Higher Ed Now

The acclaimed author, journalist, and activist Jonathan Rauch sat down with ACTA's Doug Sprei to explore the social and political vectors that led him to write his remarkable new book, "The Constitution of Knowledge." Rauch is a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor at The Atlantic; he's also a champion of civil discourse, and a longtime friend of ACTA who sparked our flourishing College Debates partnership with Braver Angels and BridgeUSA.

Professor Abraham Unger has a unique vision for liberal arts education. Long before before spending a decade as Director of Urban Programs at Wagner College in New York, he was an undergraduate student concentrating on classical guitar at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music. In this episode of Higher Ed Now, he sits down with ACTA's Michael Poliakoff and Doug Sprei to reflect on the precarious condition of colleges and universities today, and explores the concept he is shaping for liberal arts education based on the conservatory model he experienced as an undergraduate.

ACTA's Armand Alacbay sits down with John W. Altman -- distinguished entrepreneur, business leader, educator, and veteran trustee at several colleges and universities -- to explore the distinct strengths that trustees should bring to any institutional governing board. Having recently stepped up as ACTA's board chairman, Altman brings a lifetime of experience and insight into helping higher education institutions stay on course and fulfill their mission.

Pano Kanelos, the noted educator, Shakesperean scholar, and champion of campus discourse, goes one on one with with ACTA's Michael Poliakoff to reflect on his tenure as the 24th president of St. John's College in Annapolis. Kanelos unpacks a pedagogical tradition where all students are immersed in conversation and the study of 200 great books.

As campuses reopen, how can college leaders help students who struggled with alcohol and drug use and mental health issues during the pandemic? In ACTA's webinar, The Pandemic and Campus Substance Use: What Colleges Need to Know Now, four distinguished health experts explored this topic, from research to practical solutions on the ground. Panelists included Robert L. DuPont, M.D. of the Institute for Behavior and Health; Amelia M. Arria, Ph.D. of the University of Maryland School of Public Health; Ellen Rome, M.D., M.P.H. of the Center for Adolescent Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children’s; and Caleb S. Boswell, L.L.P.C., N.C.C. of the Office of Counseling & Career Planning at Washtenaw Community College.

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff sits down with Jodi Shaw, an alumna and former employee of Smith College who took a courageous stand against critical race orthodoxy at Smith. Her story, reported in The New York Times and major news venues, prompted ACTA to award her with a Hero of Intellectual Freedom Award, to be presented later this year. In our podcast, Shaw outlines the events and reasons leading to her resignation from Smith College, and elaborates on why she believes that what passes for “progressive” at Smith and many other institutions today is actually deeply regressive.

For most students, a college education is one of the biggest investments they’ll ever make in their lifetime. What if colleges and universities could take the risk out of that monumental investment by insuring future income for graduates? ACTA's Armand Alacbay explores this model with Wade Eyerly, the co-founder and CEO of Degree Insurance, which guarantees a student’s earnings in the five years after receiving a college degree.

Margarita Mooney, Associate Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and founder and executive director of Scala Foundation, explores the value and vitality of liberal arts learning in conversation with ACTA's Nathaniel Urban and President Michael Poliakoff.

Since 2018 Braver Angels has teamed with ACTA to launch civil debates for students across the nation. College leaders applaud the program's depolarizing, transformative effects on students as they learn to engage respectfully around divisive social and political issues. Program leader Doug Sprei unpacks the magic with college instructors David Dagan of The George Washington University; Mark Urista of Linn-Benton Community College; Manu Meel, CEO of BridgeUSA; Texas intern David Amaya; and April Lawson, Director of Debates and Public Discourse at Braver Angels.

Emily Koons Jae, who leads ACTA’s Fund for Academic Renewal (FAR) initiative, has been keeping close tabs on the controversy around a $30 million gift to Ohio State University by the late Michael Moritz. In this episode, Emily explores this provocative story with Mr. Moritz’s wife, Lou Ann Ransom, and his son, Jeffrey Moritz.

On Constitution Day, ACTA co-sponsored Civic Engagement for All – a virtual event with the Office of Engaged Learning at Baylor University. Moderated by Professor David Corey, the director of Baylor in Washington, a panel of prominent Baylor alumni and senior leaders discussed how students can envision a more robust approach to civic engagement, and why doing so is essential to the health of our communities and our country. Higher Ed Now is pleased to share excerpts of the panel discussion. 

Jeremy Wayne Tate founded Classic Learning Initiatives in 2015 to provide high school students with alternative standardized tests that are rooted in tradition while taking advantage of modern technologies. Featuring passages from great works across a variety of disciplines, the Classical Learning Test (CLT) suite of assessments provides an accurate and rigorous measure of reasoning, aptitude, and academic formation for students from diverse educational backgrounds. Mr. Tate explores the underpinnings of the CLT with ACTA's president, Michael Poliakoff.

Abigail Thompson, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of California-Davis, drew national attention in December 2019 with her Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “The University’s New Loyalty Oath.” Her bold challenge to the University of California’s use of diversity statements in faculty hiring inspired ACTA to honor her with a Hero of Intellectual Freedom Award. Professor Thompson argued that the rubric for assessing applicants’ diversity statements was not ideologically neutral, and that the hiring process constituted a possible infringement of academic freedom, as well as a threat to intellectual diversity. In this episode, she explores the topic with ACTA's president, Michael Poliakoff.  

For acclaimed sports journalist Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post, the Covid-19 pandemic has blown the lid off excessive spending in college athletics and brought higher education to a reckoning point. She sat down with ACTA's Doug Sprei and Armand Alacbay for a probing conversation a few days after publication of her scathing article, College sports embraced reckless greed. With the Coronavirus crisis, the bill has come due.

Drawing on over thirty years of experience in philanthropy, Joanne Florino has authored the new the guidebook, Protecting Your Legacy: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Honoring and Preserving Donor Intent. She sits down with Emily Koons Jae, the director of ACTA’s Fund for Academic Renewal, to explore what donors to colleges and universities can learn from this new guide; and they cover important trends in higher education philanthropy as well.

John Katzman's trajectory as a groundbreaking educational entrepreneur has included founding The Princeton Review, the online learning company 2U and, most recently, The Noodle Companies, where he serves as CEO. For many years he has been dedicated to making the tools of education ever more innovative, connective, accessible, and effective. He joined ACTA's president, Michael Poliakoff, for a wide-ranging conversation on Zoom.

In loco parentis is the theory that colleges can, and ought to, act “in the place of a parent” with regard to their students. How has this philosophy guided the formation of the modern university, and how has the concept changed since its inception in the early 20th century? Christopher P. Loss, professor of history, public policy, and higher education at Vanderbilt University, joins ACTA’s Erik Gross for a deep dive into one of the pivotal guiding philosophies in American higher education.

Pine Manor College, a small liberal arts school in Massachusetts, has responded to the intense financial and operational pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic in a unique way:  by partnering with nearby Boston College to become the Pine Manor Institute for Student Success. Peter Alcock, a Pine Manor trustee who has been a key driver of positioning PMC for this initiative, sat down with ACTA’s Armand Alacbay to share lessons learned that could prove instructive for many other institutions around the country.  

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, President Emeritus of The George Washington University, rejoins the podcast to explore higher education's response to the current national crisis around instances of police brutality and the protests against systemic racism. ACTA's president, Michael Poliakoff, kicks off the conversation.

Michael Poliakoff speaks with former U.S. Senator, Representative, and college president emeritus Hank Brown about immediate steps that colleges and universities must take in meeting the financial and operational crisis they are facing from the COVID 19 pandemic.