Higher Ed Now

Higher Ed Now producer Doug Sprei engages two academic leaders at Denison University: Adam Weinberg, the university's President, and Adam Davis, Professor of History and Director of the Lisska Center for Intellectual Engagement. Together they conceived a groundbreaking freshman orientation initiative - "Minds Wide Open" - which gave 700 incoming Denison students an immersive experience of civil discourse through Braver Angels campus debates. President Weinberg and Professor Davis elaborate on their vision and thinking behind this innovative program, which holds promise as an inspiring model for freshman orientation efforts around the nation.

In March 2022, the New York Times published a piece by Emma Camp, titled "I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead." The story quickly went viral, and Emma was thrust into the spotlight as a compelling champion for the principles of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement. For this episode, ACTA's Emily Burden Rees and Gabrielle Anglin interviewed Emma Camp just a few months after she graduated from the University of Virginia. She is currently an assistant editor at Reason, and her work has also appeared in Real Clear Politics and Persuasion.

Pano Kanelos, president of the University of Austin, returns to Higher Ed Now to explore the genesis of his institution with ACTA president Michael Poliakoff. This past summer, the University of Austin offered its first academic programming, designed for students who were  studying or starting out at other universities. "We wanted to be able to bring together students and faculty from across ideological boundaries," says Kanelos, "and throw in front of them some of the most vexing questions of the day, questions around empire, or gender, or race, and create a circle of trust where these students and faculty, who differ in so many ways, find what I call the highest common denominator." 

In this episode, Steve McGuire, ACTA’s Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, interviews Justin Dyer, executive director of the Civitas Institute, which was recently established at the University of Texas (UT)–Austin. The Civitas Institute advances research and teaching on individual rights, civic virtue, the rule of law, and free enterprise. In addition to running the Civitas Institute, Dr. Dyer serves as professor of government and the Jack G. Taylor Regents Professor. His impressive record of teaching and scholarship focuses on American political thought, jurisprudence, and constitutionalism. Dr. Dyer was previously the founding director of the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from UT–Austin.

ACTA’s chief of staff, Armand Alacbay, interviews Dr. Lindsey Burke, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Dr. Burke is well known for her role overseeing Heritage's research and policy work on issues pertaining to higher education reform. In this conversation she discusses higher ed leadership in light of her recent appointment to the George Mason University Board of Visitors where, it’s safe to say, she’ll have ample opportunities to apply her education policy research experience in a practical setting.

Higher Ed Now producer Doug Sprei teamed up with Jack Golden, an ACTA summer intern and rising senior at Hillsdale College, to explore one of the nation's most compelling history podcasts.  History That Doesn't Suck, the brainchild of Professor Greg Jackson of Utah Valley University, combines rigorous research with virtuoso production values and a dynamic approach to storytelling. With over 100 episodes available and new ones issuing every two weeks, History That Doesn't Suck has reinvented the genre and built a loyal audience of hundreds of thousands of listeners. "We need to understand who our nation is," says Jackson. "What are our principles? How does our government function? How on earth can you make good selections as to who you're going to put into positions if you don't even understand what the position really is, how it's evolved, what it does? I think history is crucial to understanding all of that; and I wanted to present it in a very nonpartisan way."

ACTA's Steven McGuire sits down in a far reaching conversation with Erec Smith, co-founder and co-editor of Free Black Thought, a small group of citizens, scholars, technologists and parents determined to amplify vital Black voices that are rarely heard on mainstream platforms. Smith is the Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania, and is the author of A Critique of Anti-Racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment.

ACTA's Michael Poliakoff delves into life-changing aspects of liberal arts education and study of the great books in conversation with Roosevelt Montas, the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life, and Why They Matter for a New Generation. Montas is a Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University. He was Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia College from 2008 to 2018. He currently teaches Introduction to Contemporary Civiliation in the West, a year-long course on primary texts in moral and political thought, and is also Director of the Center for American Studies’ Freedom and Citizenship Program in collaboration with the Double Discovery Center.  As you’ll discover, Mr. Montas holds great reverence for the history, meaning, and future of liberal education.

Author and educator Colin Diver joins ACTA's president, Michael Poliakoff, to deconstruct the conventional model of college rankings (exemplified by U.S. News & World Report). During his distinguished career in higher education, Mr. Diver served as the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and from 2002 to 2012 was the president of Reed College. His book, Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education and What to Do about It, was published this year by Johns Hopkins Press. 

Jacob Mchangama is human rights lawyer in Denmark. He is the founder and executive director of Justitia, a think tank which aims to promote the rule of law and fundamental human rights and freedom rights both within Denmark and abroad by educating and influencing policy experts, decision-makers, and the public. From 2018-2020, Jacob hosted a podcast, “Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech.” He is the author of “Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media” published by Basic Books in 2022.  In today’s episode he sits down for a wide ranging conversation on free speech with Steve McGuire,  ACTA’s Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom.

