“The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic,” stated the University of Chicago’s Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action, issued at the height of protests over the Vietnam War and the need for civil rights. The report further stated, “to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, (a university) must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

But that’s not happening at many universities. Viewpoints are either morally superior or wrong, shout-downs replace debates and dissenting speakers are canceled or heckled. Most recently, Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel ignited firestorms on campuses. As a result, fear and anger have spread on campuses. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s College Free Speech Rankings revealed that 26% of college students censor themselves at least a few times a week in conversations with friends. One in four are more likely to self-censor now than when they started college.

To ensure freedom of speech and safety on campuses, Gov. Glenn Youngkin convened a summit of Virginia’s public and private college presidents and asked VMI’s superintendent, Major General Cedric Wins, U.S. Army (retired), to address VMI’s program for promoting civil discourse through debates. The debates are not competitive, nor seek to change minds. Their purpose is to enlighten and show how to disagree thoughtfully and respectfully. This is in keeping with VMI’s leadership development, which emphasizes service, respect and civility.

The debates have examined such divisive topics as diversity, equity and inclusion, social media, women in combat and divides between student athletes and nonathletes. Debates follow a light parliamentary format that promotes discussion, listening and critical thinking. Following presentations, speakers and audience members may address comments to the trained debate moderator, thus avoiding personalizing clashing viewpoints.

In November, VMI pushed the program’s bounds. It invited students from Mountain Gateway Community College, Southern Virginia University and Washington and Lee University to participate in an intercollegiate debate on book banning in K-12 schools. The debate attracted over 100 participants from these schools. The following student comments attest to the program’s value:

“I have never in my life been involved in such a thought-provoking discussion, getting to understand the ideas and thoughts of not only other VMI cadets but also students from other colleges. Braver Angels has helped me gain a new perspective on discussion and communication in my generation,” said VMI cadet Isabella Bruzonic. “I got to hear perspectives I would have never thought of. I gained respect for the people who were willing to have a conversation without anger and animosity.”

“I was grateful for the opportunity to speak my mind candidly in an environment where candid opinions were welcome,” said Jared Smith, a Southern Virginia University student. “During this time of political and ideological polarization in America, we need more events like these! We have the freedom of speech in America, but it hardly serves our society if we do not implement the structure and activities that give people the opportunity to exercise it productively and peacefully.” 

VMI initiated the program in 2021, based on the acclaimed College Debates and Discourse Program, jointly sponsored by Braver Angels, American Council of Trustees and Alumni and Bridges USA. In January 2023, VMI was named one of 10 colleges in the country in the program’s Community of Practice, enabled by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. These institutions are collecting data on the debates, which the University of Delaware will use to assess students’ performance, and leadership skills.

Alex Morey of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression states, “The college campus is the place to have people’s different authentic views come together, where we can have discussions in a scholarly and civil way.”

That’s VMI’s civil discourse program and universities need similar programs. But VMI provides another example. VMI “introducing Braver Angels debates and civil discourse to other colleges in the surrounding area is exemplary for the nation,” said Doug Sprei, director of the College Debates and Discourse Alliance. Higher education needs more champions of civil discourse.

This post appeared on the Richmond Times-Dispatch on January 2, 2024.

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Director Andrew J. Taylor remarks, “”The Free and Open Societies Project has been going, in one form or another, for nearly twenty years during which we have elevated and diversified the intellectual climate on NC State’s campus and added significant value to students’ educations.  To have this recognized by ACTA is incredibly satisfying and we hope to make this Oasis of Excellence a place where students and faculty can quench their thirst for ideas for twenty years to come.”   

Oases of Excellence are outstanding programs at colleges and universities across the country that are dedicated to educating students for informed citizenship in a free society by maintaining the highest academic standards, introducing students to the best of the foundational arts and sciences, teaching American heritage, and ensuring free inquiry into a range of intellectual viewpoints. ACTA’s Oases of Excellence network now includes over 80 programs at a wide range of institutions. The network is a forum for sharing ideas and best practices for running an independent liberal arts program and serves as a valuable resource for donors who are committed to supporting academic excellence. 

ACTA is proud of the work of these programs and is grateful to the faculty who make Oases of Excellence possible. ACTA President Michael Poliakoff stated, “At a time when surveys reveal with chilling clarity how little college students understand about America’s free institutions and their history, these centers’ efforts to equip students for informed and engaged life are urgently needed. They model the vigorous, free discourse and intellectual diversity that are the lifeblood of our free society. They also encourage the rich life of the mind through deep engagement in the liberal arts.”   

A complete list of ACTA’s Oases of Excellence can be found here. 

