The paradox of the modern university

Episode 3 of the We Are LaCH podcast

Author

Chris Musei-Sequeira
November 01, 2024

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Ahh, the modern university! A paragon of knowledge. A bastion of free speech. A beacon of enlightenment shining upon the seas of ignorance. Right?

Right?!

In Episode 3 of the We Are LaCH podcast, Lavinia and I interview our friend and peer Heather Luna. Between the years 2005 and 2012, Heather served as the Project Coordinator for Education for Sustainable Development at the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom (now named AdvanceHE).

During our conversation, the three of us discuss:

  • The discrepancy between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universities, particularly around genocide

  • Capitalism and colonialism as root causes of universities’ paradoxical behaviors

  • What the ideal liberatory university might be like

Coming up next

Now that Heather and Lavinia and I have finished interviewing one another, we’ll move on to free-form discussions about a variety of topics—always keeping the goal of uncovering power and oppression and similar themes.

Subscribe to our podcast, hit the “reply” button, and tell us what you think!

Previous recordings

  1. Intro to We Are LaCH, 5 minutes and 11 seconds in length

  2. Episode 1: Sustainable Aviation? with Chris Musei-Sequeira 51 minutes and 58 seconds in length

  3. Episode 2: Sustainable Fashion? with Lavinia Muth, 1 hour, 3 minutes, and 22 seconds in length

Where to find the sustainability perspectives you’ve been missing

FIRST: Subscribe to the “We Are LaCH” podcast, where Heather and Lavinia and I host discussions on power and oppression — particularly in the context of the sustainability industry.

SECOND: Follow these awesome folks on LinkedIn:

THIRD: Forward this issue to people you know in the sustainability industry.

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My name is Chris Musei-Sequeira, and I use he/him pronouns. My mother was born in Trinidad and Tobago as a descendant of African slaves brought to the islands during the time of European colonization. She came to the United States of America (USA) at the age of 10. My father is Goan and was born in India, in Mumbai, and raised Catholic and English-speaking. He came to the USA for his graduate studies, where he met my mother.

My sister and I were born in the USA and lived a middle-class life in the suburbs of multiple American cities. I studied aeronautical engineering and technology policy in university, then worked at the Federal Aviation Administration and as an aviation consultant. I've lived in cities up and down the USA East Coast since the age of 18; I now reside in Queens, New York with my wife.

I thank Heather Luna and Lavinia Muth for showing me the importance of publicly expressing our positions. Because of our positions, all of us are very familiar with some aspects of the world while having no idea of other aspects. Positionality expresses how our individual positions affect our relationships with other people and with the world as a whole.