Higher Ed Now

How does West Point prepare future military leaders to understand and defend the American constitutional republic? On this episode of Higher Ed Now: Civics Edition, ACTA president Michael Poliakoff speaks with United States Military Academy (West Point) professors Hugh Liebert and Robert McDonald. Professors Liebert and McDonald co-direct West Point’s American Foundations Project minor, an ACTA-re...

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff welcomes Wilfred McClay, the Victor David Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College and a member of ACTA’s National Commission on American History and Civic Education, as well as a contributor to ACTA's new volume of essays on the true significance of the American Founding, A Nation Born in a Day. He and Dr. Poliakoff examine t...

ACTA President Michael Poliakoff welcomes Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and a member of ACTA’s National Commission on American History and Civic Education. Also a civic educator, Judge Ginsburg recently released a PBS documentary entitled We Hold These Truths: The Global Search for Liberty. The documentary examines how the Declaration of Independen...

ACTA Senior Research Fellow Kyle Beltramini welcomes back Emily Rounds, Senior Higher Education Policy Advisor at Third Way, to dissect the possibility of massive changes to accreditation.  Mr. Beltramini and Ms. Rounds evaluate the proposed regulatory changes brought up during the meeting of the Department of Education’s accreditation committee, NACIQI.  They discuss and debate the nuances of key...

ACTA President Michael Poliakoff welcomes Ryan Bangert, Senior Vice President at the Alliance Defending Freedom and Visiting Instructor in Law at the University of Austin at Texas. He specializes in the American constitutional tradition of religious liberty. From the emergence of religious beliefs as an inalienable right, to the evolution of our understanding of freedom of religion 250 years into...

ACTA President Michael Poliakoff welcomes Dr. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president emeritus of George Washington University and member of ACTA’s National Commission on American History and Civic Education. A distinguished university leader, Dr. Trachtenberg examines the systemic breakdown of American history education in America. He and Dr. Poliakoff explore the potential for reform, highlighting...

On this episode of Higher Ed Now Civics Edition, ACTA President Michael Poliakoff moderates a bracing and illuminating conversation with Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Executive-in-Residence in Duke’s University’s Political Science Department and Distinguished Lecturing Fellow at the uni...

On this episode of Higher Ed Now Civics Edition, ACTA President Michael Poliakoff speaks with Vincent Phillip Muñoz, the Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame as well as the Founding Director of Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government. Professor Muñoz is also the author of the 2022 book, Religious Liberty...

On this episode of Higher Ed Now Civics Edition, ACTA President Michael Poliakoff speaks with Michael Auslin, the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Professor Auslin is the author of "National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America", a dual history of the Declaration of Independence. The new book detai...

In April 2026, Dr. Bryan Paul, Curricular Fellow for ACTA’s College Debates and Discourse Alliance, joined Aimee Guidera, former Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia, to organize and lead a student-driven civil debate at Harvard University. Sponsored by Harvard's Institute of Politics, where Secretary Guidera served as a Spring 2026 Resident Fellow, this Braver College Debate ce...

  ACTA's Nick Down interviews Michigan State University (MSU) Board of Trustees member Mike Balow. MSU has been embroiled in a controversy over a sudden revision to its trustee code of ethics that involved the signing of a loyalty pledge that would limit trustee speech, as well as threats to sanction and publicly censure any trustee who refuses to sign. The revised code passed 5-3, with Balow and...

ACTA’s chief of staff and SVP, Armand Alacbay, interviews Max Schanzenbach, the Seigle Family Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Schanzenbach’s work focuses on the intersection between economy and law, and he recently coauthored multiple papers on university divestment policies. In this conversation, he explains the crucial nuances that most discussion...

ACTA’s Academic Affairs Fellow Veronica Bryant is joined by Dr. Mark T. Mitchell, Dean of Academic Affairs at Patrick Henry College as well as the author of numerous books on political theory. A small Christian school in Virginia, Patrick Henry College is one of only eight colleges in the country to receive an A+ from ACTA’s What Will They Learn?© Project for its rigorous and high-qual...

ACTA’s Veronica Bryant welcomes David Rohrbacher, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of Classics at the New College of Florida. NCF made headlines after they skyrocketed from an “F” grade to a “B+” rating in ACTA’s What Will They Learn? Project (WWTL), becoming this year's "most improved school." WWTL assigns letter grades based on the...

On this episode of Higher Ed Now, ACTA’s Michael Poliakoff hosts Washington & Lee University’s John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics, Lucas Morel. Professor Morel currently serves on the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission and ACTA’s National Commission on American History and Civic Education. He has also co-edited the book "Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick D...

ACTA’s Academic Affairs Fellow Veronica Bryant welcomes Glenn Corn, who spent 35 years working in the national security and international affairs community. Mr. Corn served as CIA chief of station for four different Eurasian and Middle Eastern countries. He now teaches graduate-level courses in International Affairs and Security Studies at the Institute of World Politics. In addition to his...

ACTA’s Academic Affairs Fellow Veronica Bryant is joined by Doctor Marie Kawthar Daouda, lecturer in French at the University of Oxford’s Oriel College. Their conversation ranges from language’s role in shaping national and cultural identity, to how language learning changes one’s thinking and worldview, to the explosion in popularity of Korean in defiance of the sagging en...

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...

  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...

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...

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 pap...

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 Sc...

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...

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...

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...