For the 2025-26 academic year, the University explores the future of higher education. Changing demographics, upended federal and state policy, new technologies, evolving student and family expectations, uncertain job markets, rising mistrust of the academy, lessons from Covid, technological innovations, and disagreement about the very purpose of an education all raise questions about higher education’s ends and the means to those ends.
Brian Rosenberg, former president of Macalester College, visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of the much-discussed Whatever It Is, I’m against It: Resistance to Change in Higher Education, will deliver this year’s Zeltzerman Lecture: "How Can Higher Education Regain Public Trust?"
In this year’s Aiken Lecture, Michael Sandel, professor of government at Harvard University and author of The Tyranny of Merit, will reflect on the proper role of universities in promoting social mobility and the common good.
The University of Vermont’s own Brit Williams—who studies inequality, social class, and educational impacts on health—and Jason Garvey—who studies student success, education policy, and data-informed decision making in higher education—will offer insights from their research on challenges facing universities.
Stay tuned for an announcement about the two scholars who will argue for and against this year’s Janus Forum resolution: “Obtaining a college degree no longer enables adequate social mobility.”
George D. Aiken Lecture Series
The George D. Aiken Lectures was founded to promote discussion in the three areas for which Senator Aiken was best known– namely, foreign affairs, energy, and agriculture–but is responsive to change within the context of those general areas. The lectures are delivered once each academic year.
Supported by an endowment created by George and Lola Aiken, the lectures, which began in 1975, provide a platform for distinctive views on critical American issues and is the University’s major annual public-policy forum. The tradition of keeping the Aiken Lectures free and open to the public endures.
Past Lectures
October 29, 2024: Nadine Strossen
"HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship"
Promotional flyer (PDF) | Free Speech and Hate Speech: A Conversation with Nadine Strossen | Video Recording
March 6, 2024: Zeynep Tufekci
"Lessons from the Decade of Social Media"
Talking with Zeynep Tufekci
Dan and Carole Burack President's Distinguished Lecture Series
The Burack Lecture lecture series brings to campus scholars, scientists, artists and writers who are acknowledged as preeminent in their discipline. In addition to enriching the academic environment, the Burack President’s Distinguished Lecture Series also helps to showcase the exceptional caliber of UVM faculty, students and programs.
Past Lectures
February 18, 2025: Sigal Ben-Porath
Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy. | Promotional Flyer (PDF) | Video Recording
September 17, 2024: Tom Sullivan
"Free Speech Freedoms: From Core Values to Current Debates--Are we in a Crisis of Understanding?"
Promotional flyer (PDF) | Video Recording
April 11, 2024: Steve Schlozman, MD UVMMC
"Social Media and Kids (What Could Possibly Go Wrong?)"
Promotional flyer (PDF) | Video Recording
March 25, 2024: Nora Draper
"Privacy Resignation: How Digital Platforms Confuse, Frustrate, and Disempower Us”
Promotional flyer (PDF) | Video Recording
November 13, 2023: Chris Danforth
"Measuring the Happiness, Health, and Stories of Society through Social Media"
Danforth Video Recording | Danforth Presentation
Zeltzerman Lecture Series
The Zeltzerman Lecture series was established in 1966 by Dr. and Mrs. Morris Zeltzerman in memory of their son, Michael Zeltzerman, who was a UVM graduate student in Anatomy at the time of his death in 1966. The Zeltzerman Lectureship is devoted to topics addressing the relationship between "science and other areas of knowledge concerning people as individuals or as societies."
Past Lectures
November 13, 2024: Tarleton Gillespie
"Generative AI: Navigating Free Speech, Copyright, and Content Moderation in a Changing Media Landscape"
Promotional flyer (PDF) | Video Recording
November 8, 2023: Bailey Parnell
"Is Social Media Hurting Our Mental Health?"
Janus Forum
Dedicated to the proposition that engaging, thoughtful, rigorous, and respectful debate remains possible even in this era of intense partisanship, the Janus Forum presents competing viewpoints on important issues in the public square. The Forum invites two scholars to argue different sides of a proposition, modeling the “diversity of thought” necessary, in the words of UVM’s Amplifying Our Impact, for promoting “the interplay between education and a healthy democracy.”
Each lecture in the series is made possible by endowments from generous UVM donors.
This year’s Janus Forum disputants include Suzanne Nossel, former CEO of the free-expression advocacy group PEN America, and Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, a professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences, famous for her work in anti-discrimination law and “memory laws.” Nossel and Gliszczyńka-Grabias will debate whether the more restrictive, European/German approach to free expression is preferable to the more libertarian approach that characterizes U.S. case law.
Presidential Lecture Series Janus Forum Debate works in partnership with UVM Libraries and UVM Grossman School of Business.
Past Forums
March 7, 2025: Suzanne Nossel and Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias
Yes or No: Is the relatively restrictive European/German approach to free expression preferable to the United States’ more libertarian approach? Promotional Flyer (PDF) | Video Recording
February 7, 2024: James Steyer and John Samples
"Yes or No: Social media should be more regulated to protect and promote the best interests of democracy, public health, and personal privacy"
Steyer and Samples poster (PDF) | Video Recording