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The Crisis in Higher Education: Can Universities Be Saved? — Transcript

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0:05okay oh this is definitely on um thanks
0:08for having me good morning everyone um
0:12yeah so I have been um a conservative
0:17and and higher ed since grad school and
0:21um you know just been in spaces where uh
0:26that's very uncommon uh to put a mild
0:31and um I think you know for
0:35me um it was always about um kind of
0:41Towing that line
0:43between um being true to yourself and
0:46also operating in a space of hostility
0:51and alienation and I think just when you
0:55forged them at Crucible for
0:57years um you just kind of learn
1:00different ways of navigating it and you
1:04know there wasn't like one way that I
1:06that I did that you know things changed
1:08over the years but um but for me uh
1:12things were more or less fine um and uh
1:18and and I was able to um to get a job as
1:24a as an ethesis despite the fact that my
1:26views were all wrong um
1:30and uh and and to make a lot of friends
1:35honestly um who who just have a a
1:39completely different worldview than me
1:42and something that I have I'm a
1:46philosopher and so my my discipline uh
1:50and my habits of mind are are all about
1:54making arguments and sharpening my
1:56thoughts and so for me to be in an
1:58environment where everyone always dis
1:59agreed with me was I'm actually very
2:02fruitful uh so you know you're
2:05constantly uh having to defend
2:09everything um and so I think for me that
2:12was beneficial in all sorts of ways um I
2:16also think you know my discipline is a
2:18little bit different like I'm an
2:20analytic philosopher and analytic
2:24philosophy is is a space where I mean
2:28yeah everyone is
2:30um everyone votes the same way that they
2:33do in in other departments but there is
2:36not the same kind of ideological
2:40strangle hold um on the discipline that
2:43maybe there are and other Humanities
2:46disciplines um in philosophy um truth is
2:50still a concept that is very important
2:53to
2:54us uh and you don't have to apologize
2:57for thinking about it or caring about it
3:00um and something that happened to me
3:02like very early on as an undergrad I
3:05thought that I wanted to study English
3:08and I thought that I wanted to be a
3:09writer and and then I realized that
3:13those spaces were incredibly political
3:16in ways that didn't make any sense to me
3:20and that I felt deeply alienated from
3:22and so I gravitated towards
3:24philosophy um and so I think some of my
3:27experience is because
3:30of of my discipline um having said that
3:35you know in the last five or six years I
3:40think some of the problems that we see
3:42in other Humanities departments have
3:44become more prominent in philosophy as a
3:47discipline and so philosophy journals
3:50have actively censored right ideas that
3:55are
3:57unacceptable um and this to me is
4:00extremely sub philosophical it's it's
4:02like a violation of our whole ethos um
4:05so I think that there are problems there
4:07but I think that they are less
4:09entrenched and I'm I I I sort of I don't
4:13I don't think that they that they are
4:15overwhelming now it's a it's a very
4:17different experience now that I'm an
4:19administrator I don't know if you want
4:21me to talk about that or not but um yeah
4:24okay so I'm an administrator now I'm a
4:26Dean um even worse than that I'm an
4:29inaugural of a brand new college so it's
4:31like uh a lot and um it's a great books
4:36college and um that's not a super
4:40popular idea uh in higher ed um however
4:44we have been able to work with faculty
4:48to bring them on board um our enrollment
4:52has grown almost 300% since we've
4:55started um because we were historically
4:58an honors program every Honors College
5:00uh was historically an honors program
5:03and I think I've learned a lot in trying
5:06to build a small SE conservative
5:09institution in higher ed and really get
5:12Buy in um and I just want to say that
5:17that's
5:18possible um and I think it's very
5:21important that in addition to things
5:25like Hamilton College which which is
5:28wonderful um and things like new College
5:31Florida um I do think that it's
5:33important to be building new
5:38institutions that um are spaces of let's
5:42call it Viewpoint
5:44diversity um where we're really bringing
5:47students and faculty to the table who
5:50are not politically on the same page but
5:53are very dedicated to a mission and our
5:57mission is very simple it's to give a
6:00liberal
6:01education um and we take very seriously
6:05that if a liberal education is the
6:07education of a free human being and
6:08citizen then it also has to be a kind of
6:10civic education and character education
