Blog & Pod

How should we in higher education address the growing crises in our culture of a pervading loss of meaning, and sense of purpose and value in life? What role can revisiting wisdom traditions and current research on their practices play in helping us all live more authentic and less self-deceptive lives? These questions are all … Read More

By James Anderson   Finishing work at the end of this last academic term resulted, for me, in two realizations. First, I fucked up (more on this later). Second, the existing higher education system, and the socioeconomic system within which it operates, is even more soul crushing and sick than I previously grasped. The realizations … Read More

How has the legacy of state terror and racial genocide shaped higher education in the United States? Given our history, what opportunities exist to support revolutionary organizing work within institutions of higher learning? How do emergent disciplines committed to exploring social reproduction and terrains of struggle – such as Ethnic Studies (and its subfields), Critical … Read More

The movement against the systematic racism and police violence that brutalizes black people (especially men) has catalyzed in the last few weeks in response to the murders of George Floyd (and Breonna Taylor). Many in the academy have heralded this as a moment to incite revolutionary change in our society. Yet all too often we … Read More

As protests spread across the US as a rebellion against police brutality, white supremacy, systematic racism, and fundamentally unjust systems, the freedom of persons of letters, teachers, scholars, students, staff, and other higher education professionals, is all the more essential in order to build toward systemic change in the United States. In order to address … Read More

How is the pandemic transforming global higher education? How should universities address their respective national crises and contexts, while keeping true to their cosmopolitan mission and ethos? Can they do so while resisting the storm of hyper-nationalism spreading across the globe? How can an ecological model of the university help guide the transformation of higher … Read More

How are the public and civic roles of higher education transforming in response to the current health and economic crises? How do we build opportunities for civic science, that both respects expertise in times of crises, but does not fall into disempowering reliance on hierarchical solutions? How do we as scholars and teachers escape often … Read More

Are we on the edge of a successful movement for revaluing labor in higher education, or are we doomed to an increasingly slavish situation? The pandemic brings to the forefront the precarity of teachers, researchers, scholars, student workers and staff in higher education, as institutions face financial crises, jobs are cut, and remaining positions are … Read More

As we continue to struggle through these difficult, uncertain, and tragic times globally, it becomes difficult to find our spiritual/moral centers. In today’s episode, we talked with Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, a process philosopher, theologian, and higher education leader, on spirituality and higher education during the pandemic. We explore questions such as: What does pastoral/spiritual … Read More

Welcome back to the NAB Podcast! Our two part episode today is with our colleague and friend, NAB advisory board member Dr. Leonard Waks. He is an internationally renowned historian and philosopher of higher education, philosopher of technology, pragmatist, process philosopher, and Dewey scholar. In this two part interview, Dr. Waks shares with us a … Read More