Reinventing U

Join us for conversation with Brian Soucek, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, on his new book, The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education (University of Chicago Press 2026). University leaders will be especially interested in Professor Soucek’s expert analysis as well as his classroom and campus experiences. Both richly inform The Opinionated University.

In this episode of Reinventing U, we are joined by Stephen Gavazzi, Director of the Center for Human Resource Research at The Ohio State University, to explore a blueprint for universities to meet the demands of the current moment by recommitting to the public good.  Drawing on his recent co‑authored piece, “Morrill Act 250: Reinterpreting the Public Research University Compact as Civic Trust in America’s Third Century,” Gavazzi outlines five priorities for regaining public trust, strengthening transparency, and preparing university systems for the future. He also makes the case for digital and AI fluency as a baseline civic and educational competency. This conversation provides a realistic yet hopeful vision of the future, along with concrete ideas for how public universities can recast their mission in ways that are visible, credible, and worthy of public trust in an era of rapid change.

Joshua Eyler, the author of Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, And What We Can Do About It (JHUP 2024), is among the leading experts on grading reform. Praised by the likes of Cathy N. Davidson and Jeff Selingo, Eyler’s book is roughly divided between indictment of current practices and exploring practical solutions. In every case, however, the answer keeps coming back: fundamental reform is necessary. Join us for a lively and perhaps surprising conversation about a too often taken-for-granted core academic practice.

In 2025, University of Toronto Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Robert Gibbs, published What Could a University Be?: Revolutionary Ideas for the Future (University of British Columbia Press). Join us for a highly engaging conversation in which Dr. Gibbs recaps the main points of his argument and along the way explores the distinctive value of research university undergraduate educations, generally and in our times, highlights the vital role of the humanities, and offers practical advice as well as visionary insight concerning the institutions and the work to which UERU members devote themselves.

On this episode of Reinventing U, hear from Dr. Richard J. Reddick, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of the Undergraduate College and Distinguished Service Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Reddick’s book Restorative Resistance in Higher Education: Leading in an Era of Racial Awakening and Reckoning (Harvard Education Press, 2023) shares the wisdom he has gained from over three decades of work on diversity, equity, and inclusion in educational settings. Positioning college campuses as “crucibles for social change,” Dr. Reddick challenges all of us to rethink how we show up as leaders, engaging all members of the university community in the task of creating more equitable learning environments while prioritizing joy, rest, and other restorative acts.

Brian Rosenberg discusses his new book “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It :Resistance to Change in Higher Education”

Brian Rosenberg is currently visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 2003 until 2020, he served as the 16th President of Macalester College. He is the author of Whatever It Is, I’m Against It:  Resistance to Change in Higher Education, published in 2023 by Harvard Education Press. His articles on higher education appear regularly in The Chronicle of Higher Education and have also appeared in publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. He serves as senior advisor and director at the African Leadership University and as a member of the board of the Teagle Foundation. 

Is a college degree still the quickest path to a good-paying job? That is the question at the heart of Kathleen deLaski’s timely 2025 book, which is the focus of this episode of Reinventing U. As deLaski notes, headlines are dominated by the cost and ROI of a 4-year degree, and more families are asking themselves: Is college worth it? For many Americans, confused and stressed by mixed messages, the answer, deLaski contends, is increasingly: No. But, if college isn’t the guaranteed route to success it once was, what comes next? Who Needs College Anymore? describes the workarounds that could well become the “new normal” for how America prepares for work.

Leading Generously with Kathleen Fitzpatrick,

Interim Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Michigan State University

The University Unfettered

Ian F. McNeely

Columbia University Press

The public university as we once knew it is gone and never coming back. After generations of fickle state support, public universities behave more and more like their private counterparts—charging what the market will bear, offering what consumers demand, competing relentlessly with peers, and managing their own priorities. But looking back on how we got here offers surprising reassurance. U.S. public universities emerged largely intact after a decade of disruption bookended by a financial crisis and a pandemic. Resisting widespread calls for corporate reinvention or “disruptive innovation,” they hewed to their core missions. If anything, exposure to the rigors of competition only enhanced their longstanding commitments to the public good.

READ MORE

We interview Mary Wright, Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning, Executive Director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, and Professor (Research) Sociology, at Brown University. She is also a former president (2017-18) of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, the U.S. professional association for educational development.

The conversation focuses on Wright's new book, Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education (2023), a study of aims, strategies, tactics, organization, and evaluation approaches for over 1,200 Centers for Teaching and Learning. 

UERU members can access an extended version of this episode in MyUERU. A transcript for this episode can be found here.