Bryan Alexander is an American

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

and author who is a

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

Senior Scholar and the creator of The Future of Higher Education Observatory. He is a contributor to the academic and popular culture conversation about higher education.

Early life and education

Bryan Alexander was born and raised in New York City. He earned his bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. degrees from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

. He began his career as an assistant professor of English at

Centenary College of Louisiana Centenary College of Louisiana is a private liberal arts college in Shreveport, Louisiana. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi Rive ...

before moving to

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

to lead the Center of Educational Technology at

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

. He then worked for the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) as a senior director.

Career

In 2013, Alexander began an independent consultancy as a higher education futurist. Alexander lived in rural Vermont in a house that used woodstoves for heat, for which he chopped and split wood. He adopted aspects of a

homesteader Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (building), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Nguni homestead, a cluster of houses inhabited by a single extended family, typically with a kraal ...

or "

prepper Survivalism is a social movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists, doomsday preppers or preppers) who proactively prepare for emergencies, such as natural disasters, and other disasters causing disruption to social order (that is, ...

" lifestyle during this time. In 2018, 'Ozy' magazine referred to him as an "Ax-Wielding Futurist". One of Alexander's ideas is about the "academic

queen sacrifice In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move that sacrifices a queen, the most powerful piece, in return for some compensation, such as a tactical or positional advantage. Queen sacrifice: real versus sham In his book ''The Art of Sacrifice in Ches ...

." Alexander argues that US higher education has been reducing the numbers and the power of academic workers, and this puts higher education in peril. Bryan Alexander and Terri Givens 2022

Since 2016, Alexander has been hosting Future Trends Forum, a video conversation about the future of higher education.

Writing

In ''Academia Next'' (2020), Alexander's work written before the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pandemic, he describes the possibilities and challenges of a pandemic upon higher education, and covers several trends including demographic transition, escalating economic inequality, rising campus costs and

student debt Student debt refers to the debt incurred by an individual to pay for education-related expenses. This debt is most commonly assumed to pay for tertiary education, such as university. The amount loaned or the loan agreement is often referred to as ...

, open education (OER, open access), increasing multimedia tools, platforms, content, creativity, and rising

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

. In 2020 it received an award from the

Association of Professional Futurists The Association of Professional Futurists (APF) was founded in 2002 to validate the competencies of emerging futurists. As analysts, speakers, managers or consultants, APF's credentialed members cultivate strategic foresight for their organizatio ...

(APF); Alexander is one of nine members on the APF international board. Bryan Alexander Bill McKibben Mark Rush 9 3 22

''Universities on Fire'' was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in March 2023. A review said it has a "simple message: The climate crisis is real, there are fires everywhere, and 'it is up to us to choose if those will be flames of destruction or the lights of illumination.'”

External links

Official website

References

Place of birth missing (living people) Living people American futurologists American male non-fiction writers 1967 births {{US-nonfiction-writer-stub