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Higher Ed Now

136 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★ - 14 ratings

Higher Ed Now is a production of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. It is a podcast concerning issues and policy in America's higher education system.

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Episodes

Jay Bhattacharya: Free Expression and Unsettled Science

January 25, 2024 15:26 - 1 hour - 111 MB

Jay Bhattacharya is a professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations. During the Covid pandemic, Dr. Bhattacharya co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a “focused protection” approach in pandemic policy. His public stance against “lockdowns” won him both plaudits and criticism from policymakers, lawmakers, academics, and scientis...

Nadine Strossen: Free Speech in a Time of Campus Crisis

January 12, 2024 14:55 - 1 hour - 126 MB

Nadine Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, and served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. ACTA has long admired her tireless advocacy and devotion to free speech and is proud to have featured her as a keynote speaker and panelist at many of our conferences. In October 2023, Nadine authored her latest book on free speech for Oxford University Press’s What Everyone Needs to Know® series. In this episode, she...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Fight For Our Classrooms

December 14, 2023 20:44 - 28 minutes - 51.5 MB

ACTA's President Michael Poliakoff interviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born, Dutch-American writer, human rights activist and former politician and long-time friend of our organization. She is the author of best-selling books like Infidel (2007) Nomad (2010) and Heretic (2015).  Now a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and Founder of the AHA Foundation, she regularly comments on today's issues and offers a platform to exchange perspectives that lead to real solut...

Scott Walker: A Governor's Perspective on College Spending

November 30, 2023 21:10 - 48 minutes - 88.2 MB

In this episode, former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker speaks with ACTA's President Michael Poliakoff. Governor Walker is now leading Young Americans for Freedom -- an organization committed to ensuring that increasing numbers of young Americans understand and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values.

A Higher Ed Reformation: Changing Campus Policy and Culture

September 29, 2023 23:18 - 40 minutes - 74.6 MB

In March 2023, ACTA’s second annual Alumni Summit on Free Expression brought together alumni free speech activists and higher education nonprofit leaders from across the country to share knowledge, experiences, and resources related to campus reform efforts. In partnership with the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA), this special gathering was designed to further motivate and equip alumni as guardians of the values that shaped their own education, including free expression, academic freedom,...

Free Speech Barriers and Legal Remedies

September 18, 2023 19:06 - 49 minutes - 89.9 MB

In March 2023, ACTA hosted its second Alumni Summit on Free Expression in Washington, DC, in partnership with the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA). More than 100 individuals from various AFSA member groups and other higher education nonprofit organizations attended to support the growing movement to motivate and equip alumni in their efforts to advance free speech at their alma maters. Panelists and speakers addressed the serious challenges facing free speech advocates and how alumni can e...

Carole Hooven: Cancelled for Scientific Accuracy

September 12, 2023 19:48 - 56 minutes - 104 MB

ACTA's Steven McGuire interviews Carole Hooven, whose book titled T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us,  was published in 2021. Hooven is currently an associate at Harvard University and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she works on issues related to sex and gender, human evolutionary biology, health, and psychology — as well as the underpinnings of academic freedom in higher education. 

Jonathan Marks: "Liberal Education Corrects Our Narrowness"

September 01, 2023 20:41 - 54 minutes - 100 MB

Jonathan Marks has been an educator for almost a quarter century, and is currently Professor and Chair of Politics and International Relations at Ursinus College. He has published on modern and contemporary political philosophy in journals like the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of American Political Science, and the Review of Politics. Professor Marks has written on higher education and other matters for Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Educ...

Student Voices: United By Our Differences

August 12, 2023 15:48 - 50 minutes - 91.5 MB

Higher Ed Now is pleased to launch a new series of student-driven podcast conversations issuing from the College Debates and Discourse (CD&D) Alliance – a national initiative led by ACTA, Braver Angels, and BridgeUSA. ACTA's program manager for the CD&D Alliance, Sadie Webb, will host the series to showcase students across the nation who are leading a movement to promote civil discourse, depolarizing debates, and free expression on college campuses.   In July 2023, the CD&D Alliance team g...

