When Joel P. Christensen stepped into his role as CUNY Graduate Center provost last month, he brought with him a deep commitment to public higher education and to knowledge as a public good. A classicist by training, he has spent his career studying language, politics, and democracy. But it is his lived experience — as a first-generation college student from rural Maine, a teacher at a Hispanic- and veteran-serving university in Texas, and a scholar who witnessed the promise and peril of higher education during COVID — that shapes his vision today.

In this episode of The Thought Project, he discusses the urgent challenges facing universities: economic inequality, political attacks, climate change, and the shifting role of technology. He also shares what inspires him about CUNY’s mission and why he believes the Graduate Center can remain a beacon for creating and safeguarding knowledge for all.