorations of the culture, economics, and mission of universities, in America and abroad. The day's first session, "Restructuring Research Universities," opens with a discussion moderated by Andrew Delbanco, Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, in which James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus, University of Michigan and Jonathan R. Cole, Provost and Dean of Faculties, Emeritus of Columbia University will examine the changing mission and structure of the university model. In addition, David Scobey, Executive Dean of The New School for Public Engagement, will moderate discussions with MIT's Vijay Kumar and Henry S. Bienen, President Emeritus, Northwestern University, on digital learning technology and research university finances, respectively.

The second session on December 9, "Roadmapping University Development," examines the future of universities outside the United States, and American universities' role in influencing and shaping global research. The afternoon's discussion will focus on higher education developments in China, India, South Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with expert panelists including S. Parasurman, Director of India's Tata Institute for Social Sciences; Lisa Anderson, President of the American University of Cairo; Ahmed Bawa, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of South Africa's Durban University of Technology, Daniel Fallon, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, and others.

Admission to The Future of Higher Education is $15 for the full conference and $8 per session. The conference is free for full-time students (with valid ID) and New School faculty, alumni and staff (with valid ID). Register online at /www.newschool.edu/cps/future-higher-ed/, or by emailing [email protected].

The conference begins Thursday, December 8 at 6 p.m. and runs from 10:00am to 6:00pm on Friday, December 9. Sessions will be held in The New School's John Tishman Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The complete program, speakers' bios, and abstracts can be reviewed online at www.newschool.edu/cps/future-higher-ed.

Papers presented at the conference will appear in a special conference issue of Social Research: An International Quarterly. The conference is organized by Arien Mack, Director of the Center for Public Scholarship, and Alfred and Monette Marrow Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research. This conference is made possible by generous support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation.

About Social Research: An International Quarterly
An award-winning journal, Social Research has been mapping the landscape of intellectual thought since 1934. Most issues are theme-driven, combining historical analysis, theoretical explanation, and reportage in rigorous and engaging discussion by some of the world's leading scholars and thinkers. Articles cover various fields of the social sciences and the humanities and thus promote the interdisciplinary aims that have characterized The New School for Social Research since its inception. Recent issues have focused on such themes as "Happiness," "Migration Politics," and "The Religious-Secular Divide." The Social Research conference series was launched in 1988 and aims to enhance public understanding of critical and contested issues by exploring them in broad historical and cultural contexts. For more information, visit www.newschool.edu/cps.

About the Center for Public Scholarship
The Center for Public Scholarship aims to bring the best scholarship and expertise to bear on current, pressing social issues in a way that makes the scholarship accessible to the public and simultaneously deepens understanding of what may be at stake and how to proceed. It seeks to become a catalyst for events that draw on the humanities, social sciences, design, and public policy and have the potential of accomplishing our mission, namely, enhancing the public's understanding of the significant issues of our time. The Center is dedicated to promoting academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, goals that are rooted in the earliest history and ideals of The New School.

About The New School
The New School, based in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village, is a legendary, progressive university inspiring undergraduates, graduate students and others to catalyze change in an inconstant world. Founded in 1919 as a hub of intellectual freedom by a group that included Charles Beard, James Harvey Robinson, John Dewey, and Thorstein Veblen, The New School today is a major degree-granting university comprised of distinct academic divisions. The university's 10,500 students are enrolled in 88 degree programs in the humanities and social sciences, design, administration and management, and the performing arts. In addition, the university's campus welcomes 3,544 adult learners in more than 650 continuing education courses every year. The New School holds hundreds of public programs that exemplify its commitment to democratic practice and social justice. For more information, visit www.newschool.edu.

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