Richard Haass: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens

July 29, 2023 13:30 - 47 minutes - 87.5 MB

ACTA's president Michael Poliakoff and Higher Ed Now producer Doug Sprei interview Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan think tank and educational institution dedicated to helping people better understand the world and foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. His latest book, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, was published by Penguin Press in January 2023 and became a New York Ti...

Eric Kaufmann: Academic Freedom Under Pressure

July 13, 2023 15:37 - 53 minutes - 98.1 MB

ACTA's Steve McGuire sits down with Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of several books, including Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities; Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth; The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America; and The Orange Order. He is co-editor, among others, of Political Demography and editor of Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities. He has also written for the New York...

John Agresto: "The Death of Learning"

June 28, 2023 18:41 - 44 minutes - 81.1 MB

ACTA’s president Michael Poliakoff interviews John Agresto, author of The Death of Learning, published last year by Encounter Press. Agresto is a graduate of Boston College and holds a PhD in Government from Cornell University.  Before becoming President of St. John’s College in 1989, he taught at the University of Toronto, Kenyon College, Duke University, Wabash College and the New School University. He also served as acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the 1980’...

Chuck Davis: Alumni Rising

June 21, 2023 20:16 - 51 minutes - 93.8 MB

ACTA’s president Michael Poliakoff is joined by Chuck Davis, the newly elected chair and president of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. Recently he has been serving as board chair and president of the MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA), one of AFSA’s member groups. Mr. Davis’s new leadership position at AFSA comes at an exciting juncture for the national alumni movement. With generous funding from the Stanton Foundation, AFSA will continue its collaboration with various organizations, including ...

Jered Cooper: "A Unique Self-Censorer"

June 13, 2023 15:43 - 43 minutes - 79.3 MB

In this episode, ACTA's Gabrielle Anglin and Steve McGuire interview Jered Cooper, a rising senior at the University of Virginia. Mr. Cooper is majoring in government at UVA and carries a strong passion for understanding the inner workings of politics and public policy. His love for American history has been a driving force throughout his academic journey, as he finds solace and inspiration in exploring the narratives of the past. He is a writer for the Virginia Undergraduate Law Review and ...

Discourse and Democracy: Lindsay Hoffman and Timothy Shaffer

May 18, 2023 13:28 - 42 minutes - 77.8 MB

Higher Ed Now continues its series of conversations with leading lights in the surging national movement to foster viewpoint diversity and free expression on college campuses. Today’s episode spotlights two leaders at the University of Delaware – a major institutional partner in the college debates and discourse work that ACTA is doing with Braver Angels and BridgeUSA. On April 18 Higher Ed Now's producer Doug Sprei traveled to the University of Delaware to chair a Braver Angels debate for...

Diversity Done Wrong: The Unjust Firing of Dr. Tabia Lee

May 08, 2023 02:07 - 57 minutes - 106 MB

Dr. Tabia Lee joins ACTA's Michael Poliakoff and Steve McGuire to unpack her shocking story of being fired from her position as the faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education at De Anza College in California. As Erec Smith (another recent guest on Higher Ed Now) stated on the Cato Institute's website, Dr. Lee's transgression was "asking questions about DEI initiatives, fighting for viewpoint diversity, and upholding classical liberal values." Smit...

Transforming Campus Culture With Civil Discourse

April 27, 2023 17:56 - 1 hour - 134 MB

In Fall 2022, at ACTA's ATHENA Roundtable in Washington DC, a remarkable morning panel was hosted by Doug Sprei, Higher Ed Now producer and ACTA's Vice President of Campus Partnerships and Multimedia. The session, titled "How Civil Discourse Can Change Campus Culture," was graced by a cohort of panelists who are truly leading lights in the national movement to bring respectful discourse to college campuses and classrooms. All are cherished colleagues and allies of ACTA, and they included Apr...

