Open Education Week

Keynote: Open and the Oligarchs: Planting Seeds in a World on Fire (Dr. Robin DeRosa)
2025-05-13 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Regina) | Regina, Canada, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr. Robin DeRosa has been working on open initiatives, including projects around OER, open pedagogy, and open access to research, for more than a decade. She has been interested not only in the practices that animate open, but also in the values that power an open vision for the future of education and knowledge-sharing. But recently, Robin has come to question the efficacy of the work in which she has been engaged. How can such well-conceived, thoughtful praxis around “open” be gathering steam at the same time as our public educational institutions, our libraries, and our publishing models creep closer toward privatization or economic ruin? How can our community’s investments in equity and access be thriving even as global political contexts bend toward neoliberalism, plutocracy, and fascism? This presentation will reimagine the “tragedy of the commons,” not as Garrett Hardin (mis)understood it in his seminal 1968 essay of that name, but in its current state. As LA burns and Trump ascends, we will pause and ask tough questions about where open education has gotten us.
Speaker bio: Dr. Robin DeRosa is the Director of Learning & Libraries at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire (USA). She has previously been an English professor, the chair of a customized major program for undergraduates, and the director of a faculty development center. Robin is an advocate for public higher education and has been working on OER and open pedagogy initiatives at institutions around the world for more than a decade. You can read more about Robin at her website, robinderosa.net
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Time:11:00am – 12:00pm
Time Zone:Saskatchewan Time
