Higher Ed Now

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 discussions about un...

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+" grade from ACTA's What Will They Learn?© project for its rigorous and high-quali...

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 rigor of the core curriculum at over...

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 Douglass on Abraham Li...

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 teach...

ACTA's Academic Affairs Fellow  Veronica Bryant  is joined by Dr. Marie Kawthar Daouda , stipendiary lecturer in French at the University of Oxford's Oriel College. Dr. Daouda teaches both literature and language, and her research focuses on the reception of antiquity in modern times and artistic representations of good and evil in periods of political and religious crisis. She is the author of No...

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 infor...

  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 C enter for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse and has helped lead the mo...

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 Scalia Law School. A fo...

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 & Law Center , an academic forum...

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 Pro...

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...

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 T...

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-Sa...

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 an...

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 expressi...

  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...

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...

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 repo...

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 Po...