Higher Ed Now

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 Education, Commentary Magazine, the Washington Examiner, the Bulwark, the American Conservative, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. ACTA's vice president of public policy, Bradley Jackson, sat down with Professor Marks to talk about civic education, free expression on college campuses, and much more.

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 gathered at the University of Denver for a symposium bringing together faculty leaders and student fellows from ten colleges and universities that are participating in a two-year $1.3 million research project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. This multifaceted project explores the effects of Braver Angels debates and discourse on campus communities – and student leaders have a major role in driving it. Joining Ms. Webb in today’s episode are three student fellows in the Templeton project. They include Jordan Phillips from Duke University in North Carolina, Lucas Rice of Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, and Cheyanne Rider of Linn-Benton Community College in Oregon. The wisdom and insights of these students are inspiring and instructive for our politically fractured nation.

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 Times best seller. Dr. Haass's extensive government experience includes service as special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. He was also director of policy planning for the Department of State, serving as a principal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, he served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process.  Dr. Haass is the author or editor of fourteen books on American foreign policy, one book on management, and one on American democracy. 

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 Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and other outlets. 

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’s and went to Iraq in 2003 as senior advisor for higher education for the new Iraqi Government.  Between 2006 and 2010 he served, variously, as trustee, president, chancellor, provost and dean at the American University of Iraq in the Kurdish region.  After returning from Iraq, Agresto was appointed member and chair of the New Mexico Advisory Committee on Civil Rights (2010-2018) followed by his appointment as Probate Court Judge in Santa Fe, NM. He currently serves on the board of the Jack Miller Center.

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 ACTA, to mobilize alumni across the country and educate the public on free speech issues affecting higher education.  

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 a member of the new organization Middle Grounds, a discussion-based group that seeks to build consensus and understanding in regard to political issues. Committed to his studies, he aspires to pursue a law degree following graduation to help make a meaningful impact in the realm of politics and public service. A gifted speaker and thinker, Jered Cooper recently won the second annual UVA Oratory competition with his speech titled “A Remedy to Save America.” 

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 a classroom of 25 students led by Lindsay Hoffman, an associate professor of communication who serves as the research leader for ACTA's two-year Braver Angels project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Afterward he sat down for a conversation with Dr. Hoffman, along with another stellar leader in the discourse space, Timothy Shaffer, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Chair of Civil Discourse at U Delaware’s Biden School of Public Policy and Administration. Shaffer is also director of Civic Engagement and Deliberative Democracy with the National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona. Both guests are highly accomplished, have extensive resumes and publication credits, and carry great passion around helping students engage in dialogue, discourse, and democracy.

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." Smith went on to write, "For these alleged transgressions, Dr. Lee, a black female academic. . . was denied tenure and relieved of her duties. As I’ve similarly experienced, Dr. Lee is being punished for being 'the wrong kind of black person:' one dedicated to classical liberal understandings of equality, individualism, reason, and free speech. The fact that a black person can be accused of perpetuating white supremacy for upholding these tenets and basically abiding by the same understanding of diversity indicative of the Civil Rights Movement should be the last straw for those discouraged and disquieted by contemporary diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and a wake up call for those encouraged to implement such initiatives."    

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 April Lawson, Managing Director of Debates and Public Discourse at Braver Angels, who co-founded and co-directs the national College Debates and Discourse Program; Manu Meel, CEO of BridgeUSA; as well as Deondra Rose, the Kevin D. Gorter Associate Professor of Public Policy, at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy; and Karrin Taylor Robson, who served on the Arizona Board of Regents from 2017–2021, and who also founded the Regents’ Cup, a remarkable student debate competition in her home state.  The session was designed to take on some of the format and tone of an actual Braver Angels debate, and invited lively audience participation.