New America Foundation, ASU announce partnership

The New America Foundation and Arizona State University today announced Future Tense, a strategic partnership to explore emerging technologies and their transformative effects on society and public policy. Slate magazine, which has collaborated with New America to produce several events on these issues, will be the media partner for Future Tense.

Central to the partnership is a series of events in Washington, D.C., that will take in-depth, provocative looks at issues that, while little-understood today, will dramatically reshape the policy debates of the coming decade. All three partners will complement these discussions with original research, and explore new ways to continue the conversations online.

"The New America Foundation has always tried to look beyond today's political debates," New America President Steve Coll said. "Arizona State University has experts who are literally inventing the future. Those innovations will be shaping public policy three years, five years from now in ways that we need to be thinking about today -- so we're thrilled to be working with them to spark those conversations."

The Future Tense partnership complements ASU's transformation into a New American University (http://newamericanuniversity.asu.edu/) working collaboratively to find innovative solutions to global challenges, said President Michael M. Crow.

"Arizona State University shares the mission of the New America Foundation to raise the policy discourse on emerging technologies and their transformative effects on society," Crow said. "This unique venture, involving provocative thinkers from many disciplines at ASU, will take a rigorous, creative approach to our greatest challenges in the Future Tense."

The partnership will formally debut on Monday, May 24, with a conference exploring the implications -- both tactical and ethical -- of technologically- and biologically-enhanced warfare. Subsequent events will tackle bioengineering and climate change, the political impact of radical life extension, and the question of whether we're even capable of governing such accelerating change.

The collaboration is a core component of the new model for 21st century legal education that is evolving at ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, a reinvention of the modern law school as a place to address major global challenges in innovative, pragmatic and multidisciplinary ways.

"There is no global challenge facing us that does not have law or policy as part of its solution, and our collaboration with the New America Foundation makes it clear that we are the place for forward-looking analysis concerning the legal, ethical, and policy implications of scientific or technological innovation," said Paul Schiff Berman, Dean of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.

The College of Law's Center for Law, Science & Innovation and MacNeil/Lehrer Productions has begun development on a documentary, also called "Future Tense," that will investigate, through a public television series, online events and public outreach, the potential benefits of emerging technologies, the ethical, social and legal dilemmas posed by them and possible strategies and solutions.

About Arizona State University

Arizona State University is creating a new model for American higher education, an unprecedented combination of academic excellence, entrepreneurial energy and broad access. This New American University is a single, unified institution comprising four differentiated campuses positively impacting the economic, social, cultural and environmental health of the communities it serves. Its research is inspired by real-world application blurring the boundaries that traditionally separate academic disciplines. The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at ASU, building Legal Education in the Future Tense, houses the Center for Law, Science & Innovation, the oldest, largest and by far the most comprehensive law and science center in the country. For more information on these projects, please visit: law.asu.edu/ideas, law.asu.edu/prevailproject, and newamericanuniversity.asu.edu.

About New America Foundation

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. For more information, please visit futuretense.newamerica.net.

About Slate Magazine
Slate is a daily magazine on the Web, offering analysis and commentary about politics, news, and culture. Slate's strong editorial voice and witty take on current events have been recognized with numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award for General Excellence Online. The site, which is owned by The Washington Post Company, does not charge for access and is supported by advertising revenues. For more information, please visit slate.com.


Janie Magruder, Jane.Magruder@asu.edu
(480) 727-9052
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law