Fireside Chat: Ways to Advance Innovation, Equity, and Inclusion via Professional Development

Eva Kubu

Senior Associate Dean & Director of Graduate Student Professional Development

Princeton University

https://www.linkedin.com/in/evakubu/

In this inaugural leadership role, Senior Associate Dean Eva Kubu provides strategic vision and oversees the Graduate School's priority to make professional development an intrinsic and transformative part of graduate education at Princeton. She and her team spearheaded the GradFUTURES^® campus-wide initiative to provide a comprehensive model of interdisciplinary and experiential learning opportunities designed to prepare all Ph.D. and master's students with the skills and competencies they need for academic and career success. Eva has more than two decades of leadership experience within the field of career and professional development. Before joining the Graduate School, Eva served as Director of Career Services at Princeton where she helped lead a structural reimagination and major expansion of the career center serving all undergraduates, graduate students, and alums. A first-generation college student, she has dedicated her career in higher education to creating systems and structures that promote professional development, build social capital, and ensure equitable access to opportunity for all students. Eva holds an M.S. in higher education administration from Drexel University, a B.A. in psychology from Rutgers University, and a mini-MBA certificate in social media marketing from Rutgers Business School. 

Julia Freeland Fischer

Director of Education Research

Christensen Institute

Julia Freeland Fisher is the director of education research at the Clayton Christensen Institute. She leads a team that educates policymakers and community leaders on the power of disruptive innovation in the K-12 and higher education spheres through its research. Her team aims to transform monolithic, factory-model education systems into student-centered designs that educate every student successfully and enable each to realize his or her fullest potential.

Julia is the author of Who You Know: Unlocking Innovations That Expand Students’ Networks (Wiley, 2018). The book focuses on emerging tools and practices that leverage technology to radically expand who students know – their stock of “social capital” – by enhancing their access to and ability to navigate new peer, mentor, and professional networks.

Julia has published and spoken extensively on trends in the EdTech market, blended learning, competency-based education, and the future of schools. Julia’s writing has appeared in outlets including Education Next, Forbes, entrepreneur.com, the Chicago Sun-Times, and CNN. Her recent white papers focus on how disruptive innovations are changing the education landscape. These include The educator’s dilemma: When and how schools should embrace poverty relief with Michael B. Horn, Schools and software: What’s now and what’s next with Alex Hernandez, and Blending toward competency: Early patterns of blended learning and competency-based education in New Hampshire.

Prior to joining the Institute, Julia worked at NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy organization that supports education entrepreneurs who are transforming public education. She also served as an instructor in the Yale College Seminar Program. Julia holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a JD from Yale Law School.

Leonard Cassuto

Professor of English

Fordham University

Leonard Cassuto is a professor of English at Fordham University and a columnist on graduate education for The Chronicle of Higher Education. He is the author or editor of nine books on subjects ranging from crime fiction to sports. His last two books center on the state of American graduate education: The Graduate School Mess (2015) and The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education (with Robert Weisbuch; Johns Hopkins UP, 2021).