The 2016 Critical Issues in Higher Education Conference (SUNYCON 2016) was held in New York City in October. The focus of this conference was “Degrees of Influence: The Forces Shaping the Future of Higher Education.” The Agenda for this conference can be found here: https://www.suny.edu/sunycon/2016/agenda/ and features many of the topics we are discussing in this blog and in the work being done by PC’s Future of Higher Education Research Team.
The sessions were all based on recent articles on higher education including the dialogue around debt in higher ed (“The Debt Dialogue Must be Turned on its Head” – Washington Post), issues of campus sexual assault (“There’s No More Denying Campus Rape Is a Problem” – Huffington Post) and college readiness (“Remedial Courses in College Stir Questions Over Cost, Effectiveness” – The Wall Street Journal). Some other sessions of note are the “Morbid Fascination with the Death of the Humanities” (The Atlantic) and whether focus on elite institutions (“Shut Up About Harvard” – FiveThirtyEight) is a distraction from the challenges and experiences of most higher education institutions.
Recorded Livestreams of the plenary sessions can be found here: https://livestream.com/hvccstreaming/SUNYCON2016