January 29, 2021

Dr Robin Wall Kimmerer's Webinar & Indigenous Futurism

Dr Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Dr. Kimmerer is a respected and deeply valued elder and her ideas are so resonant with the idea of dreaming/building a more positive, generative, equitable and just future. Many Futures Collaboratory members have been huge fans of Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer and her book Braiding Sweetgrass. We had been discussing ways to explore this together just prior to this opportunity so it couldn’t have worked out better. We were honored to participate in her webinar as a cohort considering Indigenous Futurism perspectives on equity & PSU futures.

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The Futures Collaboratory has a number of very interesting projects in motion - we look forward to providing updates soon. We have a “look back to look forward” project (which is focused on thinking about how our history might inform how we’ll navigate future challenges), a future of the faculty role project, intersections of futures work with our PSU equity agenda, future of space use on campus, and some explorations about how to best connect with students on a futures agenda. More to come!! Here’s some ideas from recent signal scans on issues we might care about.

S&P issues 4th straight negative outlook for US higher education

Will college be free in 4 years?

Reclaiming the role of the humanities in our democracy

How to redesign our educational system for lifelong learning

More colleges and universities outsource services to for-profit companies

Universal design for learning after covid-19

President Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Equity

ACE, Associations send list of priorities for higher education to President-Elect Biden

The DAVOS Agenda: These are the world’s greatest threats in 2021

Kansas Regents make it easier to dismiss tenured professors

Everything won’t be different (lessons higher ed should learn for the future)

A stitch in time? Realising the value of futures and foresight. From the Royal Society for the Arts

(In case anyone hasn’t seen it yet...here’s the link to President Biden’s Covid-19 plan.)