6:13so we're sort of focused on bringing
6:15those three things that are often
6:17separate um into one Mission and one
6:20curriculum and one sort of student
6:22experience and um I've been really
6:25gratified by how many people um when
6:28expressed in the right way and an
6:30approach to in the right Spirit um
6:32really are willing to to buy into that
6:36um and that includes a really diverse
6:39array of
6:41students um but also also faculty and
6:45and and and other Deans so so from my
6:50perspective I have always been reforming
6:53from
6:54within um and and I and I don't think we
6:57should give up on that and when you say
7:00300% increase how many students are we
7:02do we talking so the University of Tulsa
7:05is an interesting institution it's the
7:08smallest uh division one sports
7:11University um we only have 4,000
7:14undergrads um our incoming class was 750
7:19this year and 197 of them were honors
7:22college students wow that's great so
7:26Mark moving moving over to you I'm
7:27wondering if you could talk about your
7:28experience at Emory University and
7:31whether what you've learned there how
7:32are you thinking about that and perhaps
7:34your more sort of muscular approach in
7:36terms of what um is going on at new
7:38college in
7:40Florida well I
7:42think that I would begin in in in the
7:45General survey of higher education by
7:47saying that there is probably no more
7:50signal
7:52illustration of the utter failure the
7:57incompetence the the dithering
8:00ineffectiveness of the Republican
8:03establishment for the last 50 years than
8:05higher education why is it that in solid
8:09red States entirely safe conservative
8:14Governors that you've got these Flagship
8:17enclaves that aren't just liberal
8:19they're hard-left places why are these
8:22places tolerated why is it that if you
8:24go into the school of education in the
8:26state of Georgia you find huge
8:30presentations of white privilege white
8:32fragility why is it that we have Dei
8:35hardcore Dei stuff taking place in South
8:38Carolina in the South Carolina public
8:40universities it is be well you know
8:44there's a longer story here about the
8:45Republican party uh for so long pulling
8:49away from culture and education and
8:51being intimidated by identity politics
8:54but politicians worried about what the
8:55New York Times is is going to say about
8:57them we would hope that what's happened
8:59this week and in in recent years that a
9:03lot of the Republican Governors would
9:05have learned that this is a political
9:07winner for us that the DeSantis model
9:12shows that one can enact serious reforms
9:15and succeed you know before our first
9:17board meeting at new College before
9:19facing the 500 protesters with
9:20megaphones and go home fascists and
9:22everything else that that I enjoyed but
9:25we met with the sanis uh rufo and and
9:29Kesler and and and Spalding and and I
9:34and you know we said him well you know
9:35he he came in he's not a politician he's
9:37not a glad-hander uh of of that kind but
9:40he he said just just go do it and I said
9:43Do you ever worry about the Biden
9:45Administration getting the office of
9:47civil rights to come after you for some
9:48Reon says every time the Biden
9:50Administration attacks me my numbers go
9:52up all right that is what one has
9:56to uh think if you're going to be that
10:00Governor the governor is a key figure in
10:03the public university changes uh you
10:06know we we we take the lwh hanging fruit
10:09first and and so all I do is I mean the
10:12new College model get five trustees and
10:15they have the power they have the
10:17authority for some why you know why is
10:18it you know the ACTA has been
10:21complaining about this for a long time
10:23why have trustees or Regents just
10:25abdicated their Authority why have the
10:28faculty been taken as just so the
10:31default 100% control of curriculum and
10:35hiring I me at new College we had five
10:37people come up for early tenure uh a
10:39year ago uh early tenure is a rare uh
10:43condition you you give early tenure to
10:45someone who has a who has a Bookout a
10:47good scholly record and an offer from an
10:50equal or Superior institution well these
10:53were weak cases for tenure but they had
10:55100% faculty support which means the
10:57faculty was not operating as peer
10:59reviewers they were operating as a club
11:02right and they were trying to get these
11:03people through before we really settled
11:06in so the five came up for 10 years no
11:08no no no no okay you're gone so uh and
11:12that was simply
11:14us expressing our responsibility as as
11:18trustees uh we have the power so I've
11:21been working you know a lot you know
11:23meeting with with people to try to
11:25develop I spoke about this at at
11:27Pepperdine last week w w with
