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PIT & the Mission of Higher Ed in the Digital Age

Institutionalizing PIT

March, 2023

Sylvester Johnson, Faculty Fellow, Public Interest Technology University Network

Author: Sylvester Johnson is PIT-UN’s Faculty Fellow, and Associate Vice Provost for Public Interest Technology at Virginia Tech, where he leads the Tech for Humanity initiative. 

Serving as faculty fellow for PIT-UN while also fulfilling roles as an associate vice provost and the director of the Tech for Humanity initiative at Virginia Tech, I wear many hats. It’s something that comes naturally to me as a transdisciplinary scholar. 

I discovered a deep interest in technology while leading a research team at Northwestern University that built AI that could scan and analyze a centuries-old humanities text. I chose to join Virginia Tech a few years later because of its role as a leader in technology that was also invested in being a comprehensive university – this at a time when most American universities have tended to reduce their investment and support for disciplines and programs in humanities, social sciences, and creativity. 

Torgerson Bridge, Virginia Tech University
Torgerson Bridge / Courtesy of Virginia Tech.

I was hired to establish and direct a center for humanities and to interpret the mission of humanities in a manner that might enrich the research, teaching, and engagement operating across the entire university. The university’s provost at that time, Thanassis Rikakis, underscored the urgency for humanistic, human-centered scholarship to play a central role at Virginia Tech at the very moment technology innovation was driving unprecedented growth, transformation, and uncertainty across the globe. 

As a scholar and administrator whose background is more in the humanities than the sciences (though I did earn my B.S. in Chemistry!), one of my most important words of advice to anyone looking for ways to institutionalize public interest technology is to seek out partnerships across the university that transcend our traditional academic divides. 

It Can Be as Simple as a Cup of Coffee

A handful of relatively feasible strategies can add tremendous value to efforts that advance PIT on any number of campuses. Of special importance is elevating awareness and building intellectual community among people who work across different areas of the university. How might this happen? Simply meeting with campus stakeholders within and beyond one’s own unit can happen for the cost of a cup of coffee. One or two conversations per month can help leverage the interests and concerns of others on one’s campus in ways that intersect with a larger PIT strategy. 

Another low-cost strategy: creating a “PIT” listserv that shares information about PIT-related issues and events (such as special webinars hosted by New America and other institutions), and inviting potential stakeholders and collaborators to join and post to the listserv. 

Hosting public conversations, research talks, or small workshops with on-campus researchers is yet a third way to elevate public interest technology and build intellectual community in a transdisciplinary fashion. All of these methods allow PIT liaisons to demonstrate interest in their colleagues, inform curious potential collaborators, and build a network of stakeholders who can become allies and partners for later stages of shared work across a college or university to transcend disciplinary divides.

Leverage the Potential of Networks

Our institution’s exploration of intra-disciplinary and transdisciplinary research provided a fortuitous runway for connecting to the PIT-UN. In 2018, we launched “Tech for Humanity” as a university-wide initiative to elevate existing work at Virginia Tech that embodied human-centered approaches to technology and to inspire and advance new efforts toward humanistic governance of technology. In 2019, we learned of the public interest technology-University Network that New America was administering. It was immediately evident that the PIT-UN was timely and extraordinarily resonant with the aim of Tech for Humanity. We applied to join the consortium and became members in 2020.

Technology is a comprehensive issue – not merely a technical one.

Since that time, the PIT-UN has created tremendous value and has amplified the possibilities emerging from Virginia Tech’s strategic vision and planning. The network has enabled VT to build relationships with other universities, to collaborate for advancing the emerging field of public interest tech, to advance thought leadership on technology issues, and to raise our university’s profile as a leader in this area. This has paid dividends in structural and programmatic ways–e.g., through our ability to attract talent for research and teaching. Beyond this, the PIT-UN has sharpened our external legibility as a comprehensive university, and it has enriched and deepened our faculty’s culture of collaboration across disciplines. 

For instance, the lens of public interest technology has created a new means to connect our librarians who determine data privacy policy within the university and scholars in humanities and human sciences who study policy, data ethics, and public affairs. As a further example, PIT has also connected specific, project-based teaching and learning in technical areas to curricular work in humanities centering on social disparities and equitable outcomes. As a result of this integration, one of our student teams recently collaborated to offer college-level, technology-enabled instruction to incarcerated students who are eager to advance their education. All of this has facilitated our efforts to operationalize a commitment to greater inclusivity, social justice, and public good. 

PIT & Humanities: Stronger Together

I would be remiss not to emphasize another area of vast importance by which the network has benefited Virginia Tech. The mission of PIT-UN, which advances public interest and civic benefit in a technological society, has provided external validation for the internal efforts at Virginia Tech to elevate the role of arts, humanities and social sciences for research, teaching, career paths, and societal impact. 

This has happened within a larger environment that is often harshly negative toward humanistic and artistic disciplines. Barely a month or two passes without a popular article lamenting the decline of humanities or questioning the relevance of humanistic studies in the United States.

The most grave technological threats lie at the human frontier of technology.

Faculty and administrators alike are accustomed to thinking about humanities through the mode of crisis. Legislative assemblies have spent decades defunding comprehensive education through a narrow focus on STEM skills. Parents frequently warn their kids away from majoring in humanities. As a result of these things, college students increasingly arrive on campus with the view that majoring in humanities or pursuing studies in creativity is a dead-end for career success. 

In this context, it is important to heed the message of technology leaders who have repeatedly warned against pitting specialized technical fields against generalist approaches to knowledge and education in non-STEM areas such as humanities, human sciences, and creativity. 

Among these is Scott Hartley, a successful innovation and technology entrepreneur who has authored The Fuzzie and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World. Hartley studied political science in college before pursuing graduate studies in international affairs and in business. Throughout his career as a leader building businesses, technology, and civic infrastructure, Hartley has championed the role of liberal arts education in shaping technology leaders who are curious about high-level questions, broadly empathetic, and skillful in perceiving the larger context of problems they seek to solve. These are essential for addressing the most difficult challenges our technological society faces; they are also the very skills and sensibilities the liberal arts excel in cultivating.

PIT and the Purpose of Higher Ed

Public interest technology is emerging as a field that is enabling a broader range of stakeholders to understand that technology is a comprehensive issue–not merely a technical one. This is why it should come as no surprise that the most difficult technological problems to solve are in ethical, political, legal, and social domains. The most grave technological threats and harms, in other words, lie at the human frontier of technology. 

The American sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson was especially perceptive when he expressed almost 15 years ago that the fundamental problem with humanity is that we have “Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.” Resolving these tensions will require the future of talent to draw on a vast array of knowledge and expertise, traversing technical, scientific, humanistic, and artistic domains. This is one of the most important messages that public interest technology is amplifying, and it is one that must be embraced by our current and future students and faculty and the larger society for the sake of our human future.

As our academic institutions increasingly engage with transdisciplinarity and problem-based learning, it seems clear enough that the field of public interest technology has become an especially potent and urgent means to enable our colleges and universities to fulfill their mission in service to all members of society – particularly those who are at greatest risk when things go wrong. 

As we continue to elevate the public interest as our north star for the governance of technology, let us work to ensure that the future of innovation can be one that ultimately serves the public interest, sustainability, and human flourishing.