The author has 25 years of experience in higher education leadership, overseeing two campuses and two university systems. He has maintained a strong connection to the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), both philosophically and in practical terms. In this article, the author discusses his experience and feelings on social…

The university, for tenure-track professors and others, can become an intellectual prison, an environment where you learn to follow the long-established rules in order to survive. This essay is a call to action, aiming to reach and mobilize learners in the academy who might feel alone and trapped in an institution that primarily rewards…

As a public artist and designer, I construct spaces that connect people and ideas. The social spaces I create challenge our traditional ways of thinking, knowing, and experiencing one another and our cities. This piece presents a resistance to preset disciplinary values and a recognition that exponential rather than incremental change in an…

Offering examples from her own experiences, the author advises community-engaged scholars (and those mentors and institutions that support them) to always question assumptions with respect to the communities in which they are engaged. She notes that as they work to unfold research programs, they should be sure to listen carefully to the…