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org

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Just this past month, Washington College saw an invited speaker (ironically giving a talk titled “The Truth-Seeking Mission of the University”) halted by a heckler’s veto . As student protesters shouted down any attempts to continue the discussion, campus security took no action to stop what was clearly a direct violation of the college’s event policies as well as its core values of “curiosity, civility, leadership, and moral courage.” Incidents such as this (in which a school fails to live up to both its internal policies as well as its basic responsibilities as an academic institution) arise in part due to a failure of governance.

Running a college is a messy business at the best of times. With students, administrators, and faculty from various departments vying for limited resources, campus leaders are under immense pressure from wildly different entrenched interests. Enter the trustee. While individual constituencies are focused on their own limited role within the institution, boards of trustees are tasked with viewing the big picture and ensuring that all major actions taken by the institution are in line with its mission. A properly constituted board brings members together from multiple professions with diverse experiences, all of whom provide a rich, broad view of what students need for future success.

As unpaid volunteers, trustees are the only members of the community capable of acting as fiduciaries, tasked with placing their institution’s mission and community’s well-being above reputational or even financial expediencies. This unique position allows them to hold accountable any member of the community who would (whether intentionally or unintentionally) act in a way that violates the school’s mission or the rights of another campus constituency. Trustees, of course, under normal circumstances, do not act autonomously but rather partner with administrative and faculty leaders. They do this through the norm of shared governance , which calls for “shared responsibility and cooperative action among the components of the academic institution.”

Why, then, is it so rare for boards to be involved when a controversy unfolds on campus? The answer is both simple and sad: They are told it is not their place to act.

For decades, faculty and education leaders pushed trustees to adopt an “ eyes on, hands-off ” approach to governance. Where shared governance was first invoked by faculty and administrators to demand a seat at the table when discussing important topics such as resource allocation, presidential searches, and budgeting, it is now commonplace for trustees to defer to another constituency’s expertise completely in the name of shared governance. Faculty and administrators are effectively expected to self-police without trustee intervention.

Meanwhile the Association of Governing Boards, the nation’s oldest and largest organization focusing on higher education governance, even chastised “activist trustees” who dared request “independent sources of information” rather than relying on what was provided to the board by a school’s president. Boards are treated as little more than boosters, and their fiduciary responsibilities have been reduced to rubber-stamping any proposal that had been already vetted by other campus leaders.

Many of the problems facing higher education can be traced back to this push for passive trusteeship. When administrators proposed tuition hikes far beyond the rate of inflation, trustees ought to have considered the impact saddling a generation of students with $1.7 trillion in student debt would have on their financial futures. When faculty began to lower academic standards in the name of prioritizing completion rates, trustees ought to have ensured that students received the rich, high-quality education they needed to thrive. And when institutions began adopting blatantly unconstitutional “free speech zones,” trustees ought to have stepped in and reminded the campus community of their moral and legal responsibilities.

As confidence in American higher education has plummeted , it has become clear that this model of passive trustee governance can no longer stand. This does not mean that trustees should become micromanagers, only that they must live up to their proper role as engaged, informed stewards of their institution. In the words of the late Benno Schmidt, a past president of Yale University and the former board chairman of the City University of New York, “ Shared governance — which demands an inclusive decision-making process — cannot and must not be an excuse for board inaction at a time when America’s pre-eminent role in higher education is threatened.”

This article was originally published by the Washington Examiner on September 25, 2023.

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Download a transcript of the podcast HERE.
Note: Please check any quotations against the audio recording.

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Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

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So… how do you think you did?

The correct answers, in order of the questions, are:

Question 1: What is Purdue?

Question 2: What is Rice

Question 3: What is Duke?

Question 4:  What is Notre Dame?

Question 5: What is the University of California–Berkeley?

Thank you, Jeopardy, for using the episode to highlight an issue that is no minor matter to the many Americans who increasingly find themselves priced out of a college education and paying more and more for a degree that often means less and less in the job market.

You should not have to be a Jeopardy champion to afford the cost of higher education, nor should seeking a degree put anyone in financial jeopardy. While one game show episode is not enough to motivate overpriced schools to tackle the tuition crisis, we hope it serves as another check on the conscience of school administrators who refuse to slash overhead, cut costs, and deliver more bang for the tuition buck.

Check out ACTA’s website, HowCollegesSpendMoney.com, for a deeper dive into the college spending crisis.  

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Explore this page to learn more about these programs. 

If your academic program is interested in becoming a Hidden Gem, contact ACTA’s What Will They Learn?® team.

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Oases of Excellence are outstanding programs at colleges and universities across the country that are dedicated to educating students for informed citizenship in a free society by maintaining the highest academic standards, introducing students to the best of the foundational arts and sciences, teaching American heritage, and ensuring free inquiry into a range of intellectual viewpoints. ACTA’s Oases of Excellence network now includes over 80 programs at a wide range of institutions. The network is a forum for sharing ideas and best practices for running an independent liberal arts program and serves as a valuable resource for donors who are committed to supporting academic excellence.

