Higher Ed Now is a production of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. It is a podcast concerning issues and policy in America's higher education system.
Subscribe:.rss.atom.json.md.m3u.pls
Live Last read · last published · next check
Saves to your Listen queue, to pick up on another day or another device.
On this episode of Higher Ed Now Civics Edition, ACTA President Michael Poliakoff moderates a bracing and illuminating conversation with Lt. General H.R. McMaster, the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and former U.S. National Security Advisor, and Dr. John Hillen, Executive-in-Residence in Duke University's Political Science Department and…
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 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 details both the physical…
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…
ACTA's Nick Down interviews Michigan State University (MSU) Board of Trustees member Mike Balow . The aftermath of an emergency meeting to revise MSU's trustee code of ethics has embroiled the Board in controversy. The revised ethics code includes a "loyalty pledge" that limits trustee speech, with threats to sanction and publicly censure any trustee who refuse to sign . Trustee Balow and one…
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…
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-quality…
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…
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 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 Not…