ACTA's VP of Academic Affairs, Jonathan Pidluzny, interviews entrepreneur and business leader John Dana Chisholm about the concept of holistic diversity and its potential to influence higher education policy. Mr. Chisholm is a member of the Free Speech Alliance at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was previously a member of the MIT Corporation (or board of trustees). He has four decades of experience as entrepreneur, CEO, and investor, having founded and served as Chairman/CEO of Decisive Technology (now part of Google), and of CustomerSat (now part of FocusVision), a leading provider of enterprise feedback management systems. These days he heads up John Chisholm Ventures, a San Francisco-based entrepreneurship advisory and investment firm. He is the author of Unleash Your Inner Company: 10 Steps to Discover, Launch, and Scale Your Ideal Business.  

Just an hour before they teamed up to launch a Braver Angels student debate on campus, ACTA's Doug Sprei interviewed Deondra Rose, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Political Science, and History at Duke University. As the Director of Polis: Center for Politics, Professor Rose leads research into higher education policy, American Political Development, political behavior, identity politics, and inequality. She is a dynamic scholar and educator who commands the admiration of students, faculty and staff leadership across Duke University and beyond into American higher ed.

Author and Emory University professor emeritus Mark Bauerlein sat down with ACTA's Michael Poliakoff to talk about his new book, "The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults."  Bauerlein has publicly argued that the lack of general civics knowledge by millennials poses a threat to America's political and social institutions. He previously worked as a director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw studies about culture and American life, including the much discussed Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America.

Higher Ed Now delves into issues of merit, fairness and equality, academic freedom, and more with Dorian Abbot, associate professor in the department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. It’s now well known that Dr. Abbot was invited last year to give the prestigious Carlson Lecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology—and then, in September, he was disinvited by MIT after a group of activists launched an online cancellation campaign against him. This conversation between Dr. Abbot and ACTA's Michael Poliakoff took place in Washington DC on the same day that Dr. Abbot received our Hero of Intellectual Freedom award.

Nadine Strossen is one of the nation's leading champions of free expression, a renowned author and educator, and a long-time close friend of ACTA. From 1991 to 2008, she served as the first woman and youngest person to lead the American Civil Liberties Union. Today she is a professor at New York Law School, and in 2018 she authored the book Hate – Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship. In this episode she sits down for a far-reaching conversation with ACTA's Michael Poliakoff and Doug Sprei. .

ACTA's Doug Sprei interviews Paul Carrese, Founding Director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. Professor Carrese shares the underpinnings of this influential program, which aims to prepare the next generation of young leaders through the study of great works of civic, economic, political, and moral thought.

For six decades, Dr. Gordon S. Wood’s scholarship has advanced the understanding of the formative years of our nation. His work on the American Revolution and the creation of the American Republic is not only renowned for its meticulous accuracy and groundbreaking insight but also for its elegant and effective presentation, which has made it resonate among professional historians and a much wider public. Dr. Wood has served on the faculty of Brown University, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, William & Mary, and Cambridge University. In addition to the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History, he has held a Guggenheim fellowship, and in 2010, Dr. Wood was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. Speaking of awards, Dr. Wood was recently presented with the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education at ACTA’s 25th plus one Anniversary Celebration at the U.S. Library of Congress. This episode features his award acceptance speech at that event, in w

ACTA’s president Michael Poliakoff has a bracing conversation with Ed Yingling, a co-founder of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA)—a new consortium of alumni groups dedicated to preserving free speech on their college campuses. Yingling and ACTA Board member Stuart Taylor, also co-founders of Princetonians for Free Speech, launched the project with an explosive op ed in the Wall Street Journal on October 18, 2021. The piece, Alumni Unite For Freedom Of Speech: Many Left-of-Center Professors Now Realize That They Too Can Be Brutally Canceled by the Mob, prompted a flood of inquiries from alumni of more than 60 colleges and universities, all seeking guidance on how to recruit and organize alumni from their respective alma maters as bulwarks against the creeping illiberalism and cancel culture gripping college campuses.  Yingling describes what inspired him to take action, provides a start-up plan for alumni to stand up new groups and link up with others in the expanding alumni free speech movement, and pre

ACTA's president Michael Poliakoff joins author and editor Robert McCrum to explore his latest book, Shakespearean, an inspiring portrait of one of the most influential writers in history. McCrum elaborates on how Shakespeare's works resonate today as vividly as they did centuries ago, and why it is paramount to keep his works alive and strong in the modern college curriculum.

ACTA's Jonathan Pidluzny and Nathaniel Urban interview George Harne, Executive Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas in Texas. "Liberal education is almost like becoming a conductor in training," Dr. Harne says. "The goal is to be able to get a vision of an integrated whole, to know the natures of things, the essences of things, and then to know their objective relations with one another. . . Being liberally educated also means as you continue to learn, being able to integrate that new knowledge into the symphony of knowing."