Higher Ed Now

ACTA's Kyle Beltramini welcomes David Eubanks, assistant vice president of the Office of Institutional Assessment and Research at Furman University. Professor Eubanks is an expert on the philosophy and practice of leadership in higher education, particularly learning outcomes assessments, strategic planning, and institutional effectiveness. His work emphasizes using data-driven processes to inform decision-making. He recently completed a term on the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI). Professor Eubanks and Mr. Beltramini discuss accreditation's essential role in assuring academic quality, how the system has degraded over time, and how it can be effectively reformed.

  ACTA's Nick Down interviews Thad Westbrook, chairman of the University of South Carolina's (USC) Board of Trustees. Mr. Westbrook earned his bachelor's degree in political science from USC and his J.D. from the USC School of Law. A member of the USC Board since 2010, he spearheaded the creation of USC's Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse and has helped lead the movement to break up the higher education accreditation monopoly. 

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff speaks with Lee Strang, the inaugural director of the new Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society at the Ohio State University. He is also a professor at OSU's Moritz College of Law, the author of numerous books on Constitutional law, and the founder of Northwest Ohio Classical Academy. Professor Strang has devoted his life to the study and teaching of America's civic tradition, and he goes in-depth about his experience leading the Chase Center, from designing curriculum to managing relations with the broader university. He and Michael also discuss how Ohio has emerged as the frontrunner state in the ongoing revival of American civic education.

Description: In this episode of Higher Ed Now, ACTA Policy Research Fellow Kyle Beltramini and Third Way Education Policy Advisor Emily Rounds discuss how accreditation became a mainstream political issue overnight. They also examine the urgent need for modernization of the current system, as well as how both Democrats and Republicans can advance reform. For more, please see their recent white paper, "Five Bipartisan Principles for Accreditation Reform."

In this episode, ACTA President Michael Poliakoff discusses solutions to our nation's civic education crisis with distinguished jurist Douglas Ginsburg and his wife, Dorothy "Deecy" Gray. Judge Ginsburg previously served as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and is currently a professor at George Mason University's (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School. A former member of the GMU Board of Visitors, Deecy Gray is a strong advocate for civic education. Together, they created Civics Fundamentals, a free online civics course for those studying to take the U.S. Citizenship Test and for the many students who have never been exposed to these basic, foundational lessons.

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff speaks with Richard Haass, distinguished diplomat and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Haass has served four U.S. Presidents over 25 years, including two years leading the Irish peace process as the U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. He is the author or editor of fourteen books on American foreign policy, one book on management, and one on American democracy. His most recent 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 bestseller. Dr. Haass serves on ACTA's National Commission on American History and Civic Education, where he will work alongside dozens of distinguished historians, political scientists, and education leaders to help remedy the long-standing failure of American colleges and universities to require a foundational course in U.S. history and government. For more of Dr. Haass's work, read his analyses on his substack Home And Away.

Dubbed "Washington's School for Civil Discourse," George Mason University's (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School exposes students to all legal and political viewpoints and leads them in civil, respectful debate. In this episode of Higher Ed Now, ACTA's Bryan Paul interviews JoAnn Koob, assistant professor of law and director of the Antonin Scalia Law School's Liberty & Law Center, an academic forum dedicated to protecting individual liberty and free expression, and Debi Ghate, director of the Voices for Liberty initiative, which examines how free speech protects underrepresented voices.

MIT Concourse is a program for first-year students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that "brings science into conversation with the humanities." It also hosts the Civil Discourse Project, which seeks to "reinvigorate the open exchange of ideas at MIT." In this episode of Higher Ed Now, ACTA's Bryan Paul interviews Senior Lecturer Linda Rabieh to learn how the Civil Discourse Project has used the Braver Angels debate format championed by the College Debates and Discourse Alliance — a joint program of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Braver Angels, and BridgeUSA — to prepare our nation's future STEM leaders for thoughtful, engaged citizenship. He also speaks with Mariam Abdelbarr, Isaac Lock, and Siddhu Pachipala, three students who have helped plan and conduct debates at MIT.

ACTA's Program Coordinator for the College Debates and Discourse Alliance, Kayla Johnston, returns to her alma mater, the University of North Carolina (UNC)–Greensboro, for a conversation with two student leaders: Lauren Fletcher and Matt Kircher. Thanks to the generous support of the Barnes Family Foundation, the College Debates and Discourse Alliance has brought its debates and dialogues to over 11 institutions within the UNC System. As Lee Barnes Campus Debate Student Fellows, Ms. Fletcher and Mr. Kircher have organized several Braver Angels debates at UNC–Greensboro since the fall of 2023. Together, they reflect on how our programming has helped revive a culture of open dialogue, viewpoint diversity, and free expression on campus.

ACTA President Michael Poliakoff welcomes The Honorable John Hillen, distinguished resident fellow at the Center for Politics in Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and an executive-in-residence of the Political Science Department. Dr. Hillen is a combat veteran and Bronze Star recipient, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state, a successful business leader, and the author of The Strategy Dialogues: A Primer on Business Strategy and Strategic Management. He also serves on ACTA's National Commission on American History and Civic Education. Drs. Poliakoff and Hillen discuss how to engage students in the study of American civics and higher education's role in preparing students to be next generation leaders in the areas of American foreign policy and national security.

