Higher Ed Now

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 issues relating to censorship and free expression. She speaks frequently on academic freedom, free speech and campus politics at colleges, universities, and professional conferences. She has published some very significant and widely read pieces on bias reporting systems, trigger warnings, and the trouble with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training in college settings. Professor Khalid also hosts a podcast and accompanying blog called Banished, which explores censorship in the past and present. 

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 impacts of changes in base salaries on teacher productivity has been published in the Journal of Public Economics and Economics of Education Review. Professor Hendricks’s latest work intends to promote financial stability and improve student outcomes in higher education. To do so, he is working with struggling institutions to promote transparency among stakeholders and help school administrators and board members make better policy decisions. Part of that work includes creating college benchmarking dashboards, interpreting the data, and disseminating key findings.  Anna Sillers, ACTA's Data Analyst Fellow for Trustee & Government Affairs, met with Professor Hendricks to explore how his innovative dashboards can help faculty, administrators, alumni, and trustees better understand an institution’s finances – ensuring that when educational dollars are spent, they can provide the best outcomes for students.

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 being attacked or ostracized by their peers. In her role at the helm of the Buckley Program and as alumni leader of Fight for Yale's Future, Lauren Noble knows this phenomenon firsthand and is working vigorously to expand political discourse on campus and expose students to often-unvoiced views.  She seeks to foster open political discussion and intellectual engagement on campus and transform the culture of her alma mater into a haven for free expression. Her efforts and commitment to academic freedom and excellence make her an indispensable ally for all those who are dedicated to promoting genuine intellectual diversity.

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 has written commentary for the Wall Street Journal, City Journal, Quillette, Newsweek, The New York Post, National Review, The Federalist, and many more.  His journalism is beloved by communities of all races who share his passion for making the United States a more fair and meritocratic society.  He has spoken on colorblindness and critical race theory in front of groups as diverse as the nationally renowned Pacific Legal Foundation, the Boston Rally for Education Rights, and the all-Black Connecticut Parents Union. Mr. Xu's commentary has propelled him to interviews with Fox News, Newsweek, and features in the New York Times Magazine and NPR. As the youngest board member of the Asian-American Coalition for Education and Students for Fair Admissions and an identity politics journalist for nearly two years, he has unique and unprecedented access to the major players fighting the deep racial ideologies propagated within academics today.

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.

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 unpacks the widely publicized controversy over his hiring, suspension, and reinstatement as a senior lecturer and executive director at Georgetown University’s Center for the Constitution.

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 Policy, Bradley Jackson, hosts the conversation.

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."