11:30uh with with Pete and others
11:32but uh we need to tell we need to
11:35present Governors here are the reforms
11:38that need to be made at this institution
11:40you know we go in we review the
11:42institution we look at the practices no
11:44more diversity statements trustees could
11:46eliminate that in one day they could be
11:49gone uh these these political litness
11:52tests uh there are many easy things that
11:55that that could be done instantly if
11:56only a go if it got on the governor's
11:58radar if you handed him here are five
12:01people who should be on your next
12:03appointment list for for the trustees
12:06and you identify the practices now the
12:08legislatures in many states have done
12:12better work than the governor or the
12:14regions and trustees in in several
12:17places we we need to keep keep the push
12:19going and if anyone here ends up in
12:21Trump's Department of bed in in in the
12:23office of higher education uh that this
12:26should be this should be out there on on
12:28your radar thanks Mark all right uh Pete
12:32turning turning things over to you um go
12:35go ahead feel I respond yeah no
12:39should Mark you you raised it kind of as
12:42a rhetorical question about why is it
12:43taking so long and I I actually do think
12:46that there are reasons why we're in this
12:50uh moment which I think portends some
12:53incredible reforms in higher education
12:56and and those are two Watershed events
12:58and a demographic event
13:01um the book passing on the right by Josh
13:05Dunn and John Shields is an important
13:07book I think to understand the plight of
13:09conservative academics in American
13:12Academia and one of the important charts
13:16in that book comes out of the UCLA's HRI
13:20higher education Research Institute and
13:23it's the annual question that they ask
13:26of uh Scholars from across the the
13:29country about their political
13:31leanings and in the chart that H is in
13:35the book it begins actually in
13:381989 and it's essentially the three
13:41categories are uh liberal moderate
13:45conservative and starting in 1989 you
13:48actually do see moderate and liberals
13:52right around 40% each they're very
13:55closely tied and then the balanced 20%
13:58are the conservatives and they're
14:00probably all in the economics department
14:03or working at pepperine so but what you
14:07see over the course of 30 years is not
14:11so much a change in the conservative
14:13line that actually does stick around 15
14:16to 20% over the course of 30 years what
14:19we see is a significant difference
14:21differentiation happening in those top
14:24two lines between liberals and moderates
14:27and the line essentially they come part
14:29like this and obviously what's happening
14:32there is that self-described moderate
14:35faculty are being replaced by
14:38self-described uh liberal or Progressive
14:42faculty and so this is in my view this
14:45is a demographic shift and this is where
14:47D and shields come to as well is where
14:50you had when I was going to undergrad
14:53yay 30 years ago um I knew that I had
14:57Progressive faculty but I never felt for
15:00a second that I couldn't express myself
15:01in a classroom that I couldn't write a
15:04test answer or paper in a direction that
15:07I wanted to um that was back in the 80s
15:11and what's happened is this real split
15:15where a generation of Faculty that came
15:18of age in the 50s and
15:2060s uh are being replaced by those who
15:23came of age in the late 60s '70s and 80s
15:26and then replicated themselves in PHD
15:29programs with others that are coming of
15:31age in the 80s 90s and early
15:34a so that's a demographic factor that we
15:37actually do have a much more Progressive
15:39and ideological faculty uh teaching in
15:42American higher ed the other the other
15:44two events are actually Watershed events
15:47and the first is
15:48co and Co utterly changed the game as
15:53far as what most Americans know
15:55particularly parents particularly donors
15:59about what's going on inside the
16:01classrooms of their kids college or
16:05university I'm sure you've all had the
16:07experience I know I have of speaking
16:09with parents who learned for the first
16:12time what was actually being taught in
16:14their kids college classrooms because
16:15the classrooms have been moved into
16:17living
16:19rooms and that that
16:22awareness began to trigger this
16:25understanding that something is
16:26different like this this kind of way
16:28that we always played this off by saying
16:30oh yeah I know I know colleges are on
16:32the left but it was on the left when I
16:34went to school back in the 80s and you
16:36know I turned out fine if you have not
16:40and obviously I'm not speaking to the
16:41Right audience here but if you have not
