Feinberg Series to Explore Historical Roots of Present-Day Crises in Higher Education

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On Tuesday, September 24, the UMass Amherst History Department and partners launches its 2024-25 Feinberg Series. Organized around the theme “What Are Universities For? Struggles for the Soul of Higher Education,” the series’s 11 events will bring together students, scholars, and community organizers to trace the historical roots of the political, economic, and ethical crises in higher education and propose solutions for debt-saddled students, resource-starved communities, and others whose lives and futures depend on this bedrock social institution.

The series' directors explain that one of the founding premises of the Feinberg Series is that history helps make sense of current political struggles. “Higher education is widely regarded as essential to a flourishing democracy,” they write. “But today, the university is in crisis: public funding has plummeted; student debt is in the trillions; challenges to academic freedom, critical thought, and the right to political protest abound; and relationships between campuses and communities remain fraught.” 

Events explore the roots of these crises and ask: Why has the public lost confidence in the value of a college degree? What are the university’s core commitments, and whose interests do they serve? How can we deepen our understanding of the origins, manifestations, and broad-reaching impacts of the crises facing U.S. universities today? What are the most promising remedies now being pursued?  

The series launches on Tuesday, September 24 at 6pm in UMass’s Bowker Auditorium and on Zoom, with a keynote address by Trinity College Professor Davarian L. Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower. Titled Is Higher Education Good for Our Communities? Assessing the Past and Forging a New Path Forward, the address will trace the roots of these crises and assess how the “public good” of higher education has shifted from a service provider of education and research to acting as a major force of economic development and political governance in our communities.