The Big Read Fall 2025

The College of Arts & Sciences is pleased to announce that our fourth annual “Big Read,” will take place on Tuesday, October 21, from 2:00-4:00pm in the Husky Union Building (HUB) North Ballroom.  

This year’s featured author is David J. Staley, professor of history at The Ohio State University and author of Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education. In his work, Staley challenges us to reimagine higher education not as a fixed institution but as a space of continual transformation. What if students were required to major in three disparate subjects? What if universities placed play at the center of learning, or designed curricula around broad cognitive skills rather than departments? Through bold “What if?” questions, Staley opens the door to radical and inspiring visions for the university of the future.

Professor Staley will be in conversation with UW College of Arts & Sciences Dean Dianne Harris. Together, they will explore how higher education might evolve and what possibilities lie ahead for universities like ours. This conversation connects directly to the College’s Rethinking the Academy initiative, inviting our community to think big-picture about the future we want to create for students, faculty, and society.

All members of the UW community are encouraged to attend this in-person event. For those unable to join us, a recording will be made available afterward.

Register for the event

Free copies of David Staley’s Alternative Universities are now available on a first-come, first-served basis for pick-up from the College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office (ground floor of the Communications Building) Monday–Thursday, 8:00am–12:00pm and 1:00–5:00pm. Any remaining copies will also be available at the event.

Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education by David J. Staley is a bold reimagining of what universities could become if freed from the constraints of incremental reform. Instead of focusing on transactional innovations like MOOCs or delivery systems, Staley calls for a deeper transformation—one centered on the experiences and possibilities that higher education can create.

Through ten speculative models, he challenges readers to ask provocative “What if?” questions: What if students were required to major in three unrelated fields? What if universities emphasized play above knowledge production, or organized curricula around broad cognitive skills? By framing the university as an institution always in flux, Staley argues there is no single model to which all must aspire—only an open horizon of futures to imagine.

Pairing critique with vision, Alternative Universities invites presidents, faculty, policymakers, and anyone invested in higher education to think beyond the familiar. The book offers not just a diagnosis of higher ed’s limits, but an audacious call to expand our collective imagination and seize the opportunity for a new “golden age” of learning.

Dr. David J. Staley is Associate Professor in the Departments of History, Design & Educational Studies at The Ohio State University and Honorary Faculty Fellow in Innovation with the Center for Higher Ed Leadership & Innovative Practice (CHELIP). He is a historian, designer, futurist, and higher-education theorist whose work explores the intersection of technology, imagination, and institutional change.

Staley is the author of Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education, which argues that too many innovations in education focus on delivery rather than transformative experience. His other books include Computers, Visualization and History; History and Future: Using Historical Thinking to Imagine the Future; and Brain, Mind and Internet: A Deep History and Future.

Beyond his writing, Staley has curated both in-person and online exhibitions, published visual compositions in digital media, and held leadership roles in educational organizations. He serves as President of Columbus Futurists, hosts CreativeMornings Columbus, and co-hosts the podcast Voices of Excellence.