16:44been in a college classroom in the last
16:4510 years you have no idea how far left
16:48it's gone right so that was one the
16:51second was October 7th or really October
16:548th and every day after that and that
16:58obvious ly has been a significant change
17:02in the donor community and what started
17:04with Awareness on the part of
17:05conservative parents has now spread to
17:08an awareness of how ideological things
17:10have gotten on the part of those on the
17:12left the donor Community the ivy league
17:14so-called Elite
17:17institutions and I don't think there's
17:19any uh it should be a surprise that that
17:22public awareness is now leading to
17:24political and policy action and so where
17:29you where you see very smart people like
17:32a governor DeSantis or Governor B Lee or
17:36what's happening in North Carolina or
17:39Texas some of it's frankly being driven
17:42by Major instate alumni associations
17:46that are calling up their friends in the
17:48governor's mansion and legislature and
17:49said I had no idea how bad it was
17:52because I always showed up the
17:53University of Texas football games and
17:55every person I seen I every student I
17:57see just looks like they're they're
17:59bright Shiny Happy
18:00People and so I do think these these two
18:03Watershed events and now we've had an
18:05election here that I think speaks at
18:07least in part to this awareness of
18:11what's been happening on college
18:13campuses uh I think is going to continue
18:16to force change both at the K12 level
18:19with these classical schools movements
18:22that you you mention in private schools
18:23and homeschooling but also in the higher
18:26education uh space as well with
18:28experiment like the University of Austin
18:31what's happening with these Civics
18:32institutes and uh institutions like mine
18:35at at
18:36pepperine thank thanks so much Pete for
18:39that that commentary I will also say I
18:41was with um um Victor Davis Hansen and
18:44Steve Hayward last weekend they were
18:46talking about their experience teaching
18:48at Pepperdine and they were just they've
18:50Blown Away with the quality of students
18:52that you have and they say even even
18:54compared to a decade ago it's just
18:57they're just amazed at the the the
18:59standards that you have there so really
19:01encouraging everything you're you're
19:02doing I'm curious you probably all have
19:04seen it's been you know on Twitter and
19:07everything that the piece in the
19:08Atlantic a month ago about sort of elite
19:10college students who can't read right
19:12and the various reasons that went into
19:14that and Mark interestingly had a book
19:17uh the dumbest generation which is about
19:19my generation this was back in 2008 and
19:21you were saying that you know
19:23Millennials can't read right and now
19:25pres that was before the smartphone and
19:27before you know Jonathan Heights written
19:28WR this book about the impact of of of
19:31Technology sort of in terms of reading
19:33um so I'm curious if that
19:36analysis uh squares with your own
19:38experience uh teaching or not uh and if
19:42it does what do you think we can do
19:43about sort of making the great books
19:46kind of prominent again and encouraging
19:48and incentivizing students to to engage
19:50with
19:53them is there anyone in particular okay
19:55well this is like everything that I'm
19:57doing right now so I'll let's Jump Right
19:59In um yeah so um yeah there's a lot of
20:04discourse about this um online um but
20:08also sort of internally I would say in
20:11in highed and in my college we have a
20:14set
20:15curriculum um and it is a lot of reading
20:19um when I teach in the curriculum I
20:22myself sometimes struggle to keep up
20:25with the reading uh so I get it um it's
20:29not so this isn't personally my
20:32experience um but then again I'm at an
20:35honors college you know where I think
20:38there's a lot of self I mean it's all
20:40self- selecting right it's completely
20:42voluntary no one has to do this and so
20:45the students who tend to be interested
20:47in doing it um kind of in some sense
20:50know what they're getting into um I
20:54think that some of this is the after
20:57effects of Co and people just not um so
21:01this is something that we see in HED
21:03across the board is is just learning
21:06loss um but I don't I don't think that's
21:08the whole of it I think that um if you
21:12pay a lot of attention to what's going
21:14on in the k through2 space um it's it's
21:19there are bright spots but it's all
21:21pretty bad on the whole and there has
21:25been this movement to um
21:29constantly water down and lower
21:33standards um some of that had to do with
21:36Equity concerns but frankly I think the
21:39biggest problem in the K through 12
21:42space since I don't know the mid 2000s
