Humanities Forum with Davarian L. Baldwin

In conversation with Nicole King, Associate Professor, American Studies, UMBC

With an eye to local Baltimore developments, like the Eager Park and UMB BioPark projects, Davarian Baldwin will discuss what he calls the rise of UniverCities—higher education’s growing control over the economic development and political governance of urban America. From housing and wage labor to health care and even policing, colleges and universities have become big business and our communities their company towns. He will explore the costs when our cities become campuses and how we can think through a more liberatory way forward.

Biography: Davarian L. Baldwin is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and public advocate. He is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Founding Director of the Smart Cities Research Lab at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. His academic and political commitments have focused on global cities and particularly the diverse and marginalized communities that struggle to maintain sustainable lives in urban locales. Baldwin is the award-winning author of several books, most recently, In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, and served as the consultant and text author for The World of the Harlem Renaissance: A Jigsaw Puzzle (2022). His commentaries and opinions have been featured in numerous outlets from NBC News, BBC, and HULU to USA Today, The Washington Post, and TIME magazine. Baldwin was named a 2022 Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation.