Ben Manski | Next System https://nextsystem.org Teach-Ins Wed, 15 Apr 2026 23:06:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 https://nextsystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/cropped-favicon-1-32x32.png Ben Manski | Next System https://nextsystem.org 32 32 Release: Wave of Next System Teach-Ins across the Americas challenges despair with alternatives https://nextsystem.org/2025/11/03/release-wave-of-next-system-teach-ins-across-the-americas-challenges-despair-with-alternatives/ Mon, 03 Nov 2025 15:47:15 +0000 https://nextsystem.org/?p=3006 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 1-16: Contacts: Ben Manski, Deissy Perilla, April Doner  Americas — This November, communities and universities across the Americas will come together to take on a common question: “As the world collapses around us: Can we build the next system?” Says Kevin Amaro, an organizer of the Chicago Next System Teach-In, “We’re facing overlapping crises: social, political, economic, ecological and more, yet it’s clear that no single solution or organization can fix them alone.” He added, “We’re not just responding to crisis, we’re building what comes next.” In more than a dozen locations from Argentina to Mexico, Puerto Rico and Canada, and in four regions of the United States, a wave of Next System Teach-Ins are weaving together an alliance of scholars and builders to find a way to overcome despair with practical action.  “Participating in internationalist initiatives expands our capacity to learn both from and with what is public—that is, from what belongs to everyone. We are grateful for the opportunity to continue creating dynamic coalitions through the Next System Teach-In as a fertile form of organization,” said Dr. Ana Inés Heras, Professor in the Humanities at Universidad de San Martín, Argentina, and a researcher with the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. This year’s teach-ins are part of a long-term effort, with the next major wave of Next System Teach-Ins planned for April of 2027, and related events taking place before and after.  Instead of relying on elections, protests, or traditional forms of politics, the organizers are building the foundation for what they call a “third force” based in communities, not nation states or global corporations.  “Helping communities meet the challenges of times such as these is central to the missions of public universities like ours; we are rising to those challenges,” said Dr. Ben Manski, Director of Next System Studies and Assistant Professor of Sociology at George Mason University in Virginia. A first pilot Next System Teach-In took place at UC Santa Barbara in 2016, where Manski was a doctoral student, as well as three other campuses. Over the past five years, he has worked with others to build the world’s first program in Next System Studies (see nextsystem.gmu.edu) at George Mason University (GMU). This past year, that program has partnered with many others to call for a wave of Teach-Ins on next system questions: https://nextsystem.org/call-to-teach-ins/  “We are very happy to be able to join efforts between the Global South and the Global North to show that public universities can help people confront the crises we are experiencing; a better world is also built by sharing scientific knowledge to improve the quality of life for the global majority,” said Dr. Alice Poma, Research Professor at UNAM, Mexico.  This November, Next System Teach-Ins will take place in Arlington, VA; Cal Poly Humboldt, Eureka, CA; Chicago, IL; George Mason University, Fairfax, VA; Syracuse, NY; Universidad de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR; Universidad de San Martin, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM, Ciudad de México & Puebla, Zacatlán, México; University of Minnesota, Duluth; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; University of Vermont, Burlington; and, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For locations and links, see: https://nextsystem.org/locations/  Said Suren Moodliar, a founding board member of Syracuse Action for Land and Transformation (SALT), “Our city’s industrial base globalized and evaporated, redlining suburbanized good housing and concentrated poverty, and suddenly hospitals and universities were the only games in town.” He added, “We are inspired by emerging systemic change movements worldwide,yet at the same time we are also turning to this region’s history of social innovation to recover our community’s wealth.” 

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