21:46has been that everyone is teaching to
21:49tests and um and this has
21:53been um not great for producing lovers
21:57of learning um um but it also has been
21:59terrible in terms of producing readers
22:03right like like just people who have the
22:05skills to pick up Homer and read it
22:09quickly which if you're in a program
22:11like ours you need to not only do it you
22:14need to do it quickly because like all
22:17this other stuff is coming at you um and
22:20so I you know I I think that however we
22:25respond to this the thing that we cannot
22:28do
22:29is lower standards and the thing that I
22:32think is just a lie a lie that is
22:35continually
22:37repeated is that students aren't
22:40interested in reading the
22:43classics um it's false um it's some of
22:48it in so far as it's true it's true
22:50because they don't know what they don't
22:52know that is to say they haven't been
22:54exposed to it if they have been exposed
22:56to it it's been an assort of ridiculous
22:59hamfisted sort of way but when you
23:03actually um and we have a high school uh
23:06we have a program for high school
23:07students I call it the Great Book summer
23:10camp uh where they come and they read
23:13like a miniature version of our
23:14curriculum over 10 days in the summer
23:16how how many books are part of that
23:20um well well I would say probably 15
23:25yeah but it's selections like we don't
23:27do all of it
23:29um and uh you know they're so into it
23:34like they're so into it and for so many
23:37of them they've the thing that they keep
23:40saying over and over again is I didn't
23:42know learning could be like this right
23:45cuz they're
23:47not they're they're not um they're not
23:51being
23:52treated um in the right way in the
23:55classroom that is to say they're not
23:58understanding how any of this is
24:00actually meaningful to them but if you
24:04actually sit them around a seminar table
24:07you know with like Plato's apology or
24:09the gorgus or something like this and
24:11you just start asking them the
24:16questions they will take over that
24:18seminar space very quickly and the
24:20enthusiasm is like it's there it's not
24:23manufactured and so I think a lot of
24:26this a lot of the problems in HRA saying
24:28this for a long time are just problems
24:30in the K through 12 space that we
24:33inherit um and and and we have to fix K
24:36through 12 um but I also think there is
24:40this sort of like tyranny of low
24:42expectations and every time there's a
24:45problem like oh hey nobody can breed the
24:48response is to keep lowering those
24:51expectations and so now it's like oh
24:53well we'll only have them read 10
24:56pages that is a joke it's actually a
24:59crime given what you're charging for
25:01tuition and it's a dereliction of Duty
25:04and so I think um we need to respond by
25:08not only maintaining or I would say
25:10raising the
25:12expectations but we need to look at how
25:15we're engaging students right and this
25:18is where you know
25:19self-censorship and students feeling
25:22like uh so worried that they're going to
25:24engage in wrong think like this is the
25:27death of liberal learning this is the
25:29death of the seminar and this is why
25:31like very common sense policies like
25:33institutional
25:35neutrality um are extremely important um
25:38and they are related to uh the thriving
25:42of the liberal arts and and the
25:44humanities in a higher
25:47ed there are many reasons for the
25:51aliteracy of of the college students I
25:55mean the obvious thing is the the the
25:57screen which the designers in Silicon
26:00Valley uh approached as a tool for
26:03addiction they hired psychologists who
26:04were experts in attention and addiction
26:06to help them design the tools and they
26:10they again they don't let their own kids
26:11do uh get on these these devices but
26:14it's just a general pull of reading with
26:16the over stimulation and the
26:18acceleration and and the peer-to-peer
26:19contact that pulls them away from the
26:21book but I'll I'll also blame the the
26:23curriculum and the Educators as well
26:25because there's been a turn away from
26:26the book for for many DEC ades now it
26:29parallels the turn away from Western
26:30Civilization from many big pictures in
26:33in the curriculum we're reading long
26:35books knowing a tradition that breaks
26:38down they don't talk about books they
26:39talk about text right it's text and
26:41what's a text anything's a text the Mad
26:44video in the 80s that was a text we can
26:47we can make our our you know at Virginia
26:50I was working with Virginia on standards
26:52they kept this uh this this category
26:56multimodal literacy
26:59uh multimodal media literacies no drop
27:01all this garbage but the the turn to
27:05text also focused upon the practice of
27:08close reading you saw this in common
27:10core as well be able to exert your
27:15critical analytical faculties on a
27:18passage right a piece of text it's all
27:20about your process of interpretation
27:22it's not about knowing the full book
27:24it's not knowing about a big a big
27:27picture of of the the 19th century novel
27:30for instance and what we what we see
27:33again is the the reading scores which
27:35have been going down for many years now
27:37the writing scores the SAT added a
27:39writing essay uh in 2006 scores went
27:42down every year except two years when
27:43they were flat and it got so
27:45embarrassing that the SAT dropped it as
27:47a requirement in in 20 2016 so the the
27:51the general deterioration right of
27:54literary education literary literary
27:57culture
27:58part of it was theoretical turn from oh
28:03there was the famous essay by Roland B
28:05called from work to text right against
28:08the whole book against the reading
28:10passage of course it's easier right not
28:12so much homework it's easier to grade
28:16the students have to spend so much time
28:18sitting in a chair un uninterrupted uh
28:21reading time but the classical education
28:25programs like Jennifer is a Tulsa
28:28yeah the kids want it okay the hunger is
28:32there we see this in the waiting lists
28:33for the classical schols where they read
28:35whole books they're low Tech generally
28:39low tech places as well and I I
28:41mentioned if you go into the high
28:43Department of higher ed or the neh or
28:45the Nea they have Arts education
28:47programs in in the government you should
28:49set up a new funding category for
28:54classical Ed and K12 traditionalist
28:56education for program
28:58like like Tulsa we got to start
29:00funneling government money remember
29:02women's studies Department started in
29:05the 1970s it was not Grassroots it was
29:08the Ford Foundation $35 million they
29:12poured into was top down to create
29:14women's studies uh women's studies which
29:17gender studies sexuality studies as well
29:21we need to start we've got the parent
29:23demand there we have enrollments going
29:26up at places like Tulsa and and
29:29Pepperdine go with go with the winners
29:32funders donors and government uh
29:36programs let's back these places and and
29:39let's let let's let's boast and brag and
29:44let let's show them we're doing so much
29:45better than you have done you've been in
29:47control for 40 or 50 years let's rate
29:50your performance you you you guys so D I
29:53want to get to Pete in just one second
29:55but I guess one quick question um for
29:58Jen on this demand you know that seems
30:01to be there at Tulsa are these students
30:03coming from classical backgrounds or is
30:05this the first time they're encountering
30:07the classics and do they exist at South
30:09Carolina as well like is this all over
30:11the place they're hungry yeah I would
30:13say all over the place they're hungry um
30:16so I was faculty at South Carolina uh
30:18teaching philosophy but I also was um
30:21The Faculty leader of the tastic
30:24Institute um and like students
30:27constantly getting together none of whom
30:30were philosophy Majors to read the Suma
30:34and Augustine's confessions and all this
30:36stuff like the hunger is is bued
30:39there um and the problem is that that
30:41hunger is not being met and their gened
30:44classes by and large and so they have to
30:46do it in this sort of extracurricular
30:48way um but I think you know the the
30:53thing about higher ed and and this is
30:55related to um this a demographic winter
31:00um coming soon and um I
31:05think it's obviously all programs are
31:09going to rise or fall on enrollments
31:12right and um but it can't be this sort
31:17of consumer desire model um which is
31:21always going to be the death of the
31:23humanities and the reason for that is
31:25that students don't know what they don't
31:28know right I mean I'm a I'm a
31:30professional philosopher I didn't know
31:32what philosophy was in high school right
31:35I know idea that that was a thing that
31:37anyone still did um I happened to take a
31:40philosophy class because it was a gened
31:43requirement and that's what was left
31:45over um so I think um we have to think
31:49about uh identifying that hunger and
31:52meeting that hunger um and bringing
31:55people I mean something that concerns me
31:58me is that if we're creating new
32:02institutions um that are more
32:04traditional that are small st
32:06conservative um that we're only going to
32:09recruit those students who are already
32:11buying in one that's always going to be
32:14a smaller number of students and parents
32:18and two um you're not you're not
32:22allowing for the sorts of
32:24Transformations that this education is
32:26all about right and so um for us you
32:31know we do recruit heavily in the
32:33classical space but we're brand new like
32:36nobody knows who we are so we don't have
32:38that many students from classical
32:39schools I would say maybe it's like 3%
32:42of our students um most of our students
32:45are just very high achieving National
32:48Merit semifinalists um so 75% of my
32:52students are National Merit
32:54semifinalists um and they've had a very
32:58mainstream
32:59education and um this is their first
33:03time you know reading Plato and
33:06Aristotle and Sonica and Milton and
33:09things like this and um I think the
33:13thing that impresses me so much isn't so
33:16much our initial enrollments although
33:18they're high it's our retention rate
33:20it's the fact that they reenroll
33:23right um because at any point they could
33:25drop with no consequence uh but they but
33:28they come back and they come back at a
33:31rate of like
33:3395% what is that someone investigate
33:36that um and if you talk to them um what
33:40they say is um you know nobody's ever
33:44really asked me these questions you know
33:46nobody's ever like invited me to reflect
33:50on what it means to be a good human
33:51being and citizen like it's really hard
33:54but these sorts of
33:56conversations um
33:58are the things that I most look forward
34:00to and if you also look at what our
34:03students are majoring in um 75% of them
34:07are stem Majors right they're either in
34:10the College of Engineering or they're in
34:13health and Natural
34:15Sciences um so like what what's in it
34:18for them right and um I I you know
34:23obviously I want people to look into my
34:26college and see what's happening but I
34:28think there's
34:30like I mean to me the proof is in the
34:34pudding right so so look at what these
34:38students are like and what they desire
34:40and create institutions where you can
34:43bring students who truly have no idea
34:46what you're talking about when you say
34:47classical
34:48education um and get them to do it
34:53because it's the doing of it right that
34:56is that is really
34:58necessary and and so you want to create
35:01a seminar table where everyone feels
35:03welcome and like they can
35:05participate um but do it in the
35:07oldfashioned way where you have you know
35:10a sense of seriousness and Hospitality
35:13rather than a set of rigid rules and
35:16Norms where everyone feels like they
35:17can't
35:19talk Pete I've got two two questions for
35:22you uh the first one you know you're
35:24you're the dean of a school of public
35:25policy so I'm curious you know it's a
35:27professional degree the role uh if if at
35:31all of kind of great books liberal
35:33education within that curriculum that
35:35you've developed and then secondly you
35:37recently had a conference out at
35:39Pepperdine um that you were part of
35:41perhaps you help I believe you helped
35:43organize it and it and it was sort of
35:45the mix of people kind of uh reforming
35:47the higher education space but also the
35:50that some of the donors were there
35:51talking about their Investments so I'm
35:53curious of the various strategies
35:55whether it's kind of working from within
35:57the institutions starting new centers
36:00you know uh pursuing kind of Public
36:02Funding for reordering higher education
36:05what do you seeing that you think works
36:07is it all of the above approach are
36:09there things that work better than
36:10others and and sort of where are the
36:12doners kind of leaning on that so I'll
36:15I'll answer your first question uh first
36:18so the policy school is pretty unique in
36:21that we're um in the discipline and
36:23there are about 240 graduate policy
36:26schools uh or programs ranked by US News
36:31I would wager to say we're one of maybe
36:33two or three that are grounded in a
36:35great books curriculum right so students
36:38will be taking great books as part of
36:39their masters in public policy there's a
36:41roots of American order class which is
36:43also part of the core and then as you
36:45get out into the elective classes there
36:47are courses in political economy and
36:50political philosophy and and history and
36:53the reason why I think maybe maybe
36:56differently
36:58um than what's been an uh been said
37:00about the importance of the great books
37:02and its attraction to undergrads what
37:04I've seen in teaching the great books at
37:08The Graduate level in a policy school is
37:11we're we're tying texts directly
37:15to public policy decisions and kind of
37:17foundational philosophies under ging
37:20policy
37:21decisions and it's often the case where
37:24our students who have not may not have
37:26read m Elli or Marx or Adam Smith
37:32or you know we can throughout the great
