The Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages is hosting its annual conference from May 7 to 9, 2026, with the theme “Global Futures of Higher Education: Autonomy in the Crosshairs.” The conference will bring together scholars from around the world to examine how universities are responding to the biggest problems facing higher education today.
The goal of the conference is to examine the future of higher education in an increasingly authoritarian global environment marked by democratic backsliding, political polarization and intensifying efforts by the state to control knowledge production. The conference also aligns with Schnitzer School’s goal to educate and graduate students ready to deal with these challenges.
“There is no time to lose for us to engage in this conversation,” said Jina Kim , associate professor of Korean literature and culture in the Schnitzer School.
Kim is a co-organizer of the conference along with Aneesh Aneesh , executive director of the Schnitzer School, Andrea Romero Dugarte , intercultural experiences and career readiness coordinator, Pedro García-Caro , associate professor of Spanish, and Matthias Vogel , teaching professor of German and language coordinator.
Asking what should guide teaching and research in higher education
A central concern of the conference is whether teaching and research can be guided by scholarly standards rather than direct political instruction.
“My understanding of liberalism begins with the autonomy of differentiated domains,” said Aneesh. “As authoritarian pressures grow, questions about what people can say — especially in academic settings — stop being governed by scholarly freedom and increasingly become subject to state control.”
Academics in today’s environment worry about increasingly large cuts to national research grants, and some have even ceased taking research trips to other countries due to fear of political tensions, said Aneesh. “I think a lot of people in the US, and particularly in the higher education community, have been feeling this way for a while.”
Aneesh said broader pressures on higher education also include demographic and financial strains that may reshape American universities in coming years.
“Hopefully,” Vogel said, “we will gain some impulses and stimuli from this conference that will show us how we here locally can also proceed in the next few years.”
Conference builds on 2025 foundation
The Schnitzer School’s first conference last year focused on how climate change is revealing different complex conflicts around the world. This and future conferences are supported by The Schnitzer family's gift last year, which includes funding for the Center for Global Futures. The center is an interdisciplinary hub of scholars and practitioners working to understand global trends and challenges, strengthen education in global studies and languages, and position the school as a leading source of expertise in global issues.
“For this conference we are actually looking at ourselves, the global futures of ourselves, which is the global future of higher education,” said Aneesh.
The organizing committee made a call for proposals that analyze the unstable dynamics of higher education comparatively, trace how constraints travel across regions and develop practical strategies for resilience.
All the organizers expressed the same excitement: the conference’s global framing will break new ground. That international scope is already visible in the proposals under review.
“People talk about American higher education, European higher education,” said Aneesh. "We are saying this is something happening in the world in many different states.”
Internationally, illiberal movements seek to steer curricula, constrain research agendas, surveil campus life, and intimidate scholars and students.
“It's not just something that's an isolated incident, or that's going to happen in a pocket of a region and not affect other places,” said Kim.
One of her goals for the conference is to foster a polyvocal dialogue that allows participants to engage in conversations across regions and institutions with the aim of locating global alliances and advocates.
“I think we educators have been sidelined by this very rapid and quickly changing political landscape,” Kim said. “It's really timely and important for us to take up the topic to have a more rigorous discussion.”
Furthering interdisciplinary collaboration in search of solutions
The interdisciplinary framework of the conference is uncommon yet easily accomplished through the Schnitzer School’s deliberate bridge between social sciences and humanities. Scholars from different disciplines will share spaces and stages to answer the questions posed with fresh angles.
“We aim not to have too many breakout sessions where experts and scholars debate only among themselves,” said Vogel.
“I value how this conference foregrounds cultural, linguistic and historical differences as analytical tools, not obstacles,” said García-Caro, who teaches transatlantic and hemispheric histories of Spanish-speaking cultures. “The goal is not just diagnosis, but shared thinking about viable futures.”
Some of the intersecting pressures universities face include geopolitical instability, new technologies, shifting patterns of mobility, growing demands for measurable impact, and deepening contests over truth, history and public trust.
“Higher education provides the insights on which solutions can be based,” said Aneesh. “It’s not like there's any final truth higher education has access to. But what free inquiry does is constantly question the truth of a particular period, the truth of a particular inquiry.”
The Schnitzer School invited proposals from faculty, graduate students and independent scholars across disciplines. The proposals are now under review, and the program schedule will be announced by April 2026. For more information, visit the Center for Global Futures.
— By Violet Ashley, College of Arts and Sciences