Diversity Done Right

March 26, 2023 16:22 - 1 hour - 146 MB

In October 2022, ACTA's ATHENA Roundtable Conference in Washington, DC was highlighted by two panels featuring extraordinary higher education thought leaders. Today we present the first of those panels – headlined as DIVERSITY DONE RIGHT, and hosted by our good friend Jonathan Rauch – Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Joining Jonathan are panelists Glenn Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University; John Chisholm, former member of the MIT Corporation...

Jennifer Frey: Fundamental Questions in Liberal Education

March 08, 2023 19:01 - 58 minutes - 107 MB

Steve McGuire, ACTA’s Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, hosts a conversation on modern liberal education with Jennifer Frey, who is set to begin a new appointment as inaugural dean of the honors college at the University of Tulsa in July 2023. Dr. Frey is currently Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where she is also a Peter and Bonnie McCausland faculty fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a faculty fellow at the Institute for Hu...

Jenna Robinson: Pushing Higher Ed Reform In North Carolina

March 02, 2023 16:44 - 41 minutes - 75.2 MB

Across the nation, states are stepping up to reform higher education—in effect performing their intended role as laboratories of federalism and democratic governance. ACTA is seeing good progress on this front in North Carolina. While no state has achieved perfect academic accountability, academic freedom, or academic excellence in higher ed, recent developments in the UNC system in particular demonstrate crucial steps taken in the right direction.  ACTA's Emily Koons Jae and Bryan Paul re...

Amna Khalid: "DEI Inc." and the False Framework of Harm

February 06, 2023 17:10 - 47 minutes - 86.9 MB

Today's episode features a conversation between ACTA’s Vice President of Policy, Bradley Jackson, and Amna Khalid, Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton College in Minnesota. Professor Khalid specializes in modern South Asian history and the history of medicine, and is also one of the nation’s foremost advocates of academic freedom and campus free speech. Having grown up in Pakistan under a series of military dictatorships, she has long harbored a strong interest in is...

Matthew Hendricks: Tracking Dollars, Data, and Educational Outcomes

January 30, 2023 13:51 - 31 minutes - 57.9 MB

Higher Ed Now welcomes Matthew Hendricks, the founder of Perspective Data Science, a small data consulting firm that specializes in education finance and policy analytics. Professor Hendricks previously served as the Chair of the Department of Economics at The University of Tulsa. For over 12 years, he has been engaged in education policy research at all levels of education, including Head Start programming, pre-K-12 grade policies, and higher education finance policy. His research on the im...

Lauren Noble: Strengthening Genuine Intellectual Diversity

January 18, 2023 14:52 - 52 minutes - 96.3 MB

In this episode, Bryan Paul, ACTA’s director of alumni advocacy, hosts a conversation with Lauren Noble, founder and executive director of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale University. It’s no secret that America's colleges and universities are facing a troubling decline in viewpoint diversity and the willingness of students to openly express their opinions. Elite institutions like Yale sadly lead in this trend, with more and more students exercising self-censorship for fear of b...

Kenny Xu: An Inconvenient Minority

January 03, 2023 16:19 - 41 minutes - 76.8 MB

Higher Ed Now kicks off 2023 with a conversation between Steve McGuire, ACTA's Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, and KENNY XU, president of the raceblind advocacy group Color Us United, an organization that investigates and takes on corporations whose woke policies are potentially harming employees and our culture of excellence. Mr. Xu authored the book An Inconvenient Minority, and hosts the podcast Inconvenient Minority, which deeply investigates race, identity, and culture. He h...

Edwin Meese: Education for Engaged Citizenship

December 16, 2022 16:12 - 39 minutes - 71.9 MB

Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese served on ACTA's Board of Directors for many years. At age 90, he is as insightful and thoughtful as ever. In November 2022, he graciously invited ACTA President Michael Poliakoff and Chief of Staff Armand Alacbay to his Northern Virginia home for a far-reaching conversation about the influence of governing board leaders on higher education, and how colleges and universities can best prepare students for engaged citizenship.