The Center for Great Books & Human Flourishing at Faulkner University offers undergraduates the opportunity to engage with questions of the good life and a flourishing society through student programming, speaker events, and fellowships. It holds public lectures, hosts visiting faculty, and provides professional development opportunities for teachers. Director Jason Jewell said, “The Center for Great Books & Human Flourishing has had great success showing students and the public the essential connection between a classical liberal arts education and constructive engagement in public life. We are thrilled to receive the Oasis of Excellence designation from ACTA and look forward to a fruitful partnership.”

The Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University seeks to provide students with an intellectual foundation to become value creators in their communities and contribute to overall prosperity within our society. Madden Center Executive Director Siri Terjesen remarked, “In just one year, the Madden Center has launched a free certificate in value creation (currently with over 1,400 students), hosted 12 research conferences, hosted several free speech events, released a book on value creation, organized a biotech and longevity conference, offered civics training to incarcerated persons in South Florida, and hosted many state and national political leaders.” She continued, “We admire ACTA’s important work in universities across the country and are honored to be recognized for our commitment to high academic standards, free inquiry, and donor integrity.”

ACTA is proud of the work of these programs and is grateful to the faculty who make Oases of Excellence possible. ACTA President Michael Poliakoff remarked, “A strong liberal arts education has become all too rare at a time when students need it the most. These centers’ efforts to prepare students for an informed and engaged life of the mind are vital for the strength of our civil society and the health of our nation.”

A complete list of ACTA’s Oases of Excellence can be found here. 

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org
PHONE: (202) 798-5425

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Shortly before his death, President John F. Kennedy wrote: “There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country. Without such knowledge, he stands uncertain and defenseless before the world, knowing neither where he has come from nor where he is going. With such knowledge, he is no longer alone but draws a strength far greater than his own from the cumulative experience of the past and a cumulative vision of the future.”

But we have fallen grievously short of our obligation to cultivate what President Ronald Reagan in his farewell address called, “informed patriotism.” What is encouraging, however, is a growing movement of lawmakers and scholars to do something about it.

Since only 19.5% of the colleges and universities that have a stated liberal arts mission require even a single one-semester course on American history or government, legislatures are stepping into the breach that college faculty and administrators have left. This year, Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino presented Senate Bill 83, which prescribes, at a minimum, that every undergraduate complete a course that covers the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and the Gettysburg Address. Before the North Carolina General Assembly at this moment is House Bill 96, the “Reclaiming College Education on America’s Constitutional Heritage Act” (REACH Act), which prescribes the same texts: Both bills take their cue from South Carolina, which passed its REACH Act in 2021. In 2022, the Arizona Board of Regents mandated a similarly detailed list of minimum requirements for the American Institutions course that all undergraduates must complete. This followed upon Florida’s strong civic education legislation of 2017 and 2022.

Cultural change is ultimately more difficult, but here, too, there are promising signs even from within the academy. Witness three recent publications. Steven Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science at Yale University, published Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes in 2021, and in the same year, Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels’s book, What Universities Owe Democracy, appeared. And in 2022, Dr. Richard Haass published The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.

What these books have in common is an intense commitment to the liberal democracy that gives us the right to participate in it, indeed to criticize it. And, with that, the absolute obligation to instill the values and principles of our free society. Dr. Haass and President Daniels call not only for better K-12 civic education, but, like past president of Harvard University Derek Bok, for a required college course on American history and government.

The Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote, “who never knew the price of happiness, will not be happy.” Those in our nation who do not understand the blessing of freedom and the price past generations paid for it are likely to scorn that heritage. We need look no further than the poll taken by Quinnipiac University shortly after Russian troops invaded Ukraine. In response to being asked if they would stay and fight if Russia invaded America, only 45% of Americans aged 18–34 answered they would fight rather than flee. It is a sign of a deep cultural weakness and an egregious failure of our education system.

Dr. Haass and Professor Smith also call us back to the civic virtue and civic understanding that we must recover or, to use Abraham Lincoln’s words, we “meanly lose the last best hope on earth.” Both, interestingly, endorse the idea of mandatory national service, military or civilian. Dr. Haass bids us to “put the country and American democracy before party and person.” Professor Smith goes further and calls on Americans to embrace their patriotism—yes, he uses the “p” word over and over. With due circumspection about how the term “exceptionalism” can be abused, he asks us to remember that the United States is uniquely a nation founded on a creed that includes equality, liberty, individuality, and pluralism. He does not hesitate to encourage our emotional bond with our nation.

Professor Smith ironically described the reaction of his faculty colleagues to his announcement that he was writing a book about patriotism as ranging from shock and disbelief to horror and disgust. We need to change that mindset, and President Reagan once told us how:

We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.

And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ‘em know and nail ‘em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

This article appeared on Forbes on June 29, 2023

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