This episode features Zagros Madjd-Sadjadi, professor of economics at Winston-Salem State University. Dr. Madjd-Sadjadi has more than 30 years of teaching and economic consulting experience and was formerly the chief economist of the city and county of San Francisco. His work has been cited in the Congressional Record and led to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. This past year, Dr. Madjd-Sadjadi served as the Lee Barnes Campus Debate Faculty Fellow for ACTA's College Debates and Discourse (CD&D) Alliance program at Winston-Salem State University. ACTA's Kayla Johnston, who serves as program manager for CD&D Alliance initiatives in North Carolina, also joins this conversation, exploring Dr. Madjd-Sadjadi's efforts to introduce civil debates and dialogues in his classroom and on campus.

In this episode, ACTA Vice President of Policy Bradley Jackson talks with Jane Calvert, director of the John Dickinson Writings Project and a member of ACTA's National Commission on American History and Civic Education. They contend that the study of history is less about rote memorization and more like being a detective excavating an unsolved mystery or a lawyer preparing to argue an important and novel legal case. Dr. Calvert discusses how a deeper understanding of history reveals us to ourselves and why she is passionate about preserving the life and writings of one of America's unheralded Founders, John Dickinson. 

In this episode, Sadie Webb, ACTA's Associate Director of the College Debates and Discourse (CD&D) Alliance, discusses the Alliance's extensive work with faculty and student leaders at Juniata College. Dean of Students Matthew Damschroder, Dean of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Derek James, and four students share how participating in classroom and campus debates has fostered free expression and the critical exploration of ideas.

  ACTA's chief of staff and SVP, Armand Alacbay, sits down with Jon Hardister, who once chaired North Carolina's House Education Committee, and now serves as a trustee at Western Carolina University. Hear his insider insights on the key role trustees play in university governance, student success, and protecting free speech on campus.

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff speaks to Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino, vice chair of the Senate's Higher Education Committee, on his promise to enact legislation to enhance the quality of higher education in the Buckeye State. Senator Cirino aims to safeguard open discourse and intellectual diversity for both students and faculty, mandate institutional neutrality at Ohio universities, and ensure that every post-secondary student receives a solid grounding in civics and American history. 

Focusing on the role of higher education in preparing young Americans for citizenship, ACTA's president Michael Poliakoff speaks with Mitch Daniels, former Governor of Indiana, who also served as president of Purdue University from 2013 to 2022.  

ACTA's president Michael Poliakoff speaks with the distinguished scholar and education leader, Joshua Dunn, who took on leadership of the recently established Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in June, 2023. Professor Dunn was previously the executive director of the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where he was also professor and chair of the Political Science department. His book, From Schoolhouse to Courthouse - The Judiciary's Role in American Education, offers an important view of the complex relationship between courts and education. His landmark study co-authored with Jon A. Shields, Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University, makes a strong case for why robust and uninhibited intellectual inquiry should be at the center of the American academy.

ACTA's Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, Steve McGuire, interviews Aaron Sibarium, a journalist who writes for the Washington Free Beacon. Sibarium graduated in 2018 from Yale University, where he was the opinion editor of The Yale Daily News. Much of his reporting for the Free Beacon focuses on issues in higher education, and he has authored numerous blockbuster investigative reports on plagiarism, race-based initiatives, and free speech issues on American campuses.

Higher Ed Now producer Doug Sprei interviews Peter Skerry, professor of political science at Boston College, who has served as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He has been featured in a variety of scholarly and national media publications, and is the author of Counting on the Census: Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics (published by Brookings), and Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (published by Free Press/Harvard University Press), which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.  Sprei first encountered Professor Skerry while chairing a debate on immigration at the Braver Angels Convention at Carthage College in June, 2024. During that highly charged event, as he stood up to speak and address other speakers, it became apparent that he is deeply conversant with issues around immigration, a topic that has polarized and challenged society for decades. Professor Skerry is currently advising Braver Angels on framing constructive community dialogue around immigration. In this episode, he shares insights into why it has become such a weaponized topic in today's politics, and why educators should encourage students to embrace uncomfortable conversations around controversial issues.

For the past several years, ACTA has collaborated with the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA) to defend free expression, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity on college and university campuses. With hundreds of alumni advocates across 27 institutions, AFSA represents a national movement empowering alumni to exert positive, meaningful influence on their alma maters. One of the most active groups to emerge from this movement is the MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA). As they support activities from on-campus debates to off-campus mobilization, MFSA members have proven to be both friends and ardent critics of their alma mater. This fall, ACTA's College Debates and Discourse Alliance curricular fellow, Dr. Bryan Paul, attended MFSA's annual conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he moderated a panel discussion with senior administrators from several institutions on strategies to improve the free speech culture on college campuses. He also recorded this interview with MFSA President Wayne Stargardt and MFSA Executive Director Peter Bonilla, a deep dive into MFSA's reform efforts at MIT and beyond.