Ilya Shapiro: The Perils of "Wrongthink"

December 08, 2022 14:57 - 38 minutes - 69.8 MB

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff interviews Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously, Mr. Shapiro was vice President of the Cato Institute and director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, where he published the Cato Supreme Court Review. Earlier in his career, he served as a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues. In this penetrating conversation, Mr. Shapiro unp...

Jonathan Zimmerman: The Case for Contention in Higher Ed

November 16, 2022 14:02 - 49 minutes - 90.4 MB

Higher Ed Now welcomes a return visit with Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of History of Education at the graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania. One of the foremost education historians on the scene today, Professor Zimmerman has published numerous books, written for The New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic among other major outlets, and is one of the foremost advocates for academic freedom and free speech in the higher education space today. ACTA's Vice President of Po...

Adam Weinberg and Adam Davis: Igniting Civil Discourse on Campus

October 31, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 115 MB

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 o...

Emma Camp: "Speech Activists Can Certainly Make Waves"

September 30, 2022 14:29 - 48 minutes - 88.7 MB

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 curre...

Pano Kanelos: Reinventing the University

September 22, 2022 13:53 - 45 minutes - 83.9 MB

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 ...

Justin Dyer: The Value of "Questions We Can't Answer"

September 13, 2022 17:22 - 49 minutes - 90.2 MB

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 ...

Lindsey Burke: "If I Could Wave a Magic Wand"

September 01, 2022 20:57 - 27 minutes - 49.5 MB

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...

Greg Jackson: "History That Doesn't Suck"

August 15, 2022 15:26 - 55 minutes - 102 MB

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 ...

Erec Smith: Anti-Racism and Free Black Thought

August 02, 2022 18:57 - 53 minutes - 98 MB

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.

Roosevelt Montas: How the Great Books Speak to Everyone

July 12, 2022 17:35 - 44 minutes - 82.1 MB

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 Civi...

Colin Diver: Breaking Ranks With the College Ranking System

July 05, 2022 17:18 - 1 hour - 111 MB

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 Ho...

Jacob Mchangama: "A global free speech recession"

June 23, 2022 16:11 - 48 minutes - 88.7 MB

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...

John Chisholm: Exploring Holistic Diversity

June 10, 2022 20:45 - 29 minutes - 53.8 MB

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 De...

Deondra Rose: Galvanizing Political Education and Discourse for Democracy

May 23, 2022 13:43 - 28 minutes - 52.9 MB

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, fac...

Mark Bauerlein: "The Dumbest Generation Grows Up"

May 10, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 117 MB

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 ...

Dorian Abbot: Merit, Fairness, and Equality

April 27, 2022 15:06 - 54 minutes - 99.9 MB

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 betwee...

Nadine Strossen: Free Speech in the Crosshairs

April 14, 2022 21:45 - 59 minutes - 108 MB

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 Poliak...

Paul Carrese: Shaping Students into Citizens and Leaders

March 06, 2022 15:36 - 54 minutes - 99.3 MB

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.

Gordon Wood: 1776: Out of Many, One

February 06, 2022 22:03 - 25 minutes - 45.9 MB

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 Unive...

Ed Yingling - Pioneering the Alumni Free Speech Alliance

November 17, 2021 19:53 - 35 minutes - 65.4 MB

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 Profes...

Robert McCrum: Shakespeare, Ever Present

October 26, 2021 17:04 - 38 minutes - 71.1 MB

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.

George Harne: Liberal Education and "The Symphony of Knowing"

September 24, 2021 12:22 - 39 minutes - 71.7 MB

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, bein...

Jonathan Rauch: Unpacking "The Constitution of Knowledge"

August 09, 2021 21:28 - 52 minutes - 96.6 MB

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.

Abraham Unger: A Conservatory Model for Liberal Arts

July 12, 2021 15:31 - 45 minutes - 83.1 MB

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 libe...

John Altman: Keys to a Consequential Governing Board

June 22, 2021 18:01 - 35 minutes - 65.1 MB

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.