37:35books is that they say to themselves now
37:39I understand why somebody said that now
37:41I understand why I had an argument with
37:44my Progressive friend and they were
37:47making this point about public policy
37:49and why this particular policy was
37:51important to them now it's not a great
37:53book but if you haven't read Palo
37:56forer's pedagogy of the oppressed you
37:58have no idea what's going on in
38:01education right now you have no idea
38:04what's going on in education policy and
38:06what's being taught in schools of
38:08education and that's to me just a little
38:11example of when people wrestle with
38:14these texts and I mean uh again we we
38:19are we are teaching these not so much to
38:22understand the great books but to tie
38:24these to why why do people think the way
38:28they do when it comes to public policy
38:30and politics so it's mostly the AHA
38:32moments that I think for our students
38:35when they understand that even though
38:37we're having a debate around income tax
38:40levels there are actually some deeper
38:42principles at stake when we're having a
38:44debate around America's role in the
38:46world there are actually some deeper
38:48principles at stake um and so that's you
38:51know some may know that James Q Wilson
38:54was very involved in the founding of the
38:56policy school and and he had come out
38:59from Harvard and his experience over
39:00many decades at Harvard Kennedy and it
39:03was his belief that these policy schools
39:06have become far too technocratic and too
39:09quantitatively focused and you're going
39:10to have to take stats and econometrics
39:13and microeconomics at the policy school
39:16but he believed and so many of our
39:19founding uh faculty believed that you
39:21really needed to balance the
39:23quantitative with uh the great books and
39:26more of a Arts approach so there's
39:28there's
39:29that the the conference that we uh
39:32co-hosted with the center for civil
39:34society in American
39:36philanthropic uh recently on campus um
39:41really did look at this all Hands-On
39:43deck approach um I moderated a panel
39:47that had the AFF forementioned Josh
39:49stunn who's heading up the new American
39:51Civics Institute at UT Knoxville uh Ryan
39:54streer who's heading up the new civitas
39:57in Institute at the University of Texas
40:00um we had uh someone Jenna Robinson
40:02who's been very involved in the new
40:04Institute at the at UNCC Chapel Hill and
40:07actually we had the president of
40:09Pepperdine Jim gash was there as well
40:12and so most of those are obviously
40:14public institutions and so many of the
40:16points that Mark was making about this
40:19uh Awakening to the awokening on the
40:21part of Governors and uh red state
40:24legislatures is definitely part of it
40:26when it comes to private institutions
40:28like like Pepperdine and others it is
40:31again I think an Awakening to the
40:33awokening when it has come to uh donors
40:36and parents uh we've all read the
40:39articles about uh the increased
40:41enrollments and applications that have
40:43come to SEC schools and schools of the
40:46South under this kind of weird thinking
40:49that they may be less woke than the
40:51schools in the nor Northeast I don't I
40:53don't know that that's necessarily true
40:55but we've seen increased application of
40:57Pepperdine for sure and um I do think
41:00that we're going to continue to see
41:02people voting with their feet one of the
41:05great things that you have in higher
41:07education that you don't have in all of
41:08K12 education is you really do have
41:11school choice so and so in that whether
41:14you're deciding to go to the public
41:15university or the private university
41:17whether you decide to go to a public
41:19university and find a program like the
41:22one uh that that Jen's doing or the
41:26what's happening at new college or
41:28what's happening at the Hamilton Center
41:30or some of these other
41:32programs uh I think this is the most
41:34exciting time in higher
41:37education in at least 50 years if not
41:40100 years um because again but it but it
41:44had to be generated I think out of those
41:47back to those three factors this
41:49demographic shift in in faculty and
41:52these two watershed moments with with
41:55covid and October 8th and Beyond uh
41:58which again has really alerted um on the
42:02public side legislators and governors
42:05and on the private side uh parents and
42:09uh students and and
42:11donors thank you Pete unfortunately
42:13we're actually out of time um so thank
42:16you to the panelists for
42:22joining thanks for watching this video I
42:24hope you enjoyed it please remember to
42:26like subscribe and share and feel free
42:29to check out one of the recommended
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