2025 Annual Meeting

Plenary Sessions

Opening Night Forum

Wednesday, January 22, 2025 /

A Conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones

  • Nikole Hannah-Jones

    Nikole Hannah-Jones

    Investigative Reporter, The New York Times Magazine; Creator, The 1619 Project; Knight Chair in Race and Journalism, Howard University

    Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project. She has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice. She serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy and is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color.

Plenary Panel Discussion

Thursday, January 23, 2025 /

Reaffirming Higher Education's Public Purpose

  • Leslie Fenwick

    Leslie Fenwick

    Howard University School of Education Dean Emerita and Professor; Author, Jim Crow's Pink Slip

    Leslie T. Fenwick, PhD, is Dean Emerita of the Howard University School of Education and a tenured professor of education policy. She is author of the award-winning and bestselling book, Jim Crow’s Pink Slip (Harvard Education Press, 2022) which was selected as a National Public Radio (NPR) Book of the Day and is recipient of the 2023 AACTE Gloria Ladson Billings Outstanding Book Award. A former Harvard University Visiting Fellow and Visiting Scholar, Dr. Fenwick is a lifelong educator who has served in every sector of American education. In 2020, Dr. Fenwick was one of two fully vetted finalists for the U.S. Secretary of Education position. She was appointed by U.S. President Joseph R. Biden to the Board of Visitors for the U.S Military Academy at West Point where she serves as a MCLC Senior Fellow lecturing about character leadership and ethics. Additionally, she is Chair of the Rhodes Scholar Selection Committee, District IX. Acknowledged as a “fearless voice for education equity” her research and op-eds have been cited and published by Brookings Institution, the National Academy of Education, the New York Times, Washington Post, Education Week, and The New Yorker. She earned her PhD at The Ohio State University and undergraduate degree at the University of Virgina. She is a member of the Scholarly Advisory Committee for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and recipient of the WEB DuBois Award for Outstanding Leadership in Higher Education.

  • Nikole Hannah-Jones

    Nikole Hannah-Jones

    Investigative Reporter, The New York Times Magazine; Creator, The 1619 Project; Knight Chair in Race and Journalism, Howard University

    Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project. She has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice. She serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy and is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color.

  • Frederick M. Lawrence

    Frederick Lawrence

    Secretary and CEO, Phi Beta Kappa Society

    Lawrence is the tenth secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the nation’s first and
    most prestigious honor society. He is a Distinguished Lecturer at the Georgetown University
    Law Center, and previously served as president of Brandeis University, dean of the George
    Washington University Law School, and visiting professor and senior research scholar at Yale
    Law School.

  • Ronald S. Rochon

    Ronald Rochon

    President, California State University, Fullerton

    Rochon is the president of California State University, Fullerton. Previously, he was the president of the University of Southern Indiana. With more than three decades in higher education, Rochon has dedicated his career to advocating for educational excellence, access, and equity. His leadership has fostered service and academic advancement among a multitude of international communities.

Closing Plenary

Friday, January 24, 2025 /

Educating Humans to Thrive in an AI World

We can classify the threats from AI into categories: economic, academic, political, environmental, and psychological. Academics are acutely aware of issues with AI cheating, and it is hard to ignore how AI continues to erode the confidence of citizens in institutions, politicians, and even facts. Seeing is no longer believing, and we will need to redefine integrity. Add to that fears about what AI might do to jobs, the economy, and relationships. Higher education, however, finds itself in a unique position to understand these threats, but if expertise is essential to using AI well, how we will prepare students to be experts in a world where AI can produce better work than interns? A liberal education manages the tension between learning to be fully human and preparing for a successful career. Understanding how human thinking, jobs, and relationships are changing will be essential as we begin the process of maintaining the best of our tradition while rethinking curriculum for a new world.

  • José Antonio Bowen

    José Antonio Bowen

    Senior Scholar, AAC&U; Former President, Goucher College

    Bowen has been leading innovation and change for over 40 years at Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Southampton (UK), then as a dean at Miami University and SMU and as President of Goucher College. His book Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology out of your College Classroom will Improve Student Learning (2012) won the Ness Award for Best Book on Higher Education from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). It was followed by Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes with C. Edward Watson (2017) and Teaching Change: How to Develop Independent Thinkers using Relationships, Resilience and Reflection (2021). After twenty years of innovation educational leadership, he was awarded the Ernest L. Boyer Award (for significant contributions to American higher education) from the New American Colleges and Universities.