Closing Keynote Address: What Now: For Ourselves, Our Institutions and This Nation?

There are special moments or inflection points in our professional and personal lives when we are faced with the simple but profound question, “What Now?” How we understand and interpret the question, and how we act upon it, has enormous consequences. This plenary address will explore how faculty and leaders in STEM, and in higher education generally, should attempt to answer this question as creative actors on the institutional and societal stage of life and the academy. This requires that we are as self-reflective as we are critical of policies and other leaders because the decisions we make as STEM reformers (or revolutionaries) will determine what is next for each of us and for our students. Here, we will explore how we move from being passive observers to being active creative leaders who can usher in transformation. More importantly, with the Presidential election decisions made nationally, just days before this conference, we will thoughtfully confront the broader question of “What Now?” for this nation, the world, and for ourselves.