Futures Initiative Podcast

Episode 1:9 of the Futures Initiative podcast is rejoined by our Faculty Chair and host, Dr. Shelly Eversley. In this episode we bring you the brilliant and newly minted, Dr. jah elyse sayers for an inspiring, empowering, and tender conversation about their Riisearch and organizing work at the People’s Beach. Dr. sayers discusses Blackqueer placemaking, organizing as research, and moving beyond the confines of the institution in order to create more equitable and innovative spaces for knowledge production.

Episode 1:8 of the Futures Initiative podcast will be hosted by CUNY Peer Leaders (CPL) Director & FI Academic Program Manager, Lauren Melendez. She will be joined by two CPL participants, Simridhi (Simi) Sharma an undergrad at John Jay College majoring in Coding, Network Security and Digital Forensics and Christopher (Chris) Arzu an undergrad and senior at Hunter College majoring in Political Science and legal studies.  CLP is a humanities and social justice leadership program that is part of the Futures Initiative. In this episode we will hear from undergraduate students and their perspectives on how they are planning, preparing, and managing obstacles as they move towards a path forward and continue to pursue higher education and enter the job market.

FI’s University Worth Fighting For series presents podcast episode 1:7, “The Fellow to Faculty Transition.” FI fellow and host, Tatiana Bertolucci is joined by former FI fellow and post-doc, Dr. Megan Henriquez to discuss her journey from student to colleague in her field of Biological Anthropology. This episode will speak to you whether you're a first-generation college student just starting out, a graduate student navigating your career, a faculty member mentoring the next generation, or anyone who's ever wondered what it really takes to build a meaningful life in higher education. This conversation is about transitions. How do you take skills built in one context and carry them into a new one? How do you position yourself when you're early in your career and the landscape feels uncertain? And what does it actually look like to do equity-centered work inside institutions that weren't always designed with you in mind?

What is a “polycrisis” in higher education—and what can faculty, students, and administration do about it? In this conversation, Drs. Lisa M. Di Bartolomeo and Kevin M. Gannon define and deconstruct what is at stake as universities are suffocated by political demands and the rise of corporate models to restructure non-profit higher education. They discuss their new book, The Campus Crisis Toolkit: Strategies and Solidarity for the Rest of Us, which offers insights on how collaboration and innovation are keys to moving our universities towards sustainable futures. Subscribe to the Futures Initiative's YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts to catch this essential conversation about the future of higher education and why the classroom is where democracy learns to think.

What does it mean to center students in higher education—and why does democracy depend on it? In this conversation, Christina Katopodis and Jason Hendrickson make a compelling case for transformative teaching as essential democratic practice. Public higher education is infrastructure for democracy, but only when it centers students. Together, we explore what transformative teaching demands: rigorous pedagogical practice, commitment to ongoing learning, and recognition that how we teach is inseparable from the democratic futures we're building. From syllabus design to classroom exercises, they offer both practical strategies and a fundamental reimagining of higher education's purpose. Subscribe to the Futures Initiative's YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts to catch this essential conversation about the future of higher education and why the classroom